GE to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, [February 1870]
Title
GE to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, [February 1870]
Title
GE to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, [February 1870]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date(s)
- 1870-02
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, [February 1870]
Text: Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, 1883, pp. 199-200, 209-210.
I have had time now to dwell on the photographs. 129 I am especially grateful to you for giving me the head marked June 1861: it is exquisite.
But I am glad to possess every one of them. The subject of the Magdalene rises in interest for me, the more I look at it. I hope you will keep in the picture an equally passionate type for her. Perhaps you will indulge me with a little talk about the modifications you intend to introduce.
The [Hamlet] seems to me perfectly intelligible, and altogether admirable in conception, 130 except in the type of the man's head. I feel sure that [Hamlet] had a square anterior lobe. Mr. Lewes says, this conception of yours makes him long to be an actor who has [Hamlet] for one of his parts, that he might carry out this scene according to your idea.
One is always liable to mistake prejudices for sufficient inductions, about types of head and face, as well as about all other things. I have some impressions -- perhaps only prejudices dependent on the narrowness of my experience -- about forms of eyebrow and their relation to passionate expression. It is possible that such a supposed relation has a real anatomical basis. But in many particulars facial expression is like the expression of hand-writing: the relations are too subtle and intricate to be detected, and only shallowness is confident.
Text: Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, 1883, pp. 199-200, 209-210.
I have had time now to dwell on the photographs. 129 I am especially grateful to you for giving me the head marked June 1861: it is exquisite.
But I am glad to possess every one of them. The subject of the Magdalene rises in interest for me, the more I look at it. I hope you will keep in the picture an equally passionate type for her. Perhaps you will indulge me with a little talk about the modifications you intend to introduce.
The [Hamlet] seems to me perfectly intelligible, and altogether admirable in conception, 130 except in the type of the man's head. I feel sure that [Hamlet] had a square anterior lobe. Mr. Lewes says, this conception of yours makes him long to be an actor who has [Hamlet] for one of his parts, that he might carry out this scene according to your idea.
One is always liable to mistake prejudices for sufficient inductions, about types of head and face, as well as about all other things. I have some impressions -- perhaps only prejudices dependent on the narrowness of my experience -- about forms of eyebrow and their relation to passionate expression. It is possible that such a supposed relation has a real anatomical basis. But in many particulars facial expression is like the expression of hand-writing: the relations are too subtle and intricate to be detected, and only shallowness is confident.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, [February 1870], 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/92265