GHL to Alexander Main, [Redhill], 17 August 1872
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, [Redhill], 17 August 1872
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, [Redhill], 17 August 1872
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1872-08-17
Place
[Redhill]
Letter Content
GHL to Alexander Main, [Redhill], 17 August 1872
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
August 72.
My dear Main
You don't know what a relief to our anxiety was brought by your first letter! Your silence seemed only interpretable as caused by illness -- and it made us feel how near you had become to us! The idea of your being away did keep anxiety in check -- but then we said "Surely he would have letters forwarded?"
Mrs. Lewes keeps in a shaky state -- there is no hope for strength now, until the book is finished, but that will be I trust in about three weeks. We leave this for the Priory on the 28th.
Your appreciation of all the points in Part V is as usual keen and sympathetic. By the way you are one capable of solving a doubt which has been raised. An old friend of hers -- her translator into French -- writes to say that Middlemarch is more difficult in style than Felix Holt, and Felix was more so than Silas or Adam. Now is this because he is getting older and his faculties less alert, or is it the fact that there is any appreciable change? We of course cannot see it -- we do not see the changes in our person so obvious to others -- but if it is there you surely will perceive it.
Thank you very much for mentioning the Contemporary Review. I should probably never have heard of it -- for Mrs. Lewes's friends all know that she abstains from reading criticisms on her works and therefore they abstain from alluding to them. I was delighted with the article -- moved to tears in fact -- and read some of the passages to her much to her comfort and sustainment.
Ever yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
August 72.
My dear Main
You don't know what a relief to our anxiety was brought by your first letter! Your silence seemed only interpretable as caused by illness -- and it made us feel how near you had become to us! The idea of your being away did keep anxiety in check -- but then we said "Surely he would have letters forwarded?"
Mrs. Lewes keeps in a shaky state -- there is no hope for strength now, until the book is finished, but that will be I trust in about three weeks. We leave this for the Priory on the 28th.
Your appreciation of all the points in Part V is as usual keen and sympathetic. By the way you are one capable of solving a doubt which has been raised. An old friend of hers -- her translator into French -- writes to say that Middlemarch is more difficult in style than Felix Holt, and Felix was more so than Silas or Adam. Now is this because he is getting older and his faculties less alert, or is it the fact that there is any appreciable change? We of course cannot see it -- we do not see the changes in our person so obvious to others -- but if it is there you surely will perceive it.
Thank you very much for mentioning the Contemporary Review. I should probably never have heard of it -- for Mrs. Lewes's friends all know that she abstains from reading criticisms on her works and therefore they abstain from alluding to them. I was delighted with the article -- moved to tears in fact -- and read some of the passages to her much to her comfort and sustainment.
Ever yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Alexander Main, [Redhill], 17 August 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/94376