GE to John Chapman, Weimar, 6 August 1854
Title
GE to John Chapman, Weimar, 6 August 1854
Title
GE to John Chapman, Weimar, 6 August 1854
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Chapman
Date(s)
- 1854-08-06
Place
Weimar
Letter Content
GE to John Chapman, Weimar, 6 August 1854
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Miss Evans. Extracts published: Haight, George Eliot, p. 158.
&unknown;Weimar&unknown; 62a Kaufgasse, Weimar | August 6. 1854.
Dear Friend
Your letter made me glad and sorry. It is the immemorial fashion of lady letter-writers to be glad and sorry in the same sentence, and after all, this feminine style is the truest representation of life. I was delighted to see your writing on the back of the letter which the Post-Beamter, like a conscientious man, refused to give me because I had not my passport in my pocket, and when at last I did get it, I opened it with all sorts of grateful, affectionate feelings towards you for having written to me so soon. But I was deeply saddened by what you tell me about yourself. I have always cherished the hope that you would work your way to independence by gradually paying all debts and anything short of that I can never regard as a relief for you. 214 But I think I am able to enter sympathetically into your whole position, and to estimate both your inward and outward difficulties, so you may rely on always having a fair appreciation from one person in the world, as well as a sisterly interest, which is perhaps less worth having. I shall be very anxious to know how things turn out -- but I know you will write to me when you can.
On reading your letter, we determined to get Cousin's book 215 and to unite it with several others as a subject for an article by me on "French writers on women." Do you approve of this? If so, I will endeavour to send you the MSS. early in September. I happen to have the material at hand to make such an article piquant and fresh, which are perhaps the qualities likely to be most welcome to you. (Tell me what space you want filled). But you must know that this Weimar -- this Athens of the North -- is in fact a large village rather than a town, and we are laughing at ourselves for having said of this book and the other, "O we can get it at Weimar," the truth being that the Court-Bookseller (Hof-Buchhandler) has a shop with about as commanding a front as Mr. Tupling's in the Strand. 216 However, he has a good stock of German books, but &unknown;goo&unknown; new French publications, and most old ones, are only to be had by sending to Leipzig or even to Paris. I have ordered Victor Cousin's book, Sainte Beuve's "Douze Portraits de Femmes" 217 which I know to be charming, and Michelet's "Femmes de la Revolution." 218 Besides these, we have several books with us which will give me valuable material and suggestions. When we are at Berlin I shall be able to get Kingsley's works, without which an article on them might be like themselves, more imaginative than solid. You know, I have not been an industrious writer, otherwise I might by this time have been adept enough to criticise a man's works not only without having them at hand, but without having seen them.
We have had enjoyment enough compressed into the last fortnight to make a year more than endurable, if it had been sprinkled over that space. Our route has been through Antwerp, Brussels, Namur, Liege, Cologne, up the Rhine to Coblentz and thence to Mainz, to Frankfort, and finally to Weimar, where we arrived on Thursday. We have a charming little lodging here and are enjoying the quiet, which is the more complete that all the vornehme people are away at the Baths or elsewhere taking their summer pleasures. We think it likely that we shall stay here two or three months, but what is most likely is not always what comes to pass.
Mr. Robert Noel was our companion -- and a very pleasant one -- in the steam boat from London to Antwerp, and on our way to Cologne we were joined in the railway carriage by Dr. Brabant, who very kindly exerted himself to procure me an interview with Strauss at Cologne. With these exceptions we have encountered no friends and acquaintances. Strauss looks worn and saddened and gives one the impression of a man for whom life has lost all charm. Yet he has his two children with him, and Dr. Brabant says they are remarkably interesting. I should like to tell you a great deal about our journey and the lovely things we have seen, but your mind is full of other matters, and I should think you will hardly have patience to read even so much as I have written. Some day, I hope, you will have as much happiness, and of the same kind, and will let me share it by telling me of it.
Any London news will be welcome, but most of all what relates to yourself. Give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Chapman, if she will accept them, and believe me always
Your faithful and affectionate
Marian Evans.
