GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 4 March 1872
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 4 March 1872
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 4 March 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Harriet Beecher S
Date(s)
- 1872-03-04
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 4 March 1872
MS: Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. Published: Cross, III, 152-154.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 4. 72.
Dear Friend
I can understand very easily that the two last years 468 have been full for you of other and more imperative work than the writing of letters not absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The proof that you still think of me affectionately is very welcome now it is come, and all the more cheering because it enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard -- your western Sorrento, the beloved Rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude -- as it always is to us when we go out of reach of London influences, and have the large space of country days to study, walk, and talk in. Last year we spent our summer months in Surrey and did not leave England. Unhappily the country was not so favourable to my bodily health as to my spiritual, and on our return to town I had an illness which was the climax of the summer's malaise. That illness robbed me of two months, and I have never quite recovered a condition in which the strict duties of the day are not felt as a weight. But just now we are having some clear spring days, and I am in hope of prospering better, the sunshine being to me the greatest visible good of life -- what I call the wealth of life, after love and trust.
When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books 469 if he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena reported or attested in connexion with ideas of spirit-intercourse, "psychism" and so on, have come before me here in the painful form of the lowest charlatanerie. Take Mr. Hume 470 as an example of what I mean. I would not choose to enter a room where he held a s'e9ance. He is an object of moral disgust to me, and nothing of late reported by Mr. Crookes, Lord Lindsay, and the rest carries conviction to my mind that Mr. Hume is not simply an impostor whose professedly abnormal manifestations have varied their fashion in order to create a new market, just as if they were papier m'e2ch'e9 wares or pommades for the idle rich. But apart from personal contact with people who get money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots such as those who make a court for a Mrs. Guppy 471 or other feminine personage of that kind, I would not willingly place any barrier between my mind and any possible channel of truth affecting the human lot.
The spirit in which you have written in the paper 472 you kindly sent me is likely to touch others and rouse them at least to attention in a case where you have been deeply impressed.
I write to you quite openly, dear friend, but very imperfectly, for my letters are always written in shreds of time, and this must only be taken as a stammering and hurried assurance that I am, and shall always be
Yours with sincere affection and gratitude
M. E. Lewes.
MS: Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. Published: Cross, III, 152-154.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 4. 72.
Dear Friend
I can understand very easily that the two last years 468 have been full for you of other and more imperative work than the writing of letters not absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The proof that you still think of me affectionately is very welcome now it is come, and all the more cheering because it enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard -- your western Sorrento, the beloved Rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude -- as it always is to us when we go out of reach of London influences, and have the large space of country days to study, walk, and talk in. Last year we spent our summer months in Surrey and did not leave England. Unhappily the country was not so favourable to my bodily health as to my spiritual, and on our return to town I had an illness which was the climax of the summer's malaise. That illness robbed me of two months, and I have never quite recovered a condition in which the strict duties of the day are not felt as a weight. But just now we are having some clear spring days, and I am in hope of prospering better, the sunshine being to me the greatest visible good of life -- what I call the wealth of life, after love and trust.
When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books 469 if he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena reported or attested in connexion with ideas of spirit-intercourse, "psychism" and so on, have come before me here in the painful form of the lowest charlatanerie. Take Mr. Hume 470 as an example of what I mean. I would not choose to enter a room where he held a s'e9ance. He is an object of moral disgust to me, and nothing of late reported by Mr. Crookes, Lord Lindsay, and the rest carries conviction to my mind that Mr. Hume is not simply an impostor whose professedly abnormal manifestations have varied their fashion in order to create a new market, just as if they were papier m'e2ch'e9 wares or pommades for the idle rich. But apart from personal contact with people who get money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots such as those who make a court for a Mrs. Guppy 471 or other feminine personage of that kind, I would not willingly place any barrier between my mind and any possible channel of truth affecting the human lot.
The spirit in which you have written in the paper 472 you kindly sent me is likely to touch others and rouse them at least to attention in a case where you have been deeply impressed.
I write to you quite openly, dear friend, but very imperfectly, for my letters are always written in shreds of time, and this must only be taken as a stammering and hurried assurance that I am, and shall always be
Yours with sincere affection and gratitude
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 4 March 1872, 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/93463