GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [15 February 1851]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [15 February 1851]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [15 February 1851]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1851-02-15
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [15 February 1851]
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, I, 258-259.
Strand.
Dearest Friends
I hope I am right in thinking of you as quite well -- having Mrs. C. Hennell and Frank 929 with you spending pleasant days and nights -- and last, not least, prospering in business, making a grand succ'e8s of the "idea for spring." 930 Since Sara left on Monday, nothing very particular has happened -- we have been rather duller than usual. Mrs. C. has had a bad cough, the drawing room has been turned topsy-turvy in the absence of visitors, and everything has been so-so, the weather included. Mr. Mackay has been very kind in coming and walking out with me and that is the only variety I have had. Last night, however, we had an agreeable enough gathering. Foxton 931 came, smelling horribly of tobacco, and sat talking with me an hour and a half by the timepiece till I was half dead. I think him an ugly, médiocre man. He says George Dawson has invited Wilson 932 (you know whom I mean?) to go down to Birmingham and preach for him. Foxton you know is trying with Carlyle and others to get a chapel for Wilson at the West End in which he is to figure as a seceding clergyman.
I enclose you two notes from Empson 933 as a guarantee that I have been trying to work. Mr. Chapman wrote to him (he is the editor of the Edinburgh Review) sending him the article on Mackay, and proposing that I should write one for the Edinburgh either on Mackay again, on Miss Martineau's work or on another subject 934 for which he had employed Mr. Chapman to get him an article. Again, I proposed to write a review of Greg 935 for the Wesminster not for money, but for love -- of the subject as connected with the Inquiry. 936 Mr. Hickson 937 referred the matter to Slack again and he writes that he shall not have room for it and that the subject will not suit on this occasion, so you see I am obliged to be idle and I like it best. You will be pleased to see that Mr. C. spoke of me to Empson as a man. Miss Lynn's affair with Mr. C. is closed by her accepting £5 as compensation! 938
I hope Mr. Bray is coming soon to tell me everything about you. I think I shall cry for joy to see him. But do send me a little note on Monday morning. Does Betsy go on well? and do she and Jane 939 agree? Mrs. Follen 940 called the other day in extreme horror at Miss Martineau's book, quoting as very rich a motto for the title-page proposed by a gentleman 941 of her acquaintance "There is no God, and Harriet Martineau is his prophet."
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, I, 258-259.
Strand.
Dearest Friends
I hope I am right in thinking of you as quite well -- having Mrs. C. Hennell and Frank 929 with you spending pleasant days and nights -- and last, not least, prospering in business, making a grand succ'e8s of the "idea for spring." 930 Since Sara left on Monday, nothing very particular has happened -- we have been rather duller than usual. Mrs. C. has had a bad cough, the drawing room has been turned topsy-turvy in the absence of visitors, and everything has been so-so, the weather included. Mr. Mackay has been very kind in coming and walking out with me and that is the only variety I have had. Last night, however, we had an agreeable enough gathering. Foxton 931 came, smelling horribly of tobacco, and sat talking with me an hour and a half by the timepiece till I was half dead. I think him an ugly, médiocre man. He says George Dawson has invited Wilson 932 (you know whom I mean?) to go down to Birmingham and preach for him. Foxton you know is trying with Carlyle and others to get a chapel for Wilson at the West End in which he is to figure as a seceding clergyman.
I enclose you two notes from Empson 933 as a guarantee that I have been trying to work. Mr. Chapman wrote to him (he is the editor of the Edinburgh Review) sending him the article on Mackay, and proposing that I should write one for the Edinburgh either on Mackay again, on Miss Martineau's work or on another subject 934 for which he had employed Mr. Chapman to get him an article. Again, I proposed to write a review of Greg 935 for the Wesminster not for money, but for love -- of the subject as connected with the Inquiry. 936 Mr. Hickson 937 referred the matter to Slack again and he writes that he shall not have room for it and that the subject will not suit on this occasion, so you see I am obliged to be idle and I like it best. You will be pleased to see that Mr. C. spoke of me to Empson as a man. Miss Lynn's affair with Mr. C. is closed by her accepting £5 as compensation! 938
I hope Mr. Bray is coming soon to tell me everything about you. I think I shall cry for joy to see him. But do send me a little note on Monday morning. Does Betsy go on well? and do she and Jane 939 agree? Mrs. Follen 940 called the other day in extreme horror at Miss Martineau's book, quoting as very rich a motto for the title-page proposed by a gentleman 941 of her acquaintance "There is no God, and Harriet Martineau is his prophet."
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [15 February 1851], 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/93164