GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 4 April 1864
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 4 April 1864
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 4 April 1864
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon
Date(s)
- 1864-04-04
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 4 April 1864
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | North Bank | April 4. 1864.
Dearest Barbara
At last we have a letter of Thornie's from the African land -- the event I had waited for before writing to you. We had heard twice from him during his voyage, which he enjoyed immensely, editing a paper on board, acting in comedies, and, I am afraid, rather scandalizing the clergyman by dressing up in blue tights and a tail to represent Mephistopheles -- etc., etc. This letter of today is dated January 28, and much may have happened since then, but let us trust in the good omen of a good beginning. He says "My plans for the present are these. On the 4th February I am going up country with Mr. Brickhill Junr. who is interpreter to the court, so we shall be a small party consisting of the judges etc. who are going on circuit -- I go, of course, to see the country and get information about it. We shall be 18 days away and when I come back, I start on the first week of March for the Free State (Trans Vaal Republic) on an excursion with a French trader. . . . I shall have to look after the waggon when he is at Dutchmen's houses, and to keep the books, and for this shall get £3 a month. Won't that be glorious? I would have gone willingly for nothing at all, as the shooting and butterfly catching will be quite enough payment. However £9 will go nicely into my pocket to fill up some of the holes that living and doing nothing makes. When I come back, I shall settle down quietly near Durban, or at least somewhere on the coast and shall join some coffee planter, where I can learn the business, and get my board and lodging in return for my work. I shall stay there 6 months or a year probably. So much for the next year of my life. . . .
"I delivered the only letter I had in Durban to Mr. Brickhill the manager of the Natal bank who was very kind to me. . . . Mr. David Buchanan 245 who lives up here (Pietermaritzburg) had told a Mr. John Sanderson 246 of Durban that I should arrive soon and asked him to look out for me, which he accordingly did, and I was soon quite at home with him and his wife. He is a very nice man and a great botanist -- not a very scientific one, but the other kind -- you know what I mean. -- His wife is a charming creature about 30, no children, and immensely fond of music, not that disgusting trash which is called music at home and here, but Beethoven! Mendelssohn etc. . . . So you may imagine the evenings we have together, sonatas, symphonies etc., while I howl German songs. Mrs. S. was delighted to find some somebody as congenial as I was, for there is nobody in Durban or Maritzburg either, as far as I can find, who cares for anything but dance music. . . . On Saturday the 9th I rode out with Mr. Sanderson 10 miles to the north, to see the coffee plantation of Mr. Lister, the crack one of the Colony and was much pleased with it. . . . I have been out shooting a little, principally with the rifle, with which I shot a sand piper walking at 70 yards, and a parson at 60 (a parson is a crow with a white band on his neck, which may be taken for a choker). . . . So much for life in Durban: the town is pretty, plenty of trees in it, but the soil is sandy so that walking is not of the easiest. The country round is beautiful, the wooded hills and the large flat called the Vley with a marsh on one side is very pretty, the birds and butterflies and flowers gorgeous. Birds of prey are abundant. I have seen 50 Buzzards at a time floating over Maritzburg. The climate is very fine -- better than I expected -- not unpleasantly hot to me -- there is almost always a delightful sea breeze. . . .
"On the 10th I left Durban and on the 12th got to Maritzburg. . . . I like many of the people very much indeed: The Buchanans (particular Ebenezer family) are very kind, and Mr. Smith's friend Warwick Brooks 247 and I get on very nicely. . . . Dr. Mann 248 was very cool, which was rather surprising, as he is usually much liked, and he had been very kind to a fellow passenger of mine -- but who, I imagine, had been setting him against me, as we were rivals on board the [Damietta,] he being editor of the [Herald,] about which you will have heard in my letter you got about Christmas. I am going out to see Pigott's friend at Blackhurron[?] on Saturday. The Governor 249 was very kind and had a long talk. Newcastle's 250 letter was not worth a rap: it is a lithographed one he gives to all new Colonists, but of course Sir E. B. Lytton's was of a good deal of use, and the Governor seemed to think very highly of it, and offered to introduce me to any person who could be of any service. . . . I also rode to Edendale to see Miss Annie Buchanan, and spent a day at Ebenezer B's farm and am constantly with young Ebenezer, who is a conveyancer etc., and in whose office this letter is written. . . . Give my kind regards to Mrs. Bodichon, whose letters have done me a deal of good. Miss Annie Buchanan, tell her, was delighted with her portrait."
