GE to John Blackwood, Rome, 6 April 1869
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Rome, 6 April 1869
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Rome, 6 April 1869
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1869-04-06
Place
Rome
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, Rome, 6 April 1869
MS: Parrish Collection, Princeton. Published: M. L. Parrish, Victorian Lady Novelists, 1933, pp. 26-29.
H'f4tel de la Minerve | Rome. April 6. 69.
My dear Sir
The Roman post, we find, is so slow, that it is time for me to write you word of two mistakes which have crept into the revise of "How Lisa loved the King" and which I have discovered on re-reading it here. The more important one is the omission of a word on page 14, where line 16 should read "Save when the grateful memory of deep debt." The other is a mere matter of punctuation on page 1, where line 7 from foot, there should be a colon after "cavaliers," and line 5 from foot a semi-colon after "Hyads are." 44 I have not found anything else to alter.
We are only just settled here on our return from Naples, for even so far have we ventured in search of warmth, which is not to be found in Italy any more than in England. A certain captain whom we met in our journeying quoted as an opinion of his uncle's, that "you could not dodge March in Europe," and our experience inclines us to register that opinion as a maxim for our future guidance. We shivered along the Corniche even in the few days of sunshine, and most of our days were grey or rainy. Mr. Lewes kept his threatening sciatic pain until we got to Florence. There happily he got nearly quit of it, but some other wandering spirits of infirmity took up their abode in me, and during five days that we stayed in Florence I was kept almost entirely idle and helpless by sore-throat and its companion symptoms. Pity me to have been in Florence all that long while and not to have gone over the dear old ground! But from Mr. Trollope's present house there is the very finest distant view of Florence that can be had. 45 By the by, he wished me to say that he had written in acknowledgment of your friendly letter, but that, misled by old recollections, he had addressed it to you as still in Pall Mall, and feared that in consequence you might not receive it. But our miraculous Post Office would hardly be at fault in a letter addressed to you.
We intended always to make Rome our principal destination on this journey, but we wished to avoid the Holy week and Easter, thinking that our one experience of the ceremonies and crowds at that season (in 1860) was enough for a life. But it happens that this year the chief festival is the commemoration of the Pope's fiftieth year of priesthood, 46 on April 11th and the number of strangers is less reduced than usual after the end of Easter. We want to keep quite incog. and to see no acquaintances until near our time of going away, for as I travel to see foreign objects and not to hear English views, I get impatient even of company otherwise agreeable when it distracts my attention from some scene or monument which I shall probably never revisit. Our last rare bit of sunshine and blue sea at Naples was utterly spoiled by an English physician 47 who found us out in the public gardens and droned his worthless observations in our ears for an hour and a half, innocently intending to be as kind as possible in offering himself as a screen between us and the wondrous light around us.
We are in better spirits about the weather, for yesterday we had brilliant sunshine in our first stroll to the Coliseum and this morning again the clouds are all high and white. Whatever else refuses to mend itself in Rome, the coachmen are improved in their manners since our former visit, and no longer torment the pedestrian "Mossoo" as if he were an escaped lunatic unable to perceive his immense need of a vettura. The cold wind makes the vettura an unwelcome necessity to a sensitive Mossoo. Even at the theatre the rush of cold air from the stage when the curtain rises makes us wrap ourselves up in wintry fashion. Last night we went to see Ristori as Judith, this being advertised as her Farewell performance. Even with that same deduction of shivering discomfort, and the worst company imaginable to act with her, it was a gain to see again a nobly beautiful woman, grand and graceful in her attitudes and movements, and with a delicious deep voice, after being obliged to see so much of the favourite impudent snappish woman now in vogue on the stage and elsewhere. Yet it is painful that one whose glory can only be in being a great artist, should show so miserable, stupid an egoism as to select a cheap company that turns the ensemble into a farce or burlesque which makes an incongruous and often fatally neutralizing background to her own figure. The Holofernes last night was a hideous burlesque of an ancient Assyrian, who set the whole house laughing by a drunken rant just when the action was approaching the climax. 48 We saw Salvini the tragedian at Genoa, 49 and wished that human nature in the shape of actor or actress could bear the juxtaposition of merit with delight, instead of rejoicing only in the inferiority of every colleague.
Of course you will not write any answer to this letter. Our stay here will last probably a fortnight or more, unless we are summoned home, but everything about our movements is uncertain. I hope we shall shake hands with you in London soon after our return.
Mr. Lewes received some kind attention from Mr. Mayhew, a partner in MacBean's bank, where he went yesterday. He (Mr. M.) knows you, I believe. He kindly promised not to mention the fact of our being in Rome, appreciating our desire not to be disturbed in our visit to this city of tombs.
