GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [19 May 1854]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [19 May 1854]
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [19 May 1854]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1854-05-19
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [19 May 1854]
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 322-323.
Cambridge Street | Friday.
Dear Cara
My various aches determined themselves into an attack of rheumatism which sent me to bed yesterday; but I am better this morning and, as you see, able to sit up and write. My troubles are purely psychical
"Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits dwell and roam apart" -- 470 and this seclusion is sometimes the most intensely felt at the very moment your friend is caressing you or consoling you. But this gradually becomes a source of satisfaction instead of repining. When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business -- that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to one's own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf that at mid-day there will be no trace of. This is no high-flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection which I find useful to me every day.
Tell Sara I did notice Hunt's picture, he being an immense admiration of mine, and that I did read Ruskin's letter. 471 I understand all the beauties Ruskin points out, and it is impossible to look at the picture without feeling the power there is in it -- but it is too mediaeval and pietistic to be rejoiced in as a product of the present age. At least that was my feeling on Monday; perhaps when I go again I may be more in harmony with it. There is one thing to make one laugh aloud at the Exhibition and that is a huge portrait of the Archb[isho]p of Canterbury 472 -- a head and face made all the more pitiably contemptible by the appareil of sanctified dignity which surrounds it. I wonder the clergy don't get up a "Society for the suppression of archiepiscopal portraits." They really are calculated to do as much harm to the Church as the Marquis of Blandford's bill. 473
Mr. Chapman has taken a house in Blandford Sq. 474 He had thought of a larger and more expensive one in Dorset Sq. which he would have taken if I would have become their lodger -- but I could not make up my mind to this for sundry reasons, though on many grounds I should like it.
I have had a nice letter from Chrissey this morning. Her two boys are suitably provided with situations, and Emily, the eldest girl is at school for a little while, so now she has only the three youngest at home.
Herbert Spencer is not quite recovered from his palpitations, but is better. He inquired after you all when he wrote.
I expect to see Mr. Lewes back again today. His poor head -- his only fortune -- is not well yet, and he has had the misery of being ennuy'e9 with idleness without perceiving the compensating improvement. Still I hope the good he has been getting has been greater than he has been conscious of.
Tell Sara I expect Feuerbach will be all in print by the end of next week and there are no skippings except such as have been made on very urgent grounds.
Mr. Atkinson called on Sunday and read me a letter of Harriet Martineau's denouncing "Vanity Fair" and reprobating his admiration of it. H.M. extols "Esmond" but thinks "Vanity Fair" a raking up of dirt and rotten eggs, a miserably mistaken criticism selon moi. The distinction drawn between Esmond and Vanity Fair seems to me quite unfounded. There is the same spirit -- there are the same characters in both -- Lady C. 475 is Amelia, Esmond is Dobbin, and Trix is Becky -- pure egoism -- in the one instance an adventures trying to become a great lady, in the other, a born great lady whose selfish duplicity consequently takes a different turn. There is not a pin to choose between them morally -- and yet they are as good as the mass of women -- only a little more clever and beautiful.
I don't think you will have read to the end, for the scribble is unreadable. But read and believe that I am ever
Your affectionate
Marian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 322-323.
Cambridge Street | Friday.
Dear Cara
My various aches determined themselves into an attack of rheumatism which sent me to bed yesterday; but I am better this morning and, as you see, able to sit up and write. My troubles are purely psychical
"Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits dwell and roam apart" -- 470 and this seclusion is sometimes the most intensely felt at the very moment your friend is caressing you or consoling you. But this gradually becomes a source of satisfaction instead of repining. When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business -- that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to one's own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf that at mid-day there will be no trace of. This is no high-flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection which I find useful to me every day.
Tell Sara I did notice Hunt's picture, he being an immense admiration of mine, and that I did read Ruskin's letter. 471 I understand all the beauties Ruskin points out, and it is impossible to look at the picture without feeling the power there is in it -- but it is too mediaeval and pietistic to be rejoiced in as a product of the present age. At least that was my feeling on Monday; perhaps when I go again I may be more in harmony with it. There is one thing to make one laugh aloud at the Exhibition and that is a huge portrait of the Archb[isho]p of Canterbury 472 -- a head and face made all the more pitiably contemptible by the appareil of sanctified dignity which surrounds it. I wonder the clergy don't get up a "Society for the suppression of archiepiscopal portraits." They really are calculated to do as much harm to the Church as the Marquis of Blandford's bill. 473
Mr. Chapman has taken a house in Blandford Sq. 474 He had thought of a larger and more expensive one in Dorset Sq. which he would have taken if I would have become their lodger -- but I could not make up my mind to this for sundry reasons, though on many grounds I should like it.
I have had a nice letter from Chrissey this morning. Her two boys are suitably provided with situations, and Emily, the eldest girl is at school for a little while, so now she has only the three youngest at home.
Herbert Spencer is not quite recovered from his palpitations, but is better. He inquired after you all when he wrote.
I expect to see Mr. Lewes back again today. His poor head -- his only fortune -- is not well yet, and he has had the misery of being ennuy'e9 with idleness without perceiving the compensating improvement. Still I hope the good he has been getting has been greater than he has been conscious of.
Tell Sara I expect Feuerbach will be all in print by the end of next week and there are no skippings except such as have been made on very urgent grounds.
Mr. Atkinson called on Sunday and read me a letter of Harriet Martineau's denouncing "Vanity Fair" and reprobating his admiration of it. H.M. extols "Esmond" but thinks "Vanity Fair" a raking up of dirt and rotten eggs, a miserably mistaken criticism selon moi. The distinction drawn between Esmond and Vanity Fair seems to me quite unfounded. There is the same spirit -- there are the same characters in both -- Lady C. 475 is Amelia, Esmond is Dobbin, and Trix is Becky -- pure egoism -- in the one instance an adventures trying to become a great lady, in the other, a born great lady whose selfish duplicity consequently takes a different turn. There is not a pin to choose between them morally -- and yet they are as good as the mass of women -- only a little more clever and beautiful.
I don't think you will have read to the end, for the scribble is unreadable. But read and believe that I am ever
Your affectionate
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, [19 May 1854], 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/93248