GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 January 1872
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 January 1872
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 January 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1872-01-01
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 January 1872
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 145-147.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
January 1. 72.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Your good wishes and pleasant bits of news made the best part of my breakfast this morning. I am glad to think that in desiring happiness for you during this new year, I am only desiring the continuance of good which you already possess.
I suppose we two, also, are among the happiest of mortals, yet we have had a rather doleful Christmas, the one great lack -- that of health -- having made itself particularly conspicuous in the surrounding fog. Having no grandchildren to get up a Christmas tree for, we had nothing to divide our attention to our headaches.
Mr. Main's book broke the clouds a little, and now the heavens have altogether cleared, so that we are hoping to come back from a visit of three days to Weybridge with our strength renewed, if not like the eagle's, at least like a convalescent tom-tit's.
The "Sayings" are set off by delightful paper and print and a binding which opens with inviting ease. I am really grateful to every one concerned in the volume and am anxious that it should not be in any way a disappointment. Strictly entre nous, I wish that the Preface had been touched with a more fastidious finger, a more scrupulous regard to mesure, but I have perhaps a morbid dislike to Prefaces in general which makes me critical beyond the usual standard. The selections seem to me to be made with an exquisite sensibility to the various lights and shades of life, and all Mr. Main's letters show the same quality. It is a great help to me to have such an indication that there exist careful readers, for whom no subtlest intention is lost.
We have both read the story of the Megaera with the deepest interest -- indeed, with a quite exceptional enjoyment of its direct unexaggerated painting.
The prescription of two days' golfing per week will, I hope, keep up your condition to the excellent pitch at which it was on your return from Paris. Good news usually acts as a tonic when one's case is not too desperate, and I shall be glad if you and we can get it in the form of more success for Middlemarch. Dickens's Life you see, finds a larger public, ready to pay more. 430 But the British mind has long entertained the purchase of expensive biographies. The proofs lately given that one's books don't necessarily go out like Lucifer matches, never to be taken up again, make one content with moderate immediate results, which perhaps are as much as can reasonably be expected for any writing which does not address itself either to fashions or corporate interests of an exclusive kind.
I enclose a page corrected for Part III, it being as well to save revisions, and Mr. Simpson said the printers would not be at work again till after Wednesday.
Mr. Lewes is jolly in mind though depressed in body, and sends you hearty thanks and responses, which are much encouraged by the clearness of the sky this morning. I am going to get ready for starting.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 145-147.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
January 1. 72.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Your good wishes and pleasant bits of news made the best part of my breakfast this morning. I am glad to think that in desiring happiness for you during this new year, I am only desiring the continuance of good which you already possess.
I suppose we two, also, are among the happiest of mortals, yet we have had a rather doleful Christmas, the one great lack -- that of health -- having made itself particularly conspicuous in the surrounding fog. Having no grandchildren to get up a Christmas tree for, we had nothing to divide our attention to our headaches.
Mr. Main's book broke the clouds a little, and now the heavens have altogether cleared, so that we are hoping to come back from a visit of three days to Weybridge with our strength renewed, if not like the eagle's, at least like a convalescent tom-tit's.
The "Sayings" are set off by delightful paper and print and a binding which opens with inviting ease. I am really grateful to every one concerned in the volume and am anxious that it should not be in any way a disappointment. Strictly entre nous, I wish that the Preface had been touched with a more fastidious finger, a more scrupulous regard to mesure, but I have perhaps a morbid dislike to Prefaces in general which makes me critical beyond the usual standard. The selections seem to me to be made with an exquisite sensibility to the various lights and shades of life, and all Mr. Main's letters show the same quality. It is a great help to me to have such an indication that there exist careful readers, for whom no subtlest intention is lost.
We have both read the story of the Megaera with the deepest interest -- indeed, with a quite exceptional enjoyment of its direct unexaggerated painting.
The prescription of two days' golfing per week will, I hope, keep up your condition to the excellent pitch at which it was on your return from Paris. Good news usually acts as a tonic when one's case is not too desperate, and I shall be glad if you and we can get it in the form of more success for Middlemarch. Dickens's Life you see, finds a larger public, ready to pay more. 430 But the British mind has long entertained the purchase of expensive biographies. The proofs lately given that one's books don't necessarily go out like Lucifer matches, never to be taken up again, make one content with moderate immediate results, which perhaps are as much as can reasonably be expected for any writing which does not address itself either to fashions or corporate interests of an exclusive kind.
I enclose a page corrected for Part III, it being as well to save revisions, and Mr. Simpson said the printers would not be at work again till after Wednesday.
Mr. Lewes is jolly in mind though depressed in body, and sends you hearty thanks and responses, which are much encouraged by the clearness of the sky this morning. I am going to get ready for starting.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 1 January 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/92595