GE to Charles Bray, Hastings, 19 March 1861
Title
GE to Charles Bray, Hastings, 19 March 1861
Title
GE to Charles Bray, Hastings, 19 March 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Bray
Date(s)
- 1861-03-19
Place
Hastings
Letter Content
GE to Charles Bray, Hastings, 19 March 1861
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1861. Extracts published: Cross, II, 291-293.
Stratford Place | Hastings | March 19. 61.
Dear Friend
Your letter came to me just as we were preparing to start in search of fresh air and the fresh thoughts that come with it. I hope you never doubt that I feel a deep interest in knowing all facts that touch you nearly. I should like to think that it was some small comfort to Cara and you to know that wherever I am, there is one among that number of your friends -- necessarily decreasing with increasing years -- who enter into your present experience with the light of memories; for kind feeling can never replace fully the sympathy that comes from memory. I feel a good deal of pain at the thought of the anxieties and difficulties you and Cara are enduring -- still I prefer that pain to ignorance of what is befalling you. You can keep up your spirits well under ill fortune, I know, but I can well believe that the sense of Cara's having to bear it too has an edge that finds its way through all "stuffing." To be contented under ill fortune that affects others as well as oneself is a principle on which the world could hardly be carried on satisfactorily.
I'm afraid I see too few people to have many chances of finding the right person for you as an inmate for the summer, 719 but the matter will be among the uppermost in my thoughts. My disposition is so faultily anxious and foreboding that I am not likely to forget anything of a saddening sort.
Tell Sara we saw Mr. William Smith, author of Thorndale, a short time ago, and he spoke of her and her book with interest: he thought her book "suggestive." He called on us during a visit to London made for the sake of getting married. The lady is, or rather was, a Miss Cumming, daughter of a blind physician of Edinburgh. 720 He said they had talked to each other for some time of the "impossibility" of marrying because they were both too poor. "But" he said, "it is dangerous, Lewes, to talk even of the impossibility." The difficulties gradually dwindled and the advantages magnified themselves. She is a nice person, we hear; and I am particularly pleased with him -- he is modest to diffidence, yet bright and keenly awake.
I am just come in from our first good blow on the beach, and have that delicious sort of numbness in arms and legs that comes from walking hard in a fresh wind. Mr. Lewes is "done up" on the sofa. Alas -- I am the stronger of the two.
Silas Marner is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations. With best love to Cara and Sara
Ever yours faithfully
M. E. Lewes.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1861. Extracts published: Cross, II, 291-293.
Stratford Place | Hastings | March 19. 61.
Dear Friend
Your letter came to me just as we were preparing to start in search of fresh air and the fresh thoughts that come with it. I hope you never doubt that I feel a deep interest in knowing all facts that touch you nearly. I should like to think that it was some small comfort to Cara and you to know that wherever I am, there is one among that number of your friends -- necessarily decreasing with increasing years -- who enter into your present experience with the light of memories; for kind feeling can never replace fully the sympathy that comes from memory. I feel a good deal of pain at the thought of the anxieties and difficulties you and Cara are enduring -- still I prefer that pain to ignorance of what is befalling you. You can keep up your spirits well under ill fortune, I know, but I can well believe that the sense of Cara's having to bear it too has an edge that finds its way through all "stuffing." To be contented under ill fortune that affects others as well as oneself is a principle on which the world could hardly be carried on satisfactorily.
I'm afraid I see too few people to have many chances of finding the right person for you as an inmate for the summer, 719 but the matter will be among the uppermost in my thoughts. My disposition is so faultily anxious and foreboding that I am not likely to forget anything of a saddening sort.
Tell Sara we saw Mr. William Smith, author of Thorndale, a short time ago, and he spoke of her and her book with interest: he thought her book "suggestive." He called on us during a visit to London made for the sake of getting married. The lady is, or rather was, a Miss Cumming, daughter of a blind physician of Edinburgh. 720 He said they had talked to each other for some time of the "impossibility" of marrying because they were both too poor. "But" he said, "it is dangerous, Lewes, to talk even of the impossibility." The difficulties gradually dwindled and the advantages magnified themselves. She is a nice person, we hear; and I am particularly pleased with him -- he is modest to diffidence, yet bright and keenly awake.
I am just come in from our first good blow on the beach, and have that delicious sort of numbness in arms and legs that comes from walking hard in a fresh wind. Mr. Lewes is "done up" on the sofa. Alas -- I am the stronger of the two.
Silas Marner is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations. With best love to Cara and Sara
Ever yours faithfully
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Bray, Hastings, 19 March 1861, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/92118