GE to Charles Ritter, [Redhill], 3 July 1872
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, [Redhill], 3 July 1872
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, [Redhill], 3 July 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Ritter
Date(s)
- 1872-07-03
Place
[Redhill]
Letter Content
GE to Charles Ritter, [Redhill], 3 July 1872
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, p. 490; Charles Ritter, ses amis et ses ma'eetres, Lausanne, 1911.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 3. 72.
My dear Sir
I thank you sincerely for the volume of Select Essays which you have so gracefully translated from Strauss's vigorous but less graceful German, and not less for the kind letter which accompanied your gift.
Such an assurance as your sympathy gives me that my books have enough depth of human experience in them to touch minds of another nation than my own, is among my best encouragements. Pray rest satisfied that you followed a very beneficent prompting in writing to me, for I am subject to depression about authorship, and am apt to dwell too much on the fact that careful, appreciative readers are a small minority. I am glad that you should have been the means of making my good friend M. d'Albert-Durade feel the value of his translations. Still, I confess, my pleasure in your sympathy is much enhanced by your having taken pains to read my books in my own tongue. One sees, from your own use of language, that you must be keenly aware of the incommunicableness, even by the best translation, of the subtleties which cling to the native phrases of an author -- at least when that author writes with any closeness of intention.
Perhaps it will interest you to know that my first published work (twenty-five years ago) was a translation of Strauss's Leben Jesu. A friend of mine had carried the work as far as the end of the Introduction, and then handed it over to me. I was then a girl, intensely interested in Biblical criticism, and just awakened to the labours of the Germans in that long path.
Mr. Lewes who generously saves me from much letter-writing, has been very happy to communicate your cheering message of thanks to Mr. Alexander Main. He (Mr. Main) is a young man of ardent, disinterested feeling, who himself originated the idea of that book of Extracts which you approve. Believe me, my dear Sir,
Truly and gratefully yours
M. E. Lewes.
I have neglected to say that I have read several of the Essays in the volume which you have been good enough to send me, and have found them very interesting. The glimpse of the mother and father are full of suggestion as to the trials entailed by the movement of opinion even in Germany. Imagine what they have been and are in our more rigidly orthodox society!
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, p. 490; Charles Ritter, ses amis et ses ma'eetres, Lausanne, 1911.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 3. 72.
My dear Sir
I thank you sincerely for the volume of Select Essays which you have so gracefully translated from Strauss's vigorous but less graceful German, and not less for the kind letter which accompanied your gift.
Such an assurance as your sympathy gives me that my books have enough depth of human experience in them to touch minds of another nation than my own, is among my best encouragements. Pray rest satisfied that you followed a very beneficent prompting in writing to me, for I am subject to depression about authorship, and am apt to dwell too much on the fact that careful, appreciative readers are a small minority. I am glad that you should have been the means of making my good friend M. d'Albert-Durade feel the value of his translations. Still, I confess, my pleasure in your sympathy is much enhanced by your having taken pains to read my books in my own tongue. One sees, from your own use of language, that you must be keenly aware of the incommunicableness, even by the best translation, of the subtleties which cling to the native phrases of an author -- at least when that author writes with any closeness of intention.
Perhaps it will interest you to know that my first published work (twenty-five years ago) was a translation of Strauss's Leben Jesu. A friend of mine had carried the work as far as the end of the Introduction, and then handed it over to me. I was then a girl, intensely interested in Biblical criticism, and just awakened to the labours of the Germans in that long path.
Mr. Lewes who generously saves me from much letter-writing, has been very happy to communicate your cheering message of thanks to Mr. Alexander Main. He (Mr. Main) is a young man of ardent, disinterested feeling, who himself originated the idea of that book of Extracts which you approve. Believe me, my dear Sir,
Truly and gratefully yours
M. E. Lewes.
I have neglected to say that I have read several of the Essays in the volume which you have been good enough to send me, and have found them very interesting. The glimpse of the mother and father are full of suggestion as to the trials entailed by the movement of opinion even in Germany. Imagine what they have been and are in our more rigidly orthodox society!
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Ritter, [Redhill], 3 July 1872, 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/92251