GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Devizes, [24 November 1843]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Devizes, [24 November 1843]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Devizes, [24 November 1843]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1843-11-24
Place
Devizes
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Devizes, [24 November 1843]
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: George Eliot and John Chapman, p. 24.
My dear Friend,
Your thrice blessed letter, delivered last night, has put me on the worst terms with myself. Why did you not scold me for being so ungratefully silent? Then I should have felt saucy and have been not at all penitent, as I am now. I have but one excuse. Although I told you that the Devizes air was good for me, I have been anything but well since I came, and after reading German for two hours to the Dr. I have often felt so faint as to be obliged to lie on the sofa until walking time and so my writing hours have slipped away. I am better now and shall try to earn as many sweet letters from you as my small store of modesty will allow.
Mrs. Hennell has been with us all this week as you supposed and she means to send you a little note in my envelope to tell you how happily her visit has passed. She is an excellent creature and will be a real treasure to you all. I have been very glad to resign part of my interest in her papa for a week, only keeping up my prescriptive right by a little occasional reading and walking, and consoling myself with the prospect of being a pis aller by and bye.
So you are going to have Mr. Donovan 495 and I shall miss my lessons from the arch-phrenologist! Never mind, I shall miss, too, being told that I have some very bad propensities and that my moral and animal regions are unfortunately balanced, all which is too true to be heard with calmness. 496
We are going to dine at Mr. Hughes's 497 this evening, so I am doomed to indigestion and whist, the latter of which I choose as a smaller evil than trying to be agreeable in spite of dame Nature and circumstances. Dr. Brabant spoils me for every one else, and the Trennung from such a companion will be very painful. He really is a finer character than you think. Beautifully sincere, conscientious and benevolent and every thing besides that one would have one's friends to be. He is just come to invite me to walk as a reward for the good character I am giving him. Give my love to Mr. Bray and believe that you have as much of that worthless commodity as I can give to any one being. I hardly know what I am writing.
Lebe wohl,
Mary Ann.
Devizes. Friday.
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: George Eliot and John Chapman, p. 24.
My dear Friend,
Your thrice blessed letter, delivered last night, has put me on the worst terms with myself. Why did you not scold me for being so ungratefully silent? Then I should have felt saucy and have been not at all penitent, as I am now. I have but one excuse. Although I told you that the Devizes air was good for me, I have been anything but well since I came, and after reading German for two hours to the Dr. I have often felt so faint as to be obliged to lie on the sofa until walking time and so my writing hours have slipped away. I am better now and shall try to earn as many sweet letters from you as my small store of modesty will allow.
Mrs. Hennell has been with us all this week as you supposed and she means to send you a little note in my envelope to tell you how happily her visit has passed. She is an excellent creature and will be a real treasure to you all. I have been very glad to resign part of my interest in her papa for a week, only keeping up my prescriptive right by a little occasional reading and walking, and consoling myself with the prospect of being a pis aller by and bye.
So you are going to have Mr. Donovan 495 and I shall miss my lessons from the arch-phrenologist! Never mind, I shall miss, too, being told that I have some very bad propensities and that my moral and animal regions are unfortunately balanced, all which is too true to be heard with calmness. 496
We are going to dine at Mr. Hughes's 497 this evening, so I am doomed to indigestion and whist, the latter of which I choose as a smaller evil than trying to be agreeable in spite of dame Nature and circumstances. Dr. Brabant spoils me for every one else, and the Trennung from such a companion will be very painful. He really is a finer character than you think. Beautifully sincere, conscientious and benevolent and every thing besides that one would have one's friends to be. He is just come to invite me to walk as a reward for the good character I am giving him. Give my love to Mr. Bray and believe that you have as much of that worthless commodity as I can give to any one being. I hardly know what I am writing.
Lebe wohl,
Mary Ann.
Devizes. Friday.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Devizes, [24 November 1843], 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/93233