GE to Francois D'albert-Durade, London, 31 October 1872
Title
GE to Francois D'albert-Durade, London, 31 October 1872
Title
GE to Francois D'albert-Durade, London, 31 October 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Francois D'albert-Durade
Date(s)
- 1872-10-31
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Francois D'albert-Durade, London, 31 October 1872
Text: Copy by D'Albert-Durade in Tinker Collection, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 21 North Bank | Regent's Park | October 31. 72.
My dear Friend
We arrived at home only a few hours ago, when I found your letter of the 19th awaiting me. It is the first letter from you for a long while which has had any sad news in it -- for that dear Madame D'Albert has had an illness is still very sad news to me, though you can tell me of her gradual recovering. 617 It was better that we could not carry out our intention of getting to Geneva, since we should have found you absorbed in anxiety. As it was, we got no farther than Stuttgardt on our way southward, having been hindered from setting out on our journey until the 17th just before the weather changed so unpropitiously. We were obliged to think chiefly of health in our destination, and we had been led to believe that Homburg -- for its air and water and not for its gambling tables -- would be the place to do us both good. We staid there three weeks, until we got used [to] seeing idle people and set off to Stuttgardt, as a town where at least we should see people going about some useful business. Here and at Carlsruhe we had ten days of beautiful weather and intense enjoyment of our dual solitude, but we were foolish enough to spoil our improved health by taking a night journey from Strasbourg to Paris, and this with a bad passage from Boulogne yesterday 618 has made us feel rather shattered than built up by our holiday. But on the whole, we are really stronger than when we set out.
I write at once both to send you my love and sympathy to Madame D'Albert and also to assure you that we shall be happy to receive your friend Mlle. Herzog, 619 whom you describe in a way to interest us. I fancy that she has already called, for our servant mentions [a lady] who declined to leave her name, saying that she would write.
I am very glad [that] you are interested in Middlemarch. The final number, the 8th, will appear here at the beginning of December, the 6th, 7th, and 8th, being brought out monthly instead of bi-monthly.
You say truly that the serious readers in France are few. It distressed us to see the show of trashy books everywhere in shop windows and in stalls at Paris, and the total absence of solid works either in science, history, or philosophy. The contrast [with] the German book shops is striking.
I am going now to plunge into my husband's manuscripts. But I have for some time been too much occupied to read. He is engaged in a long, long book on Psychology, which gives him great delight, perpetually opening fresh vistas of thought. For the last two years his health has been improving, and he is now far the stronger and more blooming of [us] two.
I used to tell you that I should never be happy, but life has almost falsified my prophecy. I have so many blessings and am so free from any trouble, except my own imperfection, that I feel life to be more a personal good -- something worth having seen for my own sake. I know that you will like to read this. My husband sends his best regards, and I am always with deep affection yours and Maman's till death.
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Copy by D'Albert-Durade in Tinker Collection, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 21 North Bank | Regent's Park | October 31. 72.
My dear Friend
We arrived at home only a few hours ago, when I found your letter of the 19th awaiting me. It is the first letter from you for a long while which has had any sad news in it -- for that dear Madame D'Albert has had an illness is still very sad news to me, though you can tell me of her gradual recovering. 617 It was better that we could not carry out our intention of getting to Geneva, since we should have found you absorbed in anxiety. As it was, we got no farther than Stuttgardt on our way southward, having been hindered from setting out on our journey until the 17th just before the weather changed so unpropitiously. We were obliged to think chiefly of health in our destination, and we had been led to believe that Homburg -- for its air and water and not for its gambling tables -- would be the place to do us both good. We staid there three weeks, until we got used [to] seeing idle people and set off to Stuttgardt, as a town where at least we should see people going about some useful business. Here and at Carlsruhe we had ten days of beautiful weather and intense enjoyment of our dual solitude, but we were foolish enough to spoil our improved health by taking a night journey from Strasbourg to Paris, and this with a bad passage from Boulogne yesterday 618 has made us feel rather shattered than built up by our holiday. But on the whole, we are really stronger than when we set out.
I write at once both to send you my love and sympathy to Madame D'Albert and also to assure you that we shall be happy to receive your friend Mlle. Herzog, 619 whom you describe in a way to interest us. I fancy that she has already called, for our servant mentions [a lady] who declined to leave her name, saying that she would write.
I am very glad [that] you are interested in Middlemarch. The final number, the 8th, will appear here at the beginning of December, the 6th, 7th, and 8th, being brought out monthly instead of bi-monthly.
You say truly that the serious readers in France are few. It distressed us to see the show of trashy books everywhere in shop windows and in stalls at Paris, and the total absence of solid works either in science, history, or philosophy. The contrast [with] the German book shops is striking.
I am going now to plunge into my husband's manuscripts. But I have for some time been too much occupied to read. He is engaged in a long, long book on Psychology, which gives him great delight, perpetually opening fresh vistas of thought. For the last two years his health has been improving, and he is now far the stronger and more blooming of [us] two.
I used to tell you that I should never be happy, but life has almost falsified my prophecy. I have so many blessings and am so free from any trouble, except my own imperfection, that I feel life to be more a personal good -- something worth having seen for my own sake. I know that you will like to read this. My husband sends his best regards, and I am always with deep affection yours and Maman's till death.
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Francois D'albert-Durade, London, 31 October 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/92367