GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [24 October 1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [24 October 1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [24 October 1849]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1849-10-24
Place
Geneva
Letter Content
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [24 October 1849]
MS: Yale. Address: C. Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | England. Postmarks: GENEVE | 24 OCTO | 49 | 11'bdM; COVENTRY | OC 27 | 1849 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 233-236.
Rue des Chanoines 107.
Dear Friends
I languished for your letter before it came and read it three times running -- judge whether I care less for you than of old. It is the best of blessings to know that you are well and cheerful, and when I think of all that might happen in a fortnight to make you otherwise, especially in these days of cholera and crises I cannot help being anxious until I get a fresh assurance that at least five days ago all was well. Before I say anything about myself I must contradict your suspicion that I paint things too agreeably for the sake of giving you pleasure. I assure you my letters are subjectively true -- the falsehood, if there be any, is in my manner of seeing things. But to satisfy Cara I will give you some "vérités positives" in which alas! poor imagination has hitherto been able to do little for the world. I have every day an excellent breakfast -- good coffee, delicious butter and confiture -- a good luncheon -- and a still better dinner -- for example, always two kinds of meat thoroughly well cooked, nice vegetables and pudding. Everything is on a generous scale without extravagance. Mde. D'Albert anticipates all my wants and makes a spoiled child of me. I like these dear people better and better -- everything is so in harmony with one's moral feeling that I really can almost say I never enjoyed a more complete bien-'eatre in my life than during the last fortnight.
For M. D'Albert I love him already as if he were father and brother both. You must know he is not more than 4 feet high with a deformed spine -- the result of an accident in his boyhood -- but on this little body is placed a finely formed head, full in every direction. The face is plain with small features, and rather haggard looking, but all the lines and the wavy grey hair indicate the temperament of the artist.
I have not heard a word or seen a gesture of his yet that was not perfectly in harmony with an exquisite moral refinement -- indeed one feels a better person always when he is present. He was educated for theology and did not become an artist -- did not even begin to draw till he was 21. He sings well and plays on the piano a little. It is delightful to hear him talk of his friends -- he admires them so genuinely -- one sees so clearly that there is no reflex egotism. His conversation is charming. I learn something every dinner-time.
Mde. D'Albert has less of genius and more of cleverness -- a really lady-like person, who says everything well. She brings up her children admirably -- two nice intelligent boys -- the youngest particularly has a sort of Lamartine expression with a fine head. I have not said half I feel about these good creatures because I am afraid you will laugh at me. But it is so delightful to get among people who exhibit no meannesses -- no worldlinesses that one may well be enthusiastic. For instance, I told you that Mde. D'Albert was to find me light for the 150 fr. She does this as if I were a visitor to whom she was anxious to be extremely polite. I have a large lamp and five bougies always in my room, 2 on the mantel-piece two on my piano and one on my dressing-table. She scolds me when she comes in and sees me reading by a single bougie. You will think me childish to talk of such things, but to me it is so blessed to find any departure from the rule of giving as little as possible for as much as possible. Their whole behaviour to me is the same spirit -- as if I were a guest whom they delighted to honour.
Last night we had a little knot of their most intimate musical friends -- a Mlle. Herpin 859 who plays admirably, a gentleman who has a splendid bass voice, and two really remarkable men, a M. Chaponni'e8re, 860 a physician, and his Father, a fine old man, quite a subject for a sculptor, who has written an infinity of clever poetry in the style of Thomas Hood, some of which M. D'Albert has read to me. He has also been a composer of music. The son is an antiquarian, has written a history of Bonnivard, is scientific, is full of all sorts of knowledge, with a delightful bonhommie. He has a fine tenor voice and sings with facility very difficult operatic music. M. and Mde. D'Albert introduce me to their friends as if they wished me to know them, as if they wished me to like their friends and their friends to like me. Mde. Chaponni'e8re, 861 the younger one's wife, is an amiable looking little woman who brings her work and listens to the music. The people and the evening would have been just after your own hearts. In fact I have not the slightest pretence for being discontented, not the shadow of a discomfort. Even the little housemaid Jeanie is charming -- says to me every morning, in the prettiest voice Madame a-t-elle bien dormi cette nuit? puts fire in my chauffe-pied without being told, cleans my rooms most conscientiously. There -- I promise to weary you less for the future with my descriptions. I could not resist the temptation to speak gratefully of M. and Mde. D'Albert.
