GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [28 January 1850]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [28 January 1850]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [28 January 1850]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1850-01-28
Place
Geneva
Letter Content
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [28 January 1850]
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rose Hill | Coventry | England. Postmarks: GENEVE | 28 | JANV | 50 | 8'bdM; COVENTRY | JA 31 | 1850 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 243-244.
Rue des Chanoines.
Dear Friends
How are you? You leave me a long time without news of you, though I told you they were necessary as a counteractive to the horrors of this terrible winter. Are you really so occupied as to have absolutely no time to think of me? I console myself at least today, now we have a blue sky once more after two months of mist, with thinking that I am excluded by pleasanter ideas -- that at least you are well and comfortable, and I ought to content myself with that. Or was my last letter so shabby that you refuse to count it as one? That would be more just than kind. I do not mind how short your letters are, so that they tell me the essential about yourselves. The news does not interest me, and we can tell each other every thing of that sort much more quickly when I am with you. Long letters are only possible when one feels separated by a gulf of time as well as space. I like now to save everything that I may have all to tell you when I am in England. I am sure this reason ought to satisfy you -- it is a proof that I think a great deal of our reunion.
The fact is I am much of Touchstone's mind -- in respect my life is at Geneva I like it very well, but in respect it is not with you it is a very vile life. 882 I have no yearnings to exchange lake and mountains for Bishop Street and the Radford Fields, 883 but I have a great yearning to kiss you all and talk to you for three days running. But perhaps you are beginning to think differently, and I may as well spare myself all pains to convince you that I love you. At least write to tell me so. I do not think it will be possible for me to undertake the journey before the end of March. I look forward to it with great dread. I see myself looking utterly miserable, ready to leave all my luggage behind me at Paris for the sake of escaping the trouble of it.
We have had Alboni 884 here -- a very fat syren. There has been some capital acting of comedies by friends of M. D'Albert -- a M. Chancel, 885 an advocate, is superior to any professional actor of comedy I have ever seen. He reads vaudevilles so marvellously that one seems to have a whole troop of actors before one in his single person. He is a handsome man of fifty, full of wit and talent, and he married about a year ago an ugly old maid -- but this is less wonderful at Geneva than elsewhere.
Good bye, dear souls. I am persuaded that you are perfect and that I am good for nothing and I will not listen to what Satan says urging me to be angry with you.
Your affectionate
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rose Hill | Coventry | England. Postmarks: GENEVE | 28 | JANV | 50 | 8'bdM; COVENTRY | JA 31 | 1850 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 243-244.
Rue des Chanoines.
Dear Friends
How are you? You leave me a long time without news of you, though I told you they were necessary as a counteractive to the horrors of this terrible winter. Are you really so occupied as to have absolutely no time to think of me? I console myself at least today, now we have a blue sky once more after two months of mist, with thinking that I am excluded by pleasanter ideas -- that at least you are well and comfortable, and I ought to content myself with that. Or was my last letter so shabby that you refuse to count it as one? That would be more just than kind. I do not mind how short your letters are, so that they tell me the essential about yourselves. The news does not interest me, and we can tell each other every thing of that sort much more quickly when I am with you. Long letters are only possible when one feels separated by a gulf of time as well as space. I like now to save everything that I may have all to tell you when I am in England. I am sure this reason ought to satisfy you -- it is a proof that I think a great deal of our reunion.
The fact is I am much of Touchstone's mind -- in respect my life is at Geneva I like it very well, but in respect it is not with you it is a very vile life. 882 I have no yearnings to exchange lake and mountains for Bishop Street and the Radford Fields, 883 but I have a great yearning to kiss you all and talk to you for three days running. But perhaps you are beginning to think differently, and I may as well spare myself all pains to convince you that I love you. At least write to tell me so. I do not think it will be possible for me to undertake the journey before the end of March. I look forward to it with great dread. I see myself looking utterly miserable, ready to leave all my luggage behind me at Paris for the sake of escaping the trouble of it.
We have had Alboni 884 here -- a very fat syren. There has been some capital acting of comedies by friends of M. D'Albert -- a M. Chancel, 885 an advocate, is superior to any professional actor of comedy I have ever seen. He reads vaudevilles so marvellously that one seems to have a whole troop of actors before one in his single person. He is a handsome man of fifty, full of wit and talent, and he married about a year ago an ugly old maid -- but this is less wonderful at Geneva than elsewhere.
Good bye, dear souls. I am persuaded that you are perfect and that I am good for nothing and I will not listen to what Satan says urging me to be angry with you.
Your affectionate
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [28 January 1850], 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/93158