GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 13 October 1875
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 13 October 1875
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 13 October 1875
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Francois D'Albert-Durade
Date(s)
- 1875-10-13
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 13 October 1875
Text: Copy by D'Albert-Durade, Tinker Collection, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 21 North Bank | Regent's Park | October 13. 75.
My dear Friend
On my return to town the other day I found your kind letter with the volume obligingly presented to me by Mr. Gustave Revilliod. 320 Pray offer him my best thanks and say that I have an interest in oriental literature which makes the gift especially acceptable.
Your letter is a delightful assurance that you have been having much family happiness, and I can imagine the pretty picture made by the grandparents with the two younger generations. What a comfort that Madame D'Albert, in spite of bodily weakness, is able to share such joys of heart and mind!
To us the summer brought sorrow in the death of our son Herbert who, you may remember, was settled in South Africa. He had for some time been in delicate health, and we were afraid of urging him to come to England because his disease was of a nature to be encouraged by our fitful climate. This death is all the sadder because he was very happily married and has left a deeply attached young wife to sorrow for him. Hardly a month before his death she had had a second child -- a fine little boy. Our consolation is that we are at least able to provide for them in the worldly sense -- but for her, poor dear, there is no present consolation. They felt peculiarly united, leading unseparate[d]ly a retired life and being all in all to each other.
Apart from this loss our life has been as much blessed as usual, our son Charles and his family being a constant source of satisfaction to us and our own domestic joy having no flaw except the accustomed infirmities of health which we must not expect ever to be free from.
We spent the summer in the country according to our habit, but our situation was rather too low, and I think we suffered some depression of vitality from a rather close and over moist atmosphere. But we have been and are still very busy, Mr. Lewes being engaged on the third volume of Problems, and I on a long book, the first part of which will perhaps appear in the beginning of February.
We old people cannot help regretting the beautiful old Geneva, enclosed in its harmless fortifications. But the changes you describe are such as we have to witness in all prosperous towns -- in Dresden, for example -- which used to have a clear heaven above it and quiet amusements within the streets and beyond them where one could sit and hear the best music without being overcrowded. The last time we were there the times had changed all that. Everywhere there is a prosperous crowd to be amused, and the tastes of the crowd are not yet refined, so that Art must condescend to please the low average. This condescension is painfully marked in our huge rich London; but of late we have been a little cheered [by] a revived interest in the Shakespearean drama to counterbalance Offenbach.
Mr. Lewes begs me to offer his best remembrances to Madame D'Albert and yourself, and I am as ever both to her and you
Your affectionate friend
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Copy by D'Albert-Durade, Tinker Collection, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 21 North Bank | Regent's Park | October 13. 75.
My dear Friend
On my return to town the other day I found your kind letter with the volume obligingly presented to me by Mr. Gustave Revilliod. 320 Pray offer him my best thanks and say that I have an interest in oriental literature which makes the gift especially acceptable.
Your letter is a delightful assurance that you have been having much family happiness, and I can imagine the pretty picture made by the grandparents with the two younger generations. What a comfort that Madame D'Albert, in spite of bodily weakness, is able to share such joys of heart and mind!
To us the summer brought sorrow in the death of our son Herbert who, you may remember, was settled in South Africa. He had for some time been in delicate health, and we were afraid of urging him to come to England because his disease was of a nature to be encouraged by our fitful climate. This death is all the sadder because he was very happily married and has left a deeply attached young wife to sorrow for him. Hardly a month before his death she had had a second child -- a fine little boy. Our consolation is that we are at least able to provide for them in the worldly sense -- but for her, poor dear, there is no present consolation. They felt peculiarly united, leading unseparate[d]ly a retired life and being all in all to each other.
Apart from this loss our life has been as much blessed as usual, our son Charles and his family being a constant source of satisfaction to us and our own domestic joy having no flaw except the accustomed infirmities of health which we must not expect ever to be free from.
We spent the summer in the country according to our habit, but our situation was rather too low, and I think we suffered some depression of vitality from a rather close and over moist atmosphere. But we have been and are still very busy, Mr. Lewes being engaged on the third volume of Problems, and I on a long book, the first part of which will perhaps appear in the beginning of February.
We old people cannot help regretting the beautiful old Geneva, enclosed in its harmless fortifications. But the changes you describe are such as we have to witness in all prosperous towns -- in Dresden, for example -- which used to have a clear heaven above it and quiet amusements within the streets and beyond them where one could sit and hear the best music without being overcrowded. The last time we were there the times had changed all that. Everywhere there is a prosperous crowd to be amused, and the tastes of the crowd are not yet refined, so that Art must condescend to please the low average. This condescension is painfully marked in our huge rich London; but of late we have been a little cheered [by] a revived interest in the Shakespearean drama to counterbalance Offenbach.
Mr. Lewes begs me to offer his best remembrances to Madame D'Albert and yourself, and I am as ever both to her and you
Your affectionate friend
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 13 October 1875, 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/92343