GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 21 December 1876
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 21 December 1876
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 21 December 1876
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1876-12-21
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 21 December 1876
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, 1883, pp. 172-173.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 21. 76.
Dear Cara
Your letter is quite precious to me, notwithstanding that there is much in it of a saddening kind -- I mean, about the bodily suffering and the prospect of more. But one would rather grieve with one's friends than have them grieving without one's knowing anything of it. -- I cannot quite agree that it is hard to see what has been the good of your life. It seems to me very clear that you have been a good of a kind that would have been sorely missed by those who have been nearest to you and also to some who are more distant. And it is this kind of good which must reconcile us to life -- not any answer to the question, [What would the universe have been without me?] The point one has to care for is, [Are A B and C the better for me?] And there are several letters of the alphabet that could not have easily spared you in the past and that can still less spare you in the present.
These returns of bronchitis must shake dear Sara very painfully and cannot but have a depressing effect on her mind as well as on her average bodily state. I trust that Mrs. Cash and other neighbours help you to cheer her by sympathetic attentions, but we have to face the terrible fact that, even where everything kind is done, there are periods in the majority of lives when pain dips the scale so low that comfort seems nought.
I am so glad to think that poor Frank Hennell's lot is brightened by his marriage and that the new niece's visit can be looked forward to with pleasure. A great load must have been lifted off Mrs. Call's mind, and she will perhaps now be able to settle down finally in England with a prospect of satisfaction. -- We too are thinking of a new settling down, for we have bought a house in Surrey about four miles from Godalming on a gravelly hill among the pine trees, but with neighbours to give us a sense of security. Our present idea is that we shall part with this house and give up London except for occasional visits. We shall be on the same line of railway with some good friends at Weybridge and Guildford.
George Dawson was strongly associated for me with Rosehill -- not to speak of the general Baptist Chapel where we all heard him preach for the first time (to us). And do you remember Mr. R. R. R. Moore? 581 His son has come to the border of my scenery as a friend of Madame Bodichon's. I have not seen him, but she thinks most highly of his character and powers. He is an anatomist. I have a vivid recollection of an evening when Mr. and Mrs. Flower dined at your house with George Dawson when he was going to lecture at the Mechanics' Institute, and you felt compassionately towards him because you thought the rather riotous talk was a bad preface to his lecture. We have a Birmingham friend 582 whose acquaintance we made many years ago in Weimar, and from him I have occasionally had some news of Mr. Dawson. I feared -- what you mention -- that his life had been a little too strenuous in these latter years.
The [Sir Charles Grandison] you are reading must be the series of little fat volumes you lent me to carry to the Isle of Wight, 583 where I read it at every interval when my father did not want me, and was sorry that the long novel was not longer. It is a solace to hear of any one's reading and enjoying Richardson. We have fallen on an evil generation who would not read [Clarissa] even in an abridged form. The French have been its most enthusiastic admirers, but I don't know whether their present admiration is more than traditional, like their set phrases about their own classics.
I don't know what you refer to in the [Jewish World.] Perhaps the report of Dr. Hermann Adler's Lecture on Deronda to the Jewish Working
Men, given in the Times. Probably the Dr. Adler whom you saw is Dr. Hermann's father, still living as Chief Rabbi. I have had some delightful communications from Jews and Jewesses both at home and abroad. Part of the club scene in D. D. is flying about in the Hebrew tongue through the various Hebrew newspapers which have been copying the [Magid,] in which the translation was first sent to me three months ago. The Jews naturally are not indifferent to themselves.
The other night 584 we went to hear the Bach Choir, a society of Ladies and Gentlemen got together by Jenny Lind, who sings in the middle of them, her husband acting as conductor. It is pretty to see people who might be nothing but empty fashionables taking pains to sing fine music in tune and time with more or less success. One of the baritones we know is a Grosvenor 585 who used to be a swell guardsman, and has happily taken to good courses while still quite young. Another is a handsome young Gurney 586 -- not of the unsatisfactory Co. but of the Russell Gurney kin. A soprano is Mrs. Ponsonby -- wife of the Queen's Secretary, General P. -- the granddaughter of Earl Grey and just like him in the face. And so on. These people of "high" birth are certainly reforming themselves a little.
Mr. Lewes has just come up to me after reading your letter and says, "For God's sake, tell her not to have the photograph reproduced!" -- and I had nearly forgotten to say that the fading is what I desired. I should not like the image to be perpetuated. It needs the friendly eyes that regret to see it fade, and must not be recalled into emphatic black and white for indifferent gazers. Pray let it finally vanish.
Please give my best love to Mrs. Cash and dear Mrs. Pears, who often returns to my thought because of my fear that she has had some heart-troubles about her daughter. Do let me know the good news when the Sydenham house is let, and do not forget your promise that you will not suffer any lack which I could hinder -- you know, I mean lack of comforts for that difficult breath, such as might come from a sense that expensiveness obliged renunciation. With much affection all round,
Yours always
Marian.