I send you these extracts, dear Barbara, because they will give you a better idea of the lad and his doings than any version of mine. I wish I could send you his whole letter. It is very long -- stuffed full of details telling of high animal spirits and also of considerable good sense. His father is much comforted by the practical tone of the letter, and I shall not say -- because I could not say fully -- how grateful we are to her who helped us most in finding this new starting point for our nineteen-year-older.
Your last little letter was a great relief to me. Mrs. Peter Taylor had heard that you had been called to Rome because Nannie was worse; and my suspense on that subject made it impossible for me to write to you. Poor dear Bessie! I often think of her, but hear little. We are very well ourselves -- have just been on a wild rapid trip to Scotland for a week(!), having business in Glasgow and wanting also to see Bertie who is farming about an hour's distance from that rich noisy smoky whiskey drinking town. We were fortunate enough to see Helen Faucit at Glasgow in three of Shakspeare's plays -- a flash of real acting in the evening twilight of the stage. -- For the rest, you see all the papers, and know all the news, so I can give you no information that will not be stale to you, except of the domestic sort -- as that Charlie has just returned from his month's holiday [four lines deleted].
George unites with me in kindest regards to Dr. Bodichon and sends affectionate homage to the "charmante Mistress Barbara."
Ever thine lovingly
Marian.
This morning we went to see Leighton's pictures. There are two large ones -- Dante coming down the stairs of his host in exile -- the stairs so "hard to tread" -- and Orpheus and Eurydice from a fine moment in Gluck's opera, where Eurydice, not knowing the command that Orpheus is not to look at her, clings to him in pained wondering entreaty, while he turns his head away in anguish.
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | North Bank | April 4. 1864.
Dearest Barbara
At last we have a letter of Thornie's from the African land -- the event I had waited for before writing to you. We had heard twice from him during his voyage, which he enjoyed immensely, editing a paper on board, acting in comedies, and, I am afraid, rather scandalizing the clergyman by dressing up in blue tights and a tail to represent Mephistopheles -- etc., etc. This letter of today is dated January 28, and much may have happened since then, but let us trust in the good omen of a good beginning. He says "My plans for the present are these. On the 4th February I am going up country with Mr. Brickhill Junr. who is interpreter to the court, so we shall be a small party consisting of the judges etc. who are going on circuit -- I go, of course, to see the country and get information about it. We shall be 18 days away and when I come back, I start on the first week of March for the Free State (Trans Vaal Republic) on an excursion with a French trader. . . . I shall have to look after the waggon when he is at Dutchmen's houses, and to keep the books, and for this shall get £3 a month. Won't that be glorious? I would have gone willingly for nothing at all, as the shooting and butterfly catching will be quite enough payment. However £9 will go nicely into my pocket to fill up some of the holes that living and doing nothing makes. When I come back, I shall settle down quietly near Durban, or at least somewhere on the coast and shall join some coffee planter, where I can learn the business, and get my board and lodging in return for my work. I shall stay there 6 months or a year probably. So much for the next year of my life. . . .
