GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 3? October? 1859]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 3? October? 1859]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 3? October? 1859]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1859-10-03
Place
Wandsworth
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 3? October? 1859]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Mrs. Charles Bray. Extracts published: Cross, II, 121-123.
Thank you, dear, dear Cara, for your words of sympathy. And the things you tell me at the end of your note 330 are just such as I need to know -- I mean, about the help my book is to the people who read it.
The weight of my future life -- the self-questioning whether my nature will be able to meet the heavy demands upon it, both of personal duty and intellectual production, presses upon me almost continually in a way that prevents me even from tasting the quiet joy I might have in the work done. Buoyancy and exultation, I fancy, are out of the question, when one has lived so long as I have. But I am the better for every word of encouragement, and am helped over many days by such a note as yours.
I often think of my dreams when I was four or five and twenty. I thought then, how happy fame would make me! I feel no regret that the fame, as such, brings no pleasure, but it is a grief to me that I do not constantly feel strong in thankfulness that my past life has vindicated its uses, and given me reason for gladness that such an unpromising woman-child was born into the world. I ought not to care about small annoyances, and it is chiefly egoism that makes them annoyances.
Tell Sara, I won't write to her today, but I know she will like to hear that I had quite an enthusiastic letter from Herbert Spencer the other day about "Adam Bede." He says he feels the better for reading it -- really words to be treasured up.
I can't bear the idea of appearing further in the papers. And there is no one now except people who would not be convinced though one rose from the dead, to whom any statement 'e0 propos of Liggins would be otherwise than superfluous. I daresay some "investigator" of the
Bracebridge order will arise after I am dead, and revive the story -- and perhaps posterity will believe in Liggins. Why not? A man a little while ago wrote a pamphlet 331 to prove that the Waverley Novels were chiefly written not by Walter Scott, but by Thomas Scott and his wife Elizabeth: the main evidence being that several people thought Thomas cleverer than Walter, and that in the list of the Canadian regiment of Scots to which Thomas belonged, many of the names of the W. Novels occurred -- among the rest Monk -- and in Woodstock, there is a General Monk! The writer expected to get a great reputation by his pamphlet, and I think it might have suggested to Mr. B. his style of critical and historical inference. I hope you appreciated the Z. Taft (author of some book) "doubtless Feyther Taft." 332 And I must amuse you by describing to you the Rev. Geo. Hake, the supposed "original" of Mr. Irwine. In the earlier letter, I read it Rev. G. Hole, and so missed the merit of the parallel.
The Rev. Geo. Hake was originally a soldier who entered the church rather late in life. He was an evangelical preacher; very ugly, stuttering, and rather obese; very poor, and unscrupulous about getting into debt, which he did to a considerable extent; supposed to conceal some meanness under a rather excessive air of benevolence; and generally disrespected by his Staffordshire parishioners: the resemblance to Mr. Irwine is obvious.
I feel almost vexed now that we ever noticed Mr. Bracebridge -- the whole affair is so contemptible. But Mr. Lewes will write to get a distinct statement from him, now that he has once entered on the matter.
Tell Sara, I leave the decision about the portrait to her -- but I do not like it to be in a public place. 333
Ever thine
Marian.
I must tell you, in confidence, that Dickens has written to me the noblest, most touching words about '91Adam'92 -- not hyperbolical compliments, but expressions of deep feeling. He says the reading made an epoch in his life. Mind, I tell you in confidence.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Mrs. Charles Bray. Extracts published: Cross, II, 121-123.
Thank you, dear, dear Cara, for your words of sympathy. And the things you tell me at the end of your note 330 are just such as I need to know -- I mean, about the help my book is to the people who read it.
The weight of my future life -- the self-questioning whether my nature will be able to meet the heavy demands upon it, both of personal duty and intellectual production, presses upon me almost continually in a way that prevents me even from tasting the quiet joy I might have in the work done. Buoyancy and exultation, I fancy, are out of the question, when one has lived so long as I have. But I am the better for every word of encouragement, and am helped over many days by such a note as yours.
I often think of my dreams when I was four or five and twenty. I thought then, how happy fame would make me! I feel no regret that the fame, as such, brings no pleasure, but it is a grief to me that I do not constantly feel strong in thankfulness that my past life has vindicated its uses, and given me reason for gladness that such an unpromising woman-child was born into the world. I ought not to care about small annoyances, and it is chiefly egoism that makes them annoyances.
Tell Sara, I won't write to her today, but I know she will like to hear that I had quite an enthusiastic letter from Herbert Spencer the other day about "Adam Bede." He says he feels the better for reading it -- really words to be treasured up.
I can't bear the idea of appearing further in the papers. And there is no one now except people who would not be convinced though one rose from the dead, to whom any statement 'e0 propos of Liggins would be otherwise than superfluous. I daresay some "investigator" of the
Bracebridge order will arise after I am dead, and revive the story -- and perhaps posterity will believe in Liggins. Why not? A man a little while ago wrote a pamphlet 331 to prove that the Waverley Novels were chiefly written not by Walter Scott, but by Thomas Scott and his wife Elizabeth: the main evidence being that several people thought Thomas cleverer than Walter, and that in the list of the Canadian regiment of Scots to which Thomas belonged, many of the names of the W. Novels occurred -- among the rest Monk -- and in Woodstock, there is a General Monk! The writer expected to get a great reputation by his pamphlet, and I think it might have suggested to Mr. B. his style of critical and historical inference. I hope you appreciated the Z. Taft (author of some book) "doubtless Feyther Taft." 332 And I must amuse you by describing to you the Rev. Geo. Hake, the supposed "original" of Mr. Irwine. In the earlier letter, I read it Rev. G. Hole, and so missed the merit of the parallel.
The Rev. Geo. Hake was originally a soldier who entered the church rather late in life. He was an evangelical preacher; very ugly, stuttering, and rather obese; very poor, and unscrupulous about getting into debt, which he did to a considerable extent; supposed to conceal some meanness under a rather excessive air of benevolence; and generally disrespected by his Staffordshire parishioners: the resemblance to Mr. Irwine is obvious.
I feel almost vexed now that we ever noticed Mr. Bracebridge -- the whole affair is so contemptible. But Mr. Lewes will write to get a distinct statement from him, now that he has once entered on the matter.
Tell Sara, I leave the decision about the portrait to her -- but I do not like it to be in a public place. 333
Ever thine
Marian.
I must tell you, in confidence, that Dickens has written to me the noblest, most touching words about '91Adam'92 -- not hyperbolical compliments, but expressions of deep feeling. He says the reading made an epoch in his life. Mind, I tell you in confidence.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, [Wandsworth, 3? October? 1859], 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/93229