GE to John Blackwood, London, [8 January 1868]
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, [8 January 1868]
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, [8 January 1868]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1868-01-08
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, [8 January 1868]
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Wednesday Evening.
My dear Sir
Our old friend Mr. Pigott, 716 whose acquaintance you have made, is rather disgusted with an article which he tells me has appeared in the Daily News about Felix Holt's Address. At the time the article appeared he had not read the Address but already objected to what was said by the Critic, and he is gone away from me after a visit made to tell me that now he has read the article he, whether a Radical or not, agrees with every word of it. I never see the Daily News, so that as far as I am concerned, he might have left the matter unnoticed, but he says that he is constantly credited with articles of which he knows nothing, and he has now nothing to do with the editing of the paper. Since he says that the article was evidently written in the narrowest party spirit and was determined simply by the fact of the Address appearing in Maga (as is rather ludicrously evidenced by the same paper's applause of a much rougher kind of anti-jubilation in Professor Huxley's Inaugural Address at the new Working-men's College 717) -- I think it is worth while to write to you to prevent you from thinking that our old friend had anything to do with the attack. He says a certain set of papers are sure to be determined by the mere circumstance of the publication, and will toss their party horns at everything political in Maga.
I, for my part, don't care, and I should be glad to think that you cared as little. But you are obliged to see what is written, and I am not. I am serenely indifferent to any newspaper writer's insinuation that I am, or am not, what is approved by his standard.
Mr. Lewes comes home tonight, and I am singing a magnificat, for I am horribly depressed by the bad weather and the solitude.
Always yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Wednesday Evening.
My dear Sir
Our old friend Mr. Pigott, 716 whose acquaintance you have made, is rather disgusted with an article which he tells me has appeared in the Daily News about Felix Holt's Address. At the time the article appeared he had not read the Address but already objected to what was said by the Critic, and he is gone away from me after a visit made to tell me that now he has read the article he, whether a Radical or not, agrees with every word of it. I never see the Daily News, so that as far as I am concerned, he might have left the matter unnoticed, but he says that he is constantly credited with articles of which he knows nothing, and he has now nothing to do with the editing of the paper. Since he says that the article was evidently written in the narrowest party spirit and was determined simply by the fact of the Address appearing in Maga (as is rather ludicrously evidenced by the same paper's applause of a much rougher kind of anti-jubilation in Professor Huxley's Inaugural Address at the new Working-men's College 717) -- I think it is worth while to write to you to prevent you from thinking that our old friend had anything to do with the attack. He says a certain set of papers are sure to be determined by the mere circumstance of the publication, and will toss their party horns at everything political in Maga.
I, for my part, don't care, and I should be glad to think that you cared as little. But you are obliged to see what is written, and I am not. I am serenely indifferent to any newspaper writer's insinuation that I am, or am not, what is approved by his standard.
Mr. Lewes comes home tonight, and I am singing a magnificat, for I am horribly depressed by the bad weather and the solitude.
Always yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, [8 January 1868], 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/92591