GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 18 March 1867
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 18 March 1867
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 18 March 1867
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon
Date(s)
- 1867-03-18
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 18 March 1867
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Hitherto unpublished.
March 18th 1867.
Dearest Barbara
We got home only the day before yesterday (Saturday the 16th) and there I found Bessie's letter enclosing your own few words in pencil written from Marseilles. That was the first news I had had of your illness, and it was a painful shock to me -- all the more because the information I got left me still so ignorant as to the nature of your illness, and the reasons why you are moving northward into a horrible climate. 601 Pray let me hear somehow what has been the matter with you, and where you are going. I found also the sheet of your Spanish letters giving an account of your journeying from Malaga to Telems'e1n so that I have the whole now with the exception of the "Earthquake continued" which you sent to Bessie.
I know you will like to hear that our journey has been a great success in restoring George's health, but I have no heart to write about anything else while I think of you ill in the horrible cold of Paris. We find hard winter here after having hot summer and mosquitoes at Seville. It is snowing this morning and the wind is howling so as to make one pity every mortal who has to cross the Channel. We were as fortunate as possible, for even in summer we never had a finer passage than on Saturday.
We crowned our delights in Spain with the sight of the pictures at Madrid. They and the Cathedral at Seville are enough to justify western civilization, with all its faults, and transcend any amount of diaper patterns even if they were coloured as the Moors coloured. Not that I mean to be irreverent to the Orientals, but I am thankful that Europe has been filled with ideas over and above what they ever possessed.
But never mind what I think about all that -- I care now to know about you. Let me know what you can. Love to Bessie and thanks for her note. If you see Madame Mohl call me to her remembrance, and say that I wrote to her from Biarritz, before we set out for Spain.
Ever yours lovingly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Hitherto unpublished.
March 18th 1867.
Dearest Barbara
We got home only the day before yesterday (Saturday the 16th) and there I found Bessie's letter enclosing your own few words in pencil written from Marseilles. That was the first news I had had of your illness, and it was a painful shock to me -- all the more because the information I got left me still so ignorant as to the nature of your illness, and the reasons why you are moving northward into a horrible climate. 601 Pray let me hear somehow what has been the matter with you, and where you are going. I found also the sheet of your Spanish letters giving an account of your journeying from Malaga to Telems'e1n so that I have the whole now with the exception of the "Earthquake continued" which you sent to Bessie.
I know you will like to hear that our journey has been a great success in restoring George's health, but I have no heart to write about anything else while I think of you ill in the horrible cold of Paris. We find hard winter here after having hot summer and mosquitoes at Seville. It is snowing this morning and the wind is howling so as to make one pity every mortal who has to cross the Channel. We were as fortunate as possible, for even in summer we never had a finer passage than on Saturday.
We crowned our delights in Spain with the sight of the pictures at Madrid. They and the Cathedral at Seville are enough to justify western civilization, with all its faults, and transcend any amount of diaper patterns even if they were coloured as the Moors coloured. Not that I mean to be irreverent to the Orientals, but I am thankful that Europe has been filled with ideas over and above what they ever possessed.
But never mind what I think about all that -- I care now to know about you. Let me know what you can. Love to Bessie and thanks for her note. If you see Madame Mohl call me to her remembrance, and say that I wrote to her from Biarritz, before we set out for Spain.
Ever yours lovingly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 18 March 1867, 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/93039