GE to Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, London, 7 May 1869
Title
GE to Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, London, 7 May 1869
Title
GE to Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, London, 7 May 1869
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope
Date(s)
- 1869-05-07
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, London, 7 May 1869
MS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Address: Mrs. Trollope | Villa Trollope | Florence. Postmark: LONDON-N.W |A4 | MY 7 | 69. Hitherto unpublished.
North Bank | St. John's Wood | May 7. 69.
Dear Mrs. Trollope
Mr. Lewes never ceased studying Bradshaw and making new combinations till we started from Paris. 52 The result was, that we reached home just at the time he had predetermined when we were at Florence, but not quite in the predetermined way. Pity us when I tell you that after traveling from Munich to Strasburg we were goaded on to Paris the same night by the miserable accident of having, at Ulm, got into the same carriage with an acquaintance 53 from whom George has been at great pains to guard me in London -- a man who refutes the musty stuff about heroes and valets de chambre by telling you that he himself has always been a hero in his private circle and that on inquiry you will find this to be really the case -- thinks that you have read all his reviews of your books and yet is prepared to recite the reviews for your further benefit. This valet-proof hero was returning from his wedding tour with his second wife and evidently expected to go to the same hotel with us at Strasburg. "Are you prepared to go on to Paris tonight?" said George to me in a low, fatal tone. "You know the alternative." So we went on, and having arrived at our favourite, quiet H'f4tel Choiseul before our letter, and at 'bd past 5 in the morning, we found no rooms, drove to four other h'f4tels and found none and at last went in despair to the H'f4tel du Louvre which we both dislike supremely. I shudder to think that in a few years to come one's traveling abroad might be nothing but a whirling about Europe in express trains in horror of companions whom London enables me to avoid.
We went to Ravenna and to the Spada d'Oro where I am persuaded that we were attended on by your famous waiter. We had a boiled fowl brought us, which Mr. Lewes blasphemously declares to be better worth going to see than all the mosaics: it lay on the dish with its head turned down in a martyr-like fashion; its body was yellow and blue, indicating some barbarous punishment of which being plucked and put into the pot alive was probably the finished climax. Mr. Lewes speaks with more piety of the Pineta, and going thither we saw one thing which I fear you could not see in your visit -- a pool full of water lilies opening in the sunshine. We rested at Verona, too, and gladdened ourselves with the sight of our favourite San Zenone and the dear marble monsters outside the cathedral.
What we saw of the Brenner pass in the first four hours of our journey made us regret that the arrangements about our luggage (or something else, for my Providence is mysterious) prevented our staying at
Botzen, and starting again by daylight. On changing carriages we got into one where the sole occupants were a lady and gentleman who turned out to be Mr. Lever 54 and his daughter. They had started from Trieste that morning and were going on to Paris without pause. The daughter is a bright girl of twenty, with a friendly German look in her face. We of course quitted them at Munich, to seek rest which we found in all comfort and luxury at the Baierischer Hof.
And now you have a sufficiently complete survey of our course after we went on our way from your hospitable doors and you saw us no more. There is something sad in saying that since I left the other side of the Alps I have been getting better and recovering a little more of my usual self (not that I mean to pretend my usual self to be anything very delightful). On the whole I look a little less like the Boiled Fowl of Ravenna than I did when I was afflicting your kind eyes. I can enjoy my friends' goodness to me more now, in thinking of it gratefully, than I could in those headachy moments when I was immediately experiencing it. I was too foolish and hysterical when I was leaving you to say one word. And yet, in spite of all, my last two visits to Florence will be reckoned among my "pleasant times" -- filled with friendliness. Mr. Lewes was altogether flourishing till he got a touch of rheumatism again from standing in a temple of the winds to have his luggage not examined on our arrival at Charing Cross. He will by and by write to Mr. Trollope and tell all his own news. There was nothing worth going to see in the theatres at Paris; but the first night of a new pi'e8ce by the younger Dumas was in immediate prospect. (Here Mr. Trollope groans.)
Among my letters was a really noble one from Harriet Beecher Stowe, who is personally unknown to me. She makes a happy picture of herself -- "We live in an orange grove, and are planting an orange grove" -- that is to say, at her son's place in Florida where she is now staying. She writes in a most loveable, womanly tone. I have nothing else to tell you, for we have not yet seen any one. The weather is damp and we rejoice in fires throughout the day -- this may be information worth having when you are impatient under your unbroken sunshine, if you are fond of that singular consolation, the knowledge that others are worse off than you.