"I delivered the only letter I had in Durban to Mr. Brickhill the manager of the Natal bank who was very kind to me. . . . Mr. David Buchanan 245 who lives up here (Pietermaritzburg) had told a Mr. John Sanderson 246 of Durban that I should arrive soon and asked him to look out for me, which he accordingly did, and I was soon quite at home with him and his wife. He is a very nice man and a great botanist -- not a very scientific one, but the other kind -- you know what I mean. -- His wife is a charming creature about 30, no children, and immensely fond of music, not that disgusting trash which is called music at home and here, but Beethoven! Mendelssohn etc. . . . So you may imagine the evenings we have together, sonatas, symphonies etc., while I howl German songs. Mrs. S. was delighted to find some somebody as congenial as I was, for there is nobody in Durban or Maritzburg either, as far as I can find, who cares for anything but dance music. . . . On Saturday the 9th I rode out with Mr. Sanderson 10 miles to the north, to see the coffee plantation of Mr. Lister, the crack one of the Colony and was much pleased with it. . . . I have been out shooting a little, principally with the rifle, with which I shot a sand piper walking at 70 yards, and a parson at 60 (a parson is a crow with a white band on his neck, which may be taken for a choker). . . . So much for life in Durban: the town is pretty, plenty of trees in it, but the soil is sandy so that walking is not of the easiest. The country round is beautiful, the wooded hills and the large flat called the Vley with a marsh on one side is very pretty, the birds and butterflies and flowers gorgeous. Birds of prey are abundant. I have seen 50 Buzzards at a time floating over Maritzburg. The climate is very fine -- better than I expected -- not unpleasantly hot to me -- there is almost always a delightful sea breeze. . . .
"On the 10th I left Durban and on the 12th got to Maritzburg. . . . I like many of the people very much indeed: The Buchanans (particular Ebenezer family) are very kind, and Mr. Smith's friend Warwick Brooks 247 and I get on very nicely. . . . Dr. Mann 248 was very cool, which was rather surprising, as he is usually much liked, and he had been very kind to a fellow passenger of mine -- but who, I imagine, had been setting him against me, as we were rivals on board the [Damietta,] he being editor of the [Herald,] about which you will have heard in my letter you got about Christmas. I am going out to see Pigott's friend at Blackhurron[?] on Saturday. The Governor 249 was very kind and had a long talk. Newcastle's 250 letter was not worth a rap: it is a lithographed one he gives to all new Colonists, but of course Sir E. B. Lytton's was of a good deal of use, and the Governor seemed to think very highly of it, and offered to introduce me to any person who could be of any service. . . . I also rode to Edendale to see Miss Annie Buchanan, and spent a day at Ebenezer B's farm and am constantly with young Ebenezer, who is a conveyancer etc., and in whose office this letter is written. . . . Give my kind regards to Mrs. Bodichon, whose letters have done me a deal of good. Miss Annie Buchanan, tell her, was delighted with her portrait."
I send you these extracts, dear Barbara, because they will give you a better idea of the lad and his doings than any version of mine. I wish I could send you his whole letter. It is very long -- stuffed full of details telling of high animal spirits and also of considerable good sense. His father is much comforted by the practical tone of the letter, and I shall not say -- because I could not say fully -- how grateful we are to her who helped us most in finding this new starting point for our nineteen-year-older.
Your last little letter was a great relief to me. Mrs. Peter Taylor had heard that you had been called to Rome because Nannie was worse; and my suspense on that subject made it impossible for me to write to you. Poor dear Bessie! I often think of her, but hear little. We are very well ourselves -- have just been on a wild rapid trip to Scotland for a week(!), having business in Glasgow and wanting also to see Bertie who is farming about an hour's distance from that rich noisy smoky whiskey drinking town. We were fortunate enough to see Helen Faucit at Glasgow in three of Shakspeare's plays -- a flash of real acting in the evening twilight of the stage. -- For the rest, you see all the papers, and know all the news, so I can give you no information that will not be stale to you, except of the domestic sort -- as that Charlie has just returned from his month's holiday [four lines deleted].
George unites with me in kindest regards to Dr. Bodichon and sends affectionate homage to the "charmante Mistress Barbara."
Ever thine lovingly
Marian.
This morning we went to see Leighton's pictures. There are two large ones -- Dante coming down the stairs of his host in exile -- the stairs so "hard to tread" -- and Orpheus and Eurydice from a fine moment in Gluck's opera, where Eurydice, not knowing the command that Orpheus is not to look at her, clings to him in pained wondering entreaty, while he turns his head away in anguish.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 4 April 1864, 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/93061