GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 10 July 1860]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 10 July 1860]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 10 July 1860]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1860-07-10
Place
Wandsworth
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 10 July 1860]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: July 10. 1860. Extracts published: Cross, II, 263-265.
Tuesday Morning.
Dear Cara
The little envelope 588 with its address of "Marian" was very welcome, and as Mr. Lewes is sending what a Malaproprian friend once called a "missile" to Sara, I feel inclined to slip in a word of gratitude -- less for the present than for the past goodness, which came back to me with keener remembrance than ever when we were at Genoa and at Como -- the places I first saw with you. How wretched I was then -- how peevish, how utterly morbid! And how kind and forbearing you were under the oppression of my company! I should like you now and then to feel happy in the thought that you were always perfectly good to me. That I was not good to you, is my own disagreeable affair: the bitter taste of that fact is mine, not yours.
Don't you remember Bellagio, or Lake Como? It is hardly altered much except in the hotels, which the eleven years have wondrously multiplied and bedizened for the accommodation of the English. We went to Sommariva, 589 because I had been before with you, and to the Serbelloni gardens (on the hill behind Bellagio, you remember) not altogether for the same reason, but partly for the sake of seeing the lake and mountains in the evening light.
But if I begin to recall the things we saw in Italy, I shall write as long a letter as Mr. Lewes's, which, by the by, now I have read it, seems to be something of a "missile" in another sense than the Malaproprian.
But Sara is one of the few people to whom candour is acceptable as the highest tribute. And private criticism has more chance of being faithful than public. We must have mercy on critics who are obliged to make a figure in printed pages. They must by all means say striking things. Either we should not read printed criticisms at all, (I don't) or we should read them with the constant remembrance that they are a fugitive kind of work which, in the present stage of human nature, can rarely engage a very high grade of conscience or ability. The fate of a book which is not entirely ephemeral is never decided by journalists or reviewers of any but an exceptional kind. Tell Sara her damnation -- if it ever comes to pass -- will be quite independent of Nationals 590 and Westminsters. Let half a dozen competent people read her book, and an opinion of it will spread quite apart from either praise or blame in reviews and newspapers. But my letter is running over. With love to Mr. Bray,
Ever yours
Marian.
Can you tell Mr. Lewes what is Mr. Spencer's present address?
MS: Yale. Endorsed: July 10. 1860. Extracts published: Cross, II, 263-265.
Tuesday Morning.
Dear Cara
The little envelope 588 with its address of "Marian" was very welcome, and as Mr. Lewes is sending what a Malaproprian friend once called a "missile" to Sara, I feel inclined to slip in a word of gratitude -- less for the present than for the past goodness, which came back to me with keener remembrance than ever when we were at Genoa and at Como -- the places I first saw with you. How wretched I was then -- how peevish, how utterly morbid! And how kind and forbearing you were under the oppression of my company! I should like you now and then to feel happy in the thought that you were always perfectly good to me. That I was not good to you, is my own disagreeable affair: the bitter taste of that fact is mine, not yours.
Don't you remember Bellagio, or Lake Como? It is hardly altered much except in the hotels, which the eleven years have wondrously multiplied and bedizened for the accommodation of the English. We went to Sommariva, 589 because I had been before with you, and to the Serbelloni gardens (on the hill behind Bellagio, you remember) not altogether for the same reason, but partly for the sake of seeing the lake and mountains in the evening light.
But if I begin to recall the things we saw in Italy, I shall write as long a letter as Mr. Lewes's, which, by the by, now I have read it, seems to be something of a "missile" in another sense than the Malaproprian.
But Sara is one of the few people to whom candour is acceptable as the highest tribute. And private criticism has more chance of being faithful than public. We must have mercy on critics who are obliged to make a figure in printed pages. They must by all means say striking things. Either we should not read printed criticisms at all, (I don't) or we should read them with the constant remembrance that they are a fugitive kind of work which, in the present stage of human nature, can rarely engage a very high grade of conscience or ability. The fate of a book which is not entirely ephemeral is never decided by journalists or reviewers of any but an exceptional kind. Tell Sara her damnation -- if it ever comes to pass -- will be quite independent of Nationals 590 and Westminsters. Let half a dozen competent people read her book, and an opinion of it will spread quite apart from either praise or blame in reviews and newspapers. But my letter is running over. With love to Mr. Bray,
Ever yours
Marian.
Can you tell Mr. Lewes what is Mr. Spencer's present address?
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 10 July 1860], 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/93228