GHL to Alexander Main, London, 21 October 1871
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 21 October 1871
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 21 October 1871
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1871-10-21
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 21 October 1871
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
October 71.
My dear Sir
I fear that Mr. James Blackwood's sudden death will have prevented your visit to St. Andrews to see Mr. John Blackwood. However the scheme is all safe now and only minor details remain to be arranged.
Touching the size -- I think it best to reduce the extracts from "Adam Bede" rather than from the other works because that has been so much more widely read and reread.
Curiously enough before your letter came I was going to mention Jubal and Armgart to you. The former I consider one of her very finest works, brief though it is and we were both pleased though not surprised to see how it had laid hold of you. It is a pure myth -- and a myth of her own creation too, which few readers suspect. The fact is, it reads so like an old Saga that no suspicion arises as to its origin. -- What a passage that is about Death! 385 It was written under the shadow of a great grief, when our second boy in his 25th year passed away from us after six months of frightful agony.
Mrs. Lewes continues to mend, and has even got to work again, though feebly. She begs me to assure you that her silence is no defect of sympathy -- which assurance, I assure her, you assuredly do not need!
Yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
October 71.
My dear Sir
I fear that Mr. James Blackwood's sudden death will have prevented your visit to St. Andrews to see Mr. John Blackwood. However the scheme is all safe now and only minor details remain to be arranged.
Touching the size -- I think it best to reduce the extracts from "Adam Bede" rather than from the other works because that has been so much more widely read and reread.
Curiously enough before your letter came I was going to mention Jubal and Armgart to you. The former I consider one of her very finest works, brief though it is and we were both pleased though not surprised to see how it had laid hold of you. It is a pure myth -- and a myth of her own creation too, which few readers suspect. The fact is, it reads so like an old Saga that no suspicion arises as to its origin. -- What a passage that is about Death! 385 It was written under the shadow of a great grief, when our second boy in his 25th year passed away from us after six months of frightful agony.
Mrs. Lewes continues to mend, and has even got to work again, though feebly. She begs me to assure you that her silence is no defect of sympathy -- which assurance, I assure her, you assuredly do not need!
Yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Alexander Main, London, 21 October 1871, 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/94416