GE to Charles Bray, Wandsworth, [26 September 1859]
Title
GE to Charles Bray, Wandsworth, [26 September 1859]
Title
GE to Charles Bray, Wandsworth, [26 September 1859]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Bray
Date(s)
- 1859-09-26
Place
Wandsworth
Letter Content
GE to Charles Bray, Wandsworth, [26 September 1859]
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Holly Lodge | Monday.
Dear Friend
Mr. Lewes and I beg to apologize for having acted under a mistake with regard to your intentions in sending me Mr. Bracebridge's letter.
We both thought that in sending them to me, you had previously apprized Mr. Bracebridge that you should do so, and that you expected me to act on these letters, as they required me to act, unless I were to sit down under the attribution of the basest falsity. It appears we were mistaken, and I seriously regret it. I blame myself for not having withheld the letter until you had seen the copy. 320
Still it appears to me that he could not regard his letters to you as confidential 321 -- he could not suppose that you would allow me to remain in ignorance of proceedings and assertions directly affecting my character and my most private affairs. You would surely have been highly culpable if you had done so; and if you had communicated to me what Mr. Bracebridge said in his letters, you would have done what was quite equivalent to sending me the letters themselves, since there was no matter in them that did not immediately concern me.
I grieve that there should be any unpleasant result occurring to you in consequence of your having exerted yourself in behalf of the truth in relation to me. But you remember that I never requested you to communicate with Mr. Bracebridge concerning me; and when Mr. Lewes wrote to you that the incognito was removed, he did so simply to free you from the embarrassment you had expressed as to the maintenance of apparent ignorance in the face of questioners.
In fact, I have never asked, expected, or desired any one to take steps on my behalf. The Blackwoods and I should have allowed the Liggins illusion to go on, if subscriptions had not been raised on the strength of it. But, now that my name has been publicly announced, and I am virtually accused of using other people's materials and disavowing them, the affair wears an entirely new aspect. Mr. Lewes never saw Mr. Liggins -- never heard there was such a man, till my books were attributed to him. 322
I entirely differ from you in your view of such conduct as Mr. Bracebridge's and fail to see any parallel between it and that of the investigators into the personal history of Shakspear: I am not yet an
"arch'e4ological" subject. 323 Bearing in mind my liability to be biassed by personal feeling, I yet think that I should form the same judgment concerning Mr. Bracebridge's proceedings, if the author of "Adam Bede" were some one else than myself.
That these things are painful to me is I dare say, partly due to my morbid sensibility, but the pain is not the less real -- not the less a clog on my mental activity. I am not the first author who has suffered from such annoyances, though they become more intolerable as the years bring with them that increased facility of communication which makes the conjectures and inferences of local ignorance matter for current circulation throughout the Kingdom. I only wish I could do something to save any other author anything like the keen suffering of various kinds that I have endured since the publication of "Adam Bede" -- I only wish I could write something that would contribute to heighten men's reverence before the secrets of each other's souls, that there might be less assumption of entire knowingness, as a datum from which inferences are to be drawn.
Ever yours truly
Marian Evans Lewes.
Charles Bray Esq.
Thanks for the advertisements. 324 "The Lindens" is tempting.
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Holly Lodge | Monday.
Dear Friend
Mr. Lewes and I beg to apologize for having acted under a mistake with regard to your intentions in sending me Mr. Bracebridge's letter.
We both thought that in sending them to me, you had previously apprized Mr. Bracebridge that you should do so, and that you expected me to act on these letters, as they required me to act, unless I were to sit down under the attribution of the basest falsity. It appears we were mistaken, and I seriously regret it. I blame myself for not having withheld the letter until you had seen the copy. 320
Still it appears to me that he could not regard his letters to you as confidential 321 -- he could not suppose that you would allow me to remain in ignorance of proceedings and assertions directly affecting my character and my most private affairs. You would surely have been highly culpable if you had done so; and if you had communicated to me what Mr. Bracebridge said in his letters, you would have done what was quite equivalent to sending me the letters themselves, since there was no matter in them that did not immediately concern me.
I grieve that there should be any unpleasant result occurring to you in consequence of your having exerted yourself in behalf of the truth in relation to me. But you remember that I never requested you to communicate with Mr. Bracebridge concerning me; and when Mr. Lewes wrote to you that the incognito was removed, he did so simply to free you from the embarrassment you had expressed as to the maintenance of apparent ignorance in the face of questioners.
In fact, I have never asked, expected, or desired any one to take steps on my behalf. The Blackwoods and I should have allowed the Liggins illusion to go on, if subscriptions had not been raised on the strength of it. But, now that my name has been publicly announced, and I am virtually accused of using other people's materials and disavowing them, the affair wears an entirely new aspect. Mr. Lewes never saw Mr. Liggins -- never heard there was such a man, till my books were attributed to him. 322
I entirely differ from you in your view of such conduct as Mr. Bracebridge's and fail to see any parallel between it and that of the investigators into the personal history of Shakspear: I am not yet an
"arch'e4ological" subject. 323 Bearing in mind my liability to be biassed by personal feeling, I yet think that I should form the same judgment concerning Mr. Bracebridge's proceedings, if the author of "Adam Bede" were some one else than myself.
That these things are painful to me is I dare say, partly due to my morbid sensibility, but the pain is not the less real -- not the less a clog on my mental activity. I am not the first author who has suffered from such annoyances, though they become more intolerable as the years bring with them that increased facility of communication which makes the conjectures and inferences of local ignorance matter for current circulation throughout the Kingdom. I only wish I could do something to save any other author anything like the keen suffering of various kinds that I have endured since the publication of "Adam Bede" -- I only wish I could write something that would contribute to heighten men's reverence before the secrets of each other's souls, that there might be less assumption of entire knowingness, as a datum from which inferences are to be drawn.
Ever yours truly
Marian Evans Lewes.
Charles Bray Esq.
Thanks for the advertisements. 324 "The Lindens" is tempting.
Signature
Marian Evans Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Bray, Wandsworth, [26 September 1859], 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/92180