Dear Mrs. Pears! How does she manage to endure her life with that poor monomaniac husband. Give my love to her -- my constant everfresh remembrance. My love to Miss R. Franklin -- tell her I have spun my web to Geneva -- it will infallibly carry me back again across the gulph -- were it twice as great. Tell Sara I shall write a little letter to her and enclose it in my next to you. In the meantime I am her faithful spouse. It is a comfort to hear of Mr. Hennell's being at all better. 862 Also it is good that Froude should marry a respectability 863 -- only if he preach the new word at Manchester I hope he will preach it so as to do without an after-explanation and not bewilder his hearers in the manner of Mephistopheles when he dons the doctor's gown of Faust. 864 I congratulate you on the new edition 865 and promise to read it with a disposition to admire when I am at Rosehill once more. I am beginning to lose respect for the petty acumen that sees difficulties. I love the souls that rush along to their goal with a full stream of sentiment, that have too much of the positive to be harassed by the perpetual negatives, which after all are but the disease of the soul, to be expelled by fortifying the principle of vitality. Mr. Bray wants a little letter all to himself, so I send him one full of sauciness that I dare not say to Cara. Kind regards to Miss Jenkins -- I hoped that her family circumstances would permit her to renounce her governess life.
Tell her I hear of her with interest. I am not well today. All my blood is in my head and Mde. D'Albert prescribes a walk before dinner, so I scribble to get done that I may put the letter in the post on my way.
Good-bye, dear loves -- shan't I kiss you when I am in England again -- in England! I already begin to think of the journey as an impossibility. Geneva is so beautiful now the trees have their richest colouring. Coventry is a fool to it -- but then you are at Coventry and you are better than lake trees and mountains to your affectionate
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Address: C. Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | England. Postmarks: GENEVE | 24 OCTO | 49 | 11'bdM; COVENTRY | OC 27 | 1849 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 233-236.
Rue des Chanoines 107.
Dear Friends
I languished for your letter before it came and read it three times running -- judge whether I care less for you than of old. It is the best of blessings to know that you are well and cheerful, and when I think of all that might happen in a fortnight to make you otherwise, especially in these days of cholera and crises I cannot help being anxious until I get a fresh assurance that at least five days ago all was well. Before I say anything about myself I must contradict your suspicion that I paint things too agreeably for the sake of giving you pleasure. I assure you my letters are subjectively true -- the falsehood, if there be any, is in my manner of seeing things. But to satisfy Cara I will give you some "vérités positives" in which alas! poor imagination has hitherto been able to do little for the world. I have every day an excellent breakfast -- good coffee, delicious butter and confiture -- a good luncheon -- and a still better dinner -- for example, always two kinds of meat thoroughly well cooked, nice vegetables and pudding. Everything is on a generous scale without extravagance. Mde. D'Albert anticipates all my wants and makes a spoiled child of me. I like these dear people better and better -- everything is so in harmony with one's moral feeling that I really can almost say I never enjoyed a more complete bien-'eatre in my life than during the last fortnight.
For M. D'Albert I love him already as if he were father and brother both. You must know he is not more than 4 feet high with a deformed spine -- the result of an accident in his boyhood -- but on this little body is placed a finely formed head, full in every direction. The face is plain with small features, and rather haggard looking, but all the lines and the wavy grey hair indicate the temperament of the artist.
I have not heard a word or seen a gesture of his yet that was not perfectly in harmony with an exquisite moral refinement -- indeed one feels a better person always when he is present. He was educated for theology and did not become an artist -- did not even begin to draw till he was 21. He sings well and plays on the piano a little. It is delightful to hear him talk of his friends -- he admires them so genuinely -- one sees so clearly that there is no reflex egotism. His conversation is charming. I learn something every dinner-time.
