GE to John Blackwood, Witley, 27 June 1878
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Witley, 27 June 1878
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Witley, 27 June 1878
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1878-06-27
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, Witley, 27 June 1878
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, III, 328-329.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
(Telegrams: Witley Station) 90
June 27. 78.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
I hope we are not wrong in imagining you settled at Strathtyrum with a fresh power of enjoying the old scenes after your exile, in spite of the abstinence from work (the chief sweetener of life) which Mrs. Blackwood tells me is still rigidly prescribed. The weather and the promising turn of things at Berlin 91 are two cheering influences, and
I like to think that you are continually having visits from those with whom you can chat about affairs without offending the doctors. Mr. Lewes too is under a regimen for gout, which casts its threatening shadow in the form of nightly cramps and inward malaise. And for the last week we have been suffering, in the superlative degree proper to blundering people, from finding almost everything just wrong in our furniture. The sorrows of the houseless are many, but the sorrows of those who can afford to house themselves are also not a few if they like to think of anything better than sofa-backs, table-legs, and information from the cook that the dishes and tureens sent are not perfect, while she has to be informed in her turn that the peas were hard yesterday and have caused the masculine stomach (the gender is necessary to touch the cooking conscience) agonies of indigestion. Mrs. Blackwood at least, will know how to pity me.
Mr. Lewes wants me to tell you something more amusing -- a bit of Baboo English from an Indian Journal, sent us by Lord Lytton. Apropos of Sir G. Campbell's 92 rash statement that India was no good to England, the accomplished writer says -- "but British House of Commons stripped him to pieces, and exposed his cui bono in all its naked hideousness!" -- After all I think the cultivated Hindoo, writing what he calls English, is about on a par with the authors of leading articles on this side of the globe, writing what they call English -- accusing or laudatory epithets and phrases adjusted to some dim standard of effect quite aloof from any knowledge or belief of their own.
Letter-writing I imagine is counted as "work" from which you must abstain, and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see, I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence. Hence you have nothing to answer. Only thank Mrs. Blackwood for writing me news of you from Edinburgh and perhaps Mr. William, or Mr. Simpson having some occasion for writing to me, will use it to send me a new bulletin. How glad I shall be of an announcement that "no further bulletins will be sent -- Mr. Blackwood having gone to golf again." -- All kind remembrances from
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, III, 328-329.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
(Telegrams: Witley Station) 90
June 27. 78.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
I hope we are not wrong in imagining you settled at Strathtyrum with a fresh power of enjoying the old scenes after your exile, in spite of the abstinence from work (the chief sweetener of life) which Mrs. Blackwood tells me is still rigidly prescribed. The weather and the promising turn of things at Berlin 91 are two cheering influences, and
I like to think that you are continually having visits from those with whom you can chat about affairs without offending the doctors. Mr. Lewes too is under a regimen for gout, which casts its threatening shadow in the form of nightly cramps and inward malaise. And for the last week we have been suffering, in the superlative degree proper to blundering people, from finding almost everything just wrong in our furniture. The sorrows of the houseless are many, but the sorrows of those who can afford to house themselves are also not a few if they like to think of anything better than sofa-backs, table-legs, and information from the cook that the dishes and tureens sent are not perfect, while she has to be informed in her turn that the peas were hard yesterday and have caused the masculine stomach (the gender is necessary to touch the cooking conscience) agonies of indigestion. Mrs. Blackwood at least, will know how to pity me.
Mr. Lewes wants me to tell you something more amusing -- a bit of Baboo English from an Indian Journal, sent us by Lord Lytton. Apropos of Sir G. Campbell's 92 rash statement that India was no good to England, the accomplished writer says -- "but British House of Commons stripped him to pieces, and exposed his cui bono in all its naked hideousness!" -- After all I think the cultivated Hindoo, writing what he calls English, is about on a par with the authors of leading articles on this side of the globe, writing what they call English -- accusing or laudatory epithets and phrases adjusted to some dim standard of effect quite aloof from any knowledge or belief of their own.
Letter-writing I imagine is counted as "work" from which you must abstain, and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see, I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence. Hence you have nothing to answer. Only thank Mrs. Blackwood for writing me news of you from Edinburgh and perhaps Mr. William, or Mr. Simpson having some occasion for writing to me, will use it to send me a new bulletin. How glad I shall be of an announcement that "no further bulletins will be sent -- Mr. Blackwood having gone to golf again." -- All kind remembrances from
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, Witley, 27 June 1878, 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/92760