GHL to Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, St. Mary's, 15 April 1857
Title
GHL to Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, St. Mary's, 15 April 1857
Title
GHL to Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, St. Mary's, 15 April 1857
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Date(s)
- 1857-04-15
Place
St. Mary's
Letter Content
GHL to Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, St. Mary's, 15 April 1857
MS: The John Rylands Library. Envelope: Mrs. Gaskell | Care of Mess. Smith Elder and Co. | Cornhill | London. Endorsed: 'abSeveral letters relating to the C.B. Life.'bb Geo. Henry Lewes. 61. Hitherto unpublished.
Scilly Isles | 15 April 1857.
Dear Mrs. Gaskell
I have just finished your "Life of Charlotte Bronte" 828 -- which has afforded exquisite delight to my evenings on this remote patch of rock, round which the Atlantic roars, and dashes like a troop of lions, making a solitude almost equal to Haworth moors -- quite equal, as far as any society I get here. If I had any public means of expressing my high sense of the skill, delicacy and artistic power of your Biography, I should not trouble you with this note. But it is a law of the literary organization that it must relieve itself in expression, and I discharge my emotion through the penny post; at least, such of it as was not discharged in wet eyes and swelling heart, as chapter after chapter was read.
The book will, I think, create a deep and permanent impression; for it not only presents a vivid picture of a life noble and sad, full of encouragement and healthy teaching, a lesson in duty and selfreliance; it also, thanks to its artistic power, makes us familiar inmates of an interior so strange, so original in its individual elements and so picturesque in its externals -- it paints for us at once the psychological drama and the scenic accessories with so much vividness -- that fiction has nothing more wild, touching, and heart-strengthening to place above it.
The early part is a triumph for you; the rest a monument for your friend. One learns to love Charlotte, and deeply to respect her. Emily has a singular fascination for me -- probably because I have a passion for lions and savage animals, and she was une b'eate fauve in power, splendour, and wildness. What an episode that death of hers! and how touching is Charlotte's search for the bit of heather which the glazed eyes could not recognize at last! 829 And what a bit of the true religion of home is the whole biography!
I have nothing but thanks for the way you have managed my slight episode. 830 There is however one thing I could have wished, -- and perhaps in a second edition, if your own judgement goes that way, you might insert a phrase respecting the [Edinburgh] article, intimating that it is not a disrespectful article to women, although maintaining that in the highest efforts of intellect women have not equalled men. 831 Lord Jeffrey 832 tampered with the article, as usual, and inserted some to me offensive sentences, but the main argument -- as far as I recollect it -- is complimentary to women, not disrespectful. As far as appears in this book I seem to have written an offensive article, not only one offensive on the personal ground but on the general ground. Is this so? And if not, would not a word from you intimate as much?
I am ashamed to trouble you with so small a matter; but as I did not object to Currer Bell's uncomplimentary passages appearing, you will not, I hope, think me oversensitive in wishing not to be misrepresented on a subject which I feel to be momentous. Believe me My dear Mrs. Gaskell
Ever truly yours,
G. H. Lewes.
MS: The John Rylands Library. Envelope: Mrs. Gaskell | Care of Mess. Smith Elder and Co. | Cornhill | London. Endorsed: 'abSeveral letters relating to the C.B. Life.'bb Geo. Henry Lewes. 61. Hitherto unpublished.
Scilly Isles | 15 April 1857.
Dear Mrs. Gaskell
I have just finished your "Life of Charlotte Bronte" 828 -- which has afforded exquisite delight to my evenings on this remote patch of rock, round which the Atlantic roars, and dashes like a troop of lions, making a solitude almost equal to Haworth moors -- quite equal, as far as any society I get here. If I had any public means of expressing my high sense of the skill, delicacy and artistic power of your Biography, I should not trouble you with this note. But it is a law of the literary organization that it must relieve itself in expression, and I discharge my emotion through the penny post; at least, such of it as was not discharged in wet eyes and swelling heart, as chapter after chapter was read.
The book will, I think, create a deep and permanent impression; for it not only presents a vivid picture of a life noble and sad, full of encouragement and healthy teaching, a lesson in duty and selfreliance; it also, thanks to its artistic power, makes us familiar inmates of an interior so strange, so original in its individual elements and so picturesque in its externals -- it paints for us at once the psychological drama and the scenic accessories with so much vividness -- that fiction has nothing more wild, touching, and heart-strengthening to place above it.
The early part is a triumph for you; the rest a monument for your friend. One learns to love Charlotte, and deeply to respect her. Emily has a singular fascination for me -- probably because I have a passion for lions and savage animals, and she was une b'eate fauve in power, splendour, and wildness. What an episode that death of hers! and how touching is Charlotte's search for the bit of heather which the glazed eyes could not recognize at last! 829 And what a bit of the true religion of home is the whole biography!
I have nothing but thanks for the way you have managed my slight episode. 830 There is however one thing I could have wished, -- and perhaps in a second edition, if your own judgement goes that way, you might insert a phrase respecting the [Edinburgh] article, intimating that it is not a disrespectful article to women, although maintaining that in the highest efforts of intellect women have not equalled men. 831 Lord Jeffrey 832 tampered with the article, as usual, and inserted some to me offensive sentences, but the main argument -- as far as I recollect it -- is complimentary to women, not disrespectful. As far as appears in this book I seem to have written an offensive article, not only one offensive on the personal ground but on the general ground. Is this so? And if not, would not a word from you intimate as much?
I am ashamed to trouble you with so small a matter; but as I did not object to Currer Bell's uncomplimentary passages appearing, you will not, I hope, think me oversensitive in wishing not to be misrepresented on a subject which I feel to be momentous. Believe me My dear Mrs. Gaskell
Ever truly yours,
G. H. Lewes.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, St. Mary's, 15 April 1857, 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/94931