Mde. D'Albert has less of genius and more of cleverness -- a really lady-like person, who says everything well. She brings up her children admirably -- two nice intelligent boys -- the youngest particularly has a sort of Lamartine expression with a fine head. I have not said half I feel about these good creatures because I am afraid you will laugh at me. But it is so delightful to get among people who exhibit no meannesses -- no worldlinesses that one may well be enthusiastic. For instance, I told you that Mde. D'Albert was to find me light for the 150 fr. She does this as if I were a visitor to whom she was anxious to be extremely polite. I have a large lamp and five bougies always in my room, 2 on the mantel-piece two on my piano and one on my dressing-table. She scolds me when she comes in and sees me reading by a single bougie. You will think me childish to talk of such things, but to me it is so blessed to find any departure from the rule of giving as little as possible for as much as possible. Their whole behaviour to me is the same spirit -- as if I were a guest whom they delighted to honour.
Last night we had a little knot of their most intimate musical friends -- a Mlle. Herpin 859 who plays admirably, a gentleman who has a splendid bass voice, and two really remarkable men, a M. Chaponni'e8re, 860 a physician, and his Father, a fine old man, quite a subject for a sculptor, who has written an infinity of clever poetry in the style of Thomas Hood, some of which M. D'Albert has read to me. He has also been a composer of music. The son is an antiquarian, has written a history of Bonnivard, is scientific, is full of all sorts of knowledge, with a delightful bonhommie. He has a fine tenor voice and sings with facility very difficult operatic music. M. and Mde. D'Albert introduce me to their friends as if they wished me to know them, as if they wished me to like their friends and their friends to like me. Mde. Chaponni'e8re, 861 the younger one's wife, is an amiable looking little woman who brings her work and listens to the music. The people and the evening would have been just after your own hearts. In fact I have not the slightest pretence for being discontented, not the shadow of a discomfort. Even the little housemaid Jeanie is charming -- says to me every morning, in the prettiest voice Madame a-t-elle bien dormi cette nuit? puts fire in my chauffe-pied without being told, cleans my rooms most conscientiously. There -- I promise to weary you less for the future with my descriptions. I could not resist the temptation to speak gratefully of M. and Mde. D'Albert.
Dear Mrs. Pears! How does she manage to endure her life with that poor monomaniac husband. Give my love to her -- my constant everfresh remembrance. My love to Miss R. Franklin -- tell her I have spun my web to Geneva -- it will infallibly carry me back again across the gulph -- were it twice as great. Tell Sara I shall write a little letter to her and enclose it in my next to you. In the meantime I am her faithful spouse. It is a comfort to hear of Mr. Hennell's being at all better. 862 Also it is good that Froude should marry a respectability 863 -- only if he preach the new word at Manchester I hope he will preach it so as to do without an after-explanation and not bewilder his hearers in the manner of Mephistopheles when he dons the doctor's gown of Faust. 864 I congratulate you on the new edition 865 and promise to read it with a disposition to admire when I am at Rosehill once more. I am beginning to lose respect for the petty acumen that sees difficulties. I love the souls that rush along to their goal with a full stream of sentiment, that have too much of the positive to be harassed by the perpetual negatives, which after all are but the disease of the soul, to be expelled by fortifying the principle of vitality. Mr. Bray wants a little letter all to himself, so I send him one full of sauciness that I dare not say to Cara. Kind regards to Miss Jenkins -- I hoped that her family circumstances would permit her to renounce her governess life.
Tell her I hear of her with interest. I am not well today. All my blood is in my head and Mde. D'Albert prescribes a walk before dinner, so I scribble to get done that I may put the letter in the post on my way.
Good-bye, dear loves -- shan't I kiss you when I am in England again -- in England! I already begin to think of the journey as an impossibility. Geneva is so beautiful now the trees have their richest colouring. Coventry is a fool to it -- but then you are at Coventry and you are better than lake trees and mountains to your affectionate
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [24 October 1849], 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/93157