Mr. Lewes unites with me in kind regards to you and to Mr. William Blackwood and I am always
Yours most truly
M. E. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
MS: Parrish Collection, Princeton. Published: M. L. Parrish, Victorian Lady Novelists, 1933, pp. 26-29.
H'f4tel de la Minerve | Rome. April 6. 69.
My dear Sir
The Roman post, we find, is so slow, that it is time for me to write you word of two mistakes which have crept into the revise of "How Lisa loved the King" and which I have discovered on re-reading it here. The more important one is the omission of a word on page 14, where line 16 should read "Save when the grateful memory of deep debt." The other is a mere matter of punctuation on page 1, where line 7 from foot, there should be a colon after "cavaliers," and line 5 from foot a semi-colon after "Hyads are." 44 I have not found anything else to alter.
We are only just settled here on our return from Naples, for even so far have we ventured in search of warmth, which is not to be found in Italy any more than in England. A certain captain whom we met in our journeying quoted as an opinion of his uncle's, that "you could not dodge March in Europe," and our experience inclines us to register that opinion as a maxim for our future guidance. We shivered along the Corniche even in the few days of sunshine, and most of our days were grey or rainy. Mr. Lewes kept his threatening sciatic pain until we got to Florence. There happily he got nearly quit of it, but some other wandering spirits of infirmity took up their abode in me, and during five days that we stayed in Florence I was kept almost entirely idle and helpless by sore-throat and its companion symptoms. Pity me to have been in Florence all that long while and not to have gone over the dear old ground! But from Mr. Trollope's present house there is the very finest distant view of Florence that can be had. 45 By the by, he wished me to say that he had written in acknowledgment of your friendly letter, but that, misled by old recollections, he had addressed it to you as still in Pall Mall, and feared that in consequence you might not receive it. But our miraculous Post Office would hardly be at fault in a letter addressed to you.
We intended always to make Rome our principal destination on this journey, but we wished to avoid the Holy week and Easter, thinking that our one experience of the ceremonies and crowds at that season (in 1860) was enough for a life. But it happens that this year the chief festival is the commemoration of the Pope's fiftieth year of priesthood, 46 on April 11th and the number of strangers is less reduced than usual after the end of Easter. We want to keep quite incog. and to see no acquaintances until near our time of going away, for as I travel to see foreign objects and not to hear English views, I get impatient even of company otherwise agreeable when it distracts my attention from some scene or monument which I shall probably never revisit. Our last rare bit of sunshine and blue sea at Naples was utterly spoiled by an English physician 47 who found us out in the public gardens and droned his worthless observations in our ears for an hour and a half, innocently intending to be as kind as possible in offering himself as a screen between us and the wondrous light around us.
We are in better spirits about the weather, for yesterday we had brilliant sunshine in our first stroll to the Coliseum and this morning again the clouds are all high and white. Whatever else refuses to mend itself in Rome, the coachmen are improved in their manners since our former visit, and no longer torment the pedestrian "Mossoo" as if he were an escaped lunatic unable to perceive his immense need of a vettura. The cold wind makes the vettura an unwelcome necessity to a sensitive Mossoo. Even at the theatre the rush of cold air from the stage when the curtain rises makes us wrap ourselves up in wintry fashion. Last night we went to see Ristori as Judith, this being advertised as her Farewell performance. Even with that same deduction of shivering discomfort, and the worst company imaginable to act with her, it was a gain to see again a nobly beautiful woman, grand and graceful in her attitudes and movements, and with a delicious deep voice, after being obliged to see so much of the favourite impudent snappish woman now in vogue on the stage and elsewhere. Yet it is painful that one whose glory can only be in being a great artist, should show so miserable, stupid an egoism as to select a cheap company that turns the ensemble into a farce or burlesque which makes an incongruous and often fatally neutralizing background to her own figure. The Holofernes last night was a hideous burlesque of an ancient Assyrian, who set the whole house laughing by a drunken rant just when the action was approaching the climax. 48 We saw Salvini the tragedian at Genoa, 49 and wished that human nature in the shape of actor or actress could bear the juxtaposition of merit with delight, instead of rejoicing only in the inferiority of every colleague.
Of course you will not write any answer to this letter. Our stay here will last probably a fortnight or more, unless we are summoned home, but everything about our movements is uncertain. I hope we shall shake hands with you in London soon after our return.
Mr. Lewes received some kind attention from Mr. Mayhew, a partner in MacBean's bank, where he went yesterday. He (Mr. M.) knows you, I believe. He kindly promised not to mention the fact of our being in Rome, appreciating our desire not to be disturbed in our visit to this city of tombs.
Mr. Lewes unites with me in kind regards to you and to Mr. William Blackwood and I am always
Yours most truly
M. E. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, Rome, 6 April 1869, 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/92724