I advise you to get a sight of a work by Ewerboeck "Qu'est ce que c'est que la Bible?" 219 It is a r'e9sum'e9 of the results of German Biblical criticism by a clever Frenchman -- the same who wrote a compendium of Feuerbach's doctrines.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Miss Evans. Extracts published: Haight, George Eliot, p. 158.
&unknown;Weimar&unknown; 62a Kaufgasse, Weimar | August 6. 1854.
Dear Friend
Your letter made me glad and sorry. It is the immemorial fashion of lady letter-writers to be glad and sorry in the same sentence, and after all, this feminine style is the truest representation of life. I was delighted to see your writing on the back of the letter which the Post-Beamter, like a conscientious man, refused to give me because I had not my passport in my pocket, and when at last I did get it, I opened it with all sorts of grateful, affectionate feelings towards you for having written to me so soon. But I was deeply saddened by what you tell me about yourself. I have always cherished the hope that you would work your way to independence by gradually paying all debts and anything short of that I can never regard as a relief for you. 214 But I think I am able to enter sympathetically into your whole position, and to estimate both your inward and outward difficulties, so you may rely on always having a fair appreciation from one person in the world, as well as a sisterly interest, which is perhaps less worth having. I shall be very anxious to know how things turn out -- but I know you will write to me when you can.
On reading your letter, we determined to get Cousin's book 215 and to unite it with several others as a subject for an article by me on "French writers on women." Do you approve of this? If so, I will endeavour to send you the MSS. early in September. I happen to have the material at hand to make such an article piquant and fresh, which are perhaps the qualities likely to be most welcome to you. (Tell me what space you want filled). But you must know that this Weimar -- this Athens of the North -- is in fact a large village rather than a town, and we are laughing at ourselves for having said of this book and the other, "O we can get it at Weimar," the truth being that the Court-Bookseller (Hof-Buchhandler) has a shop with about as commanding a front as Mr. Tupling's in the Strand. 216 However, he has a good stock of German books, but &unknown;goo&unknown; new French publications, and most old ones, are only to be had by sending to Leipzig or even to Paris. I have ordered Victor Cousin's book, Sainte Beuve's "Douze Portraits de Femmes" 217 which I know to be charming, and Michelet's "Femmes de la Revolution." 218 Besides these, we have several books with us which will give me valuable material and suggestions. When we are at Berlin I shall be able to get Kingsley's works, without which an article on them might be like themselves, more imaginative than solid. You know, I have not been an industrious writer, otherwise I might by this time have been adept enough to criticise a man's works not only without having them at hand, but without having seen them.
We have had enjoyment enough compressed into the last fortnight to make a year more than endurable, if it had been sprinkled over that space. Our route has been through Antwerp, Brussels, Namur, Liege, Cologne, up the Rhine to Coblentz and thence to Mainz, to Frankfort, and finally to Weimar, where we arrived on Thursday. We have a charming little lodging here and are enjoying the quiet, which is the more complete that all the vornehme people are away at the Baths or elsewhere taking their summer pleasures. We think it likely that we shall stay here two or three months, but what is most likely is not always what comes to pass.
Mr. Robert Noel was our companion -- and a very pleasant one -- in the steam boat from London to Antwerp, and on our way to Cologne we were joined in the railway carriage by Dr. Brabant, who very kindly exerted himself to procure me an interview with Strauss at Cologne. With these exceptions we have encountered no friends and acquaintances. Strauss looks worn and saddened and gives one the impression of a man for whom life has lost all charm. Yet he has his two children with him, and Dr. Brabant says they are remarkably interesting. I should like to tell you a great deal about our journey and the lovely things we have seen, but your mind is full of other matters, and I should think you will hardly have patience to read even so much as I have written. Some day, I hope, you will have as much happiness, and of the same kind, and will let me share it by telling me of it.
Any London news will be welcome, but most of all what relates to yourself. Give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Chapman, if she will accept them, and believe me always
Your faithful and affectionate
Marian Evans.
I advise you to get a sight of a work by Ewerboeck "Qu'est ce que c'est que la Bible?" 219 It is a r'e9sum'e9 of the results of German Biblical criticism by a clever Frenchman -- the same who wrote a compendium of Feuerbach's doctrines.
Signature
Marian Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Chapman, Weimar, 6 August 1854, 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/92808