Best love to Bice, and more reverential regards to Mr. Trollope. Pity that these dispositions which it is so pleasant to feel should look so good-for-nothing and matter-of-course at the end of a letter! Write me a sentence or two when Mr. Trollope has occasion to write, and believe me dear Mrs. Trollope,
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Address: Mrs. Trollope | Villa Trollope | Florence. Postmark: LONDON-N.W |A4 | MY 7 | 69. Hitherto unpublished.
North Bank | St. John's Wood | May 7. 69.
Dear Mrs. Trollope
Mr. Lewes never ceased studying Bradshaw and making new combinations till we started from Paris. 52 The result was, that we reached home just at the time he had predetermined when we were at Florence, but not quite in the predetermined way. Pity us when I tell you that after traveling from Munich to Strasburg we were goaded on to Paris the same night by the miserable accident of having, at Ulm, got into the same carriage with an acquaintance 53 from whom George has been at great pains to guard me in London -- a man who refutes the musty stuff about heroes and valets de chambre by telling you that he himself has always been a hero in his private circle and that on inquiry you will find this to be really the case -- thinks that you have read all his reviews of your books and yet is prepared to recite the reviews for your further benefit. This valet-proof hero was returning from his wedding tour with his second wife and evidently expected to go to the same hotel with us at Strasburg. "Are you prepared to go on to Paris tonight?" said George to me in a low, fatal tone. "You know the alternative." So we went on, and having arrived at our favourite, quiet H'f4tel Choiseul before our letter, and at 'bd past 5 in the morning, we found no rooms, drove to four other h'f4tels and found none and at last went in despair to the H'f4tel du Louvre which we both dislike supremely. I shudder to think that in a few years to come one's traveling abroad might be nothing but a whirling about Europe in express trains in horror of companions whom London enables me to avoid.
We went to Ravenna and to the Spada d'Oro where I am persuaded that we were attended on by your famous waiter. We had a boiled fowl brought us, which Mr. Lewes blasphemously declares to be better worth going to see than all the mosaics: it lay on the dish with its head turned down in a martyr-like fashion; its body was yellow and blue, indicating some barbarous punishment of which being plucked and put into the pot alive was probably the finished climax. Mr. Lewes speaks with more piety of the Pineta, and going thither we saw one thing which I fear you could not see in your visit -- a pool full of water lilies opening in the sunshine. We rested at Verona, too, and gladdened ourselves with the sight of our favourite San Zenone and the dear marble monsters outside the cathedral.
What we saw of the Brenner pass in the first four hours of our journey made us regret that the arrangements about our luggage (or something else, for my Providence is mysterious) prevented our staying at
Botzen, and starting again by daylight. On changing carriages we got into one where the sole occupants were a lady and gentleman who turned out to be Mr. Lever 54 and his daughter. They had started from Trieste that morning and were going on to Paris without pause. The daughter is a bright girl of twenty, with a friendly German look in her face. We of course quitted them at Munich, to seek rest which we found in all comfort and luxury at the Baierischer Hof.
And now you have a sufficiently complete survey of our course after we went on our way from your hospitable doors and you saw us no more. There is something sad in saying that since I left the other side of the Alps I have been getting better and recovering a little more of my usual self (not that I mean to pretend my usual self to be anything very delightful). On the whole I look a little less like the Boiled Fowl of Ravenna than I did when I was afflicting your kind eyes. I can enjoy my friends' goodness to me more now, in thinking of it gratefully, than I could in those headachy moments when I was immediately experiencing it. I was too foolish and hysterical when I was leaving you to say one word. And yet, in spite of all, my last two visits to Florence will be reckoned among my "pleasant times" -- filled with friendliness. Mr. Lewes was altogether flourishing till he got a touch of rheumatism again from standing in a temple of the winds to have his luggage not examined on our arrival at Charing Cross. He will by and by write to Mr. Trollope and tell all his own news. There was nothing worth going to see in the theatres at Paris; but the first night of a new pi'e8ce by the younger Dumas was in immediate prospect. (Here Mr. Trollope groans.)
Among my letters was a really noble one from Harriet Beecher Stowe, who is personally unknown to me. She makes a happy picture of herself -- "We live in an orange grove, and are planting an orange grove" -- that is to say, at her son's place in Florida where she is now staying. She writes in a most loveable, womanly tone. I have nothing else to tell you, for we have not yet seen any one. The weather is damp and we rejoice in fires throughout the day -- this may be information worth having when you are impatient under your unbroken sunshine, if you are fond of that singular consolation, the knowledge that others are worse off than you.
Best love to Bice, and more reverential regards to Mr. Trollope. Pity that these dispositions which it is so pleasant to feel should look so good-for-nothing and matter-of-course at the end of a letter! Write me a sentence or two when Mr. Trollope has occasion to write, and believe me dear Mrs. Trollope,
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, London, 7 May 1869, 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/93704