GE to John Blackwood, London, 3 November 1876
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 3 November 1876
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 3 November 1876
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1876-11-03
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 3 November 1876
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extract published: John Blackwood, pp. 397-398.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 3. 76.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
A cloud of cold having rolled off my brain, it seems clear to me that I owe you a letter. I was much gratified by your handsome proposal about my books, but no one will understand better than you that I incline to keep up a sort of active parental relation to those grown-up children. Also I prefer sharing their vicissitudes and saving everybody from risk as far as anything in this changing world can be saved from that condition. I was uncomfortable about the former arrangement while I feared that it had not answered. We are not greedy, though we are far from being indifferent to money, having relatives to depend on us -- a widowed daughter-in-law and two little grandchildren in Natal became entirely our charge last year. We told hardly anyone at the time (because Mr. Lewes dreaded letters of condolence) that his youngest son Herbert died after an illness which ended in severe bronchitis. The sad news came to us when we were at Rickmansworth, quite out of this world, and we did not have it put in the Times. A little boy had been born only a month before the father died. The marriage was a very satisfactory union of two affectionate industrious young creatures who seemed to have a happy life before them till the fatal illness came.
It will be rather interesting to see what is the sale of Deronda compared with Middlemarch. Miss Helps, who sees a great many people, and makes her one copy a sort of lending library, says that she never observed a case in which the [opinions of the press] so totally differed from the impression produced on readers. And indeed from what Mr. Lewes tells me of such reviews as he has seen, I should imagine that no reader of the reviews would conceive from them that the book in question had caused the least excitement in the public or had been followed with any unusual interest. Certainly, if I had not very strong private proofs to the contrary I should conclude that my book was a failure and that nobody was grateful for it, though a certain tenderness was accorded to the production as that of an author who had done more tolerable things. But I am saved from concluding that I have exhibited my faculties in a state of decay by very delightful letters from unknown readers and reported judgments from considerable authorities. A statesman who shall be nameless has said that I first opened to him a vision of Italian life, then of Spanish, and now I have kindled in him a quite new understanding of the Jewish people. This is what I wanted to do -- to widen the English vision a little in that direction and let in a little conscience and refinement. I expected to excite more resistance of feeling than I have seen the signs of, but I did what I chose to do -- not as well as I should have liked to do it, but as well as I could.
This is an answer, and is not to be answered, so all the chat has at least the agreeableness of being cheap to you and drawing no further on your time than is required for the reading.
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extract published: John Blackwood, pp. 397-398.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 3. 76.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
A cloud of cold having rolled off my brain, it seems clear to me that I owe you a letter. I was much gratified by your handsome proposal about my books, but no one will understand better than you that I incline to keep up a sort of active parental relation to those grown-up children. Also I prefer sharing their vicissitudes and saving everybody from risk as far as anything in this changing world can be saved from that condition. I was uncomfortable about the former arrangement while I feared that it had not answered. We are not greedy, though we are far from being indifferent to money, having relatives to depend on us -- a widowed daughter-in-law and two little grandchildren in Natal became entirely our charge last year. We told hardly anyone at the time (because Mr. Lewes dreaded letters of condolence) that his youngest son Herbert died after an illness which ended in severe bronchitis. The sad news came to us when we were at Rickmansworth, quite out of this world, and we did not have it put in the Times. A little boy had been born only a month before the father died. The marriage was a very satisfactory union of two affectionate industrious young creatures who seemed to have a happy life before them till the fatal illness came.
It will be rather interesting to see what is the sale of Deronda compared with Middlemarch. Miss Helps, who sees a great many people, and makes her one copy a sort of lending library, says that she never observed a case in which the [opinions of the press] so totally differed from the impression produced on readers. And indeed from what Mr. Lewes tells me of such reviews as he has seen, I should imagine that no reader of the reviews would conceive from them that the book in question had caused the least excitement in the public or had been followed with any unusual interest. Certainly, if I had not very strong private proofs to the contrary I should conclude that my book was a failure and that nobody was grateful for it, though a certain tenderness was accorded to the production as that of an author who had done more tolerable things. But I am saved from concluding that I have exhibited my faculties in a state of decay by very delightful letters from unknown readers and reported judgments from considerable authorities. A statesman who shall be nameless has said that I first opened to him a vision of Italian life, then of Spanish, and now I have kindled in him a quite new understanding of the Jewish people. This is what I wanted to do -- to widen the English vision a little in that direction and let in a little conscience and refinement. I expected to excite more resistance of feeling than I have seen the signs of, but I did what I chose to do -- not as well as I should have liked to do it, but as well as I could.
This is an answer, and is not to be answered, so all the chat has at least the agreeableness of being cheap to you and drawing no further on your time than is required for the reading.
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 3 November 1876, 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/92672