GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 December 1872
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 December 1872
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 December 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1872-12-01
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 December 1872
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 180-182.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 1. 72.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Before your letter 643 came, Mr. Lewes had been expressing to me his satisfaction (and he is very hard to satisfy with articles on me) in the genuineness of judgment, wise moderation, and excellent selection of points, in Maga's review of Middlemarch. 644 I have just now been reading the review myself (Mr. Lewes had meant at first to follow his rule of not allowing me to see what is written about myself) and am pleased to find the right moral note struck everywhere both in remark and quotation. Especially, I am pleased with the writer's sensibility to the pathos in Mr. Casaubon's character and position, and with the discernment he shows about Bulstrode. But it is a perilous matter to approve the praise which is given to our own doings.
I think that such an article as that which you hint at on the tone of the Bar is very desirable. We are usually at one on points of feeling, and "coarseness" was the word I had used in reading the report of Karslake's address. 645 Also, I was constantly indignant with Coleridge for insulting the jury -- men certainly equal to himself in the most important elements of culture -- by odious clap-trap appeals such as could hardly move a committee of old maids. Untruthfulness usually ends by making men foolish. Is it not time now to insist that ability and not lying is the force of a barrister -- that he has not to make himself a bad actor in order to put a case well, but to get the clearness and breadth of vision which will enable him to handle the evidence effectively? The report of the libel case in the Times was very imperfect, but I fear that one would not have thought better of Sir J. Karslake's speech if one had had it verbatim. I have never read "Spiritual Wives," but judging from the extracts which have come before me it must be a nasty book. 646 Still, apart from any law of libel, I think the language of the Pall Mall was ill-judged and unfair. If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.
I shall be agreeably surprized if there is a respectable subscription for the four volumes. Already the numbers taken have been satisfactorily large, considering the indisposition of the public to buy books by comparison with other wares, and especially to buy novels at a high price. I fancy every private copy has done duty for a circle. Friends of mine in the country have implied that they lent their copies to all the readers in their neighbourhood. 647 A little fuss of advertisement, together with the reviews, will perhaps create a few more curious inquirers after the book, and impress its existence on the slower part of the reading world. But really, the reading world is after all very narrow, as, according [to] the Spectator, the "comfortable" world also is -- the world able to give away a sovereign without pinching itself. Those statistics just given about incomes are very interesting. 648
I condole with Mrs. Blackwood on her farewell to the country, but Edinburgh is less ugly than London.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 180-182.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 1. 72.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Before your letter 643 came, Mr. Lewes had been expressing to me his satisfaction (and he is very hard to satisfy with articles on me) in the genuineness of judgment, wise moderation, and excellent selection of points, in Maga's review of Middlemarch. 644 I have just now been reading the review myself (Mr. Lewes had meant at first to follow his rule of not allowing me to see what is written about myself) and am pleased to find the right moral note struck everywhere both in remark and quotation. Especially, I am pleased with the writer's sensibility to the pathos in Mr. Casaubon's character and position, and with the discernment he shows about Bulstrode. But it is a perilous matter to approve the praise which is given to our own doings.
I think that such an article as that which you hint at on the tone of the Bar is very desirable. We are usually at one on points of feeling, and "coarseness" was the word I had used in reading the report of Karslake's address. 645 Also, I was constantly indignant with Coleridge for insulting the jury -- men certainly equal to himself in the most important elements of culture -- by odious clap-trap appeals such as could hardly move a committee of old maids. Untruthfulness usually ends by making men foolish. Is it not time now to insist that ability and not lying is the force of a barrister -- that he has not to make himself a bad actor in order to put a case well, but to get the clearness and breadth of vision which will enable him to handle the evidence effectively? The report of the libel case in the Times was very imperfect, but I fear that one would not have thought better of Sir J. Karslake's speech if one had had it verbatim. I have never read "Spiritual Wives," but judging from the extracts which have come before me it must be a nasty book. 646 Still, apart from any law of libel, I think the language of the Pall Mall was ill-judged and unfair. If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.
I shall be agreeably surprized if there is a respectable subscription for the four volumes. Already the numbers taken have been satisfactorily large, considering the indisposition of the public to buy books by comparison with other wares, and especially to buy novels at a high price. I fancy every private copy has done duty for a circle. Friends of mine in the country have implied that they lent their copies to all the readers in their neighbourhood. 647 A little fuss of advertisement, together with the reviews, will perhaps create a few more curious inquirers after the book, and impress its existence on the slower part of the reading world. But really, the reading world is after all very narrow, as, according [to] the Spectator, the "comfortable" world also is -- the world able to give away a sovereign without pinching itself. Those statistics just given about incomes are very interesting. 648
I condole with Mrs. Blackwood on her farewell to the country, but Edinburgh is less ugly than London.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 December 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/92592