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, 1883, pp. 172-173.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 21. 76.
Dear Cara
Your letter is quite precious to me, notwithstanding that there is much in it of a saddening kind -- I mean, about the bodily suffering and the prospect of more. But one would rather grieve with one's friends than have them grieving without one's knowing anything of it. -- I cannot quite agree that it is hard to see what has been the good of your life. It seems to me very clear that you have been a good of a kind that would have been sorely missed by those who have been nearest to you and also to some who are more distant. And it is this kind of good which must reconcile us to life -- not any answer to the question, [What would the universe have been without me?] The point one has to care for is, [Are A B and C the better for me?] And there are several letters of the alphabet that could not have easily spared you in the past and that can still less spare you in the present.
These returns of bronchitis must shake dear Sara very painfully and cannot but have a depressing effect on her mind as well as on her average bodily state. I trust that Mrs. Cash and other neighbours help you to cheer her by sympathetic attentions, but we have to face the terrible fact that, even where everything kind is done, there are periods in the majority of lives when pain dips the scale so low that comfort seems nought.
I am so glad to think that poor Frank Hennell's lot is brightened by his marriage and that the new niece's visit can be looked forward to with pleasure. A great load must have been lifted off Mrs. Call's mind, and she will perhaps now be able to settle down finally in England with a prospect of satisfaction. -- We too are thinking of a new settling down, for we have bought a house in Surrey about four miles from Godalming on a gravelly hill among the pine trees, but with neighbours to give us a sense of security. Our present idea is that we shall part with this house and give up London except for occasional visits. We shall be on the same line of railway with some good friends at Weybridge and Guildford.
George Dawson was strongly associated for me with Rosehill -- not to speak of the general Baptist Chapel where we all heard him preach for the first time (to us). And do you remember Mr. R. R. R. Moore? 581 His son has come to the border of my scenery as a friend of Madame Bodichon's. I have not seen him, but she thinks most highly of his character and powers. He is an anatomist. I have a vivid recollection of an evening when Mr. and Mrs. Flower dined at your house with George Dawson when he was going to lecture at the Mechanics' Institute, and you felt compassionately towards him because you thought the rather riotous talk was a bad preface to his lecture. We have a Birmingham friend 582 whose acquaintance we made many years ago in Weimar, and from him I have occasionally had some news of Mr. Dawson. I feared -- what you mention -- that his life had been a little too strenuous in these latter years.
The [Sir Charles Grandison] you are reading must be the series of little fat volumes you lent me to carry to the Isle of Wight, 583 where I read it at every interval when my father did not want me, and was sorry that the long novel was not longer. It is a solace to hear of any one's reading and enjoying Richardson. We have fallen on an evil generation who would not read [Clarissa] even in an abridged form. The French have been its most enthusiastic admirers, but I don't know whether their present admiration is more than traditional, like their set phrases about their own classics.
I don't know what you refer to in the [Jewish World.] Perhaps the report of Dr. Hermann Adler's Lecture on Deronda to the Jewish Working
Men, given in the Times. Probably the Dr. Adler whom you saw is Dr. Hermann's father, still living as Chief Rabbi. I have had some delightful communications from Jews and Jewesses both at home and abroad. Part of the club scene in D. D. is flying about in the Hebrew tongue through the various Hebrew newspapers which have been copying the [Magid,] in which the translation was first sent to me three months ago. The Jews naturally are not indifferent to themselves.
The other night 584 we went to hear the Bach Choir, a society of Ladies and Gentlemen got together by Jenny Lind, who sings in the middle of them, her husband acting as conductor. It is pretty to see people who might be nothing but empty fashionables taking pains to sing fine music in tune and time with more or less success. One of the baritones we know is a Grosvenor 585 who used to be a swell guardsman, and has happily taken to good courses while still quite young. Another is a handsome young Gurney 586 -- not of the unsatisfactory Co. but of the Russell Gurney kin. A soprano is Mrs. Ponsonby -- wife of the Queen's Secretary, General P. -- the granddaughter of Earl Grey and just like him in the face. And so on. These people of "high" birth are certainly reforming themselves a little.
Mr. Lewes has just come up to me after reading your letter and says, "For God's sake, tell her not to have the photograph reproduced!" -- and I had nearly forgotten to say that the fading is what I desired. I should not like the image to be perpetuated. It needs the friendly eyes that regret to see it fade, and must not be recalled into emphatic black and white for indifferent gazers. Pray let it finally vanish.
Please give my best love to Mrs. Cash and dear Mrs. Pears, who often returns to my thought because of my fear that she has had some heart-troubles about her daughter. Do let me know the good news when the Sydenham house is let, and do not forget your promise that you will not suffer any lack which I could hinder -- you know, I mean lack of comforts for that difficult breath, such as might come from a sense that expensiveness obliged renunciation. With much affection all round,
Yours always
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 21 December 1876, 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/93285