GHL to Sir Arthur Helps, London, [28 February 1873]
Title
GHL to Sir Arthur Helps, London, [28 February 1873]
Title
GHL to Sir Arthur Helps, London, [28 February 1873]
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Sir Arthur Helps
Date(s)
- 1873-02-28
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Sir Arthur Helps, London, [28 February 1873]
MS: Nuneaton Public Library. Published: Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, ed. E.A. Helps, 1917, pp. 343-344.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Friday.
My dear Helps
So excellent a right had I to your book 138 -- a right grounded on my being one of those who would most sympathize with it -- that I had read nearly half of it before the second copy -- your's -- came to hand. I had been gurgling with suppressed laughter and emphasizing with pencil approbations -- at almost every page; and, having friends 139 to dinner yesterday, had nothing more pressing than to impart several of the [good things] as the conversation suggested them and after they had all departed to their virtuous, let us hope, beds, I found your letter had arrived. This morning the book itself arrived.
Of course you knew that I should like it, and of course also you knew that I should not have written certain parts better -- (at least of all the pages I have yet read) though confounded modesty makes you say so.
That scientific hypothesis of the genesis of Boys 140 is, to use the reviewer's phraseology, "worth the whole price of the volume." But it is the undercurrent of really serious thought which will give the book its lasting value, however much the lambent play of humour may brighten it. In the name of all the animals this animal lover thanks you!
Ever yours
G. H. L.
Have you seen [Nature] with the letters from Darwin, Wallace and others respecting hereditary hatred of butchers in a family of mastiffs? -- These letters were in the numbers 172 and 3 -- perhaps this week's 174 will contain more. 141
MS: Nuneaton Public Library. Published: Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, ed. E.A. Helps, 1917, pp. 343-344.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Friday.
My dear Helps
So excellent a right had I to your book 138 -- a right grounded on my being one of those who would most sympathize with it -- that I had read nearly half of it before the second copy -- your's -- came to hand. I had been gurgling with suppressed laughter and emphasizing with pencil approbations -- at almost every page; and, having friends 139 to dinner yesterday, had nothing more pressing than to impart several of the [good things] as the conversation suggested them and after they had all departed to their virtuous, let us hope, beds, I found your letter had arrived. This morning the book itself arrived.
Of course you knew that I should like it, and of course also you knew that I should not have written certain parts better -- (at least of all the pages I have yet read) though confounded modesty makes you say so.
That scientific hypothesis of the genesis of Boys 140 is, to use the reviewer's phraseology, "worth the whole price of the volume." But it is the undercurrent of really serious thought which will give the book its lasting value, however much the lambent play of humour may brighten it. In the name of all the animals this animal lover thanks you!
Ever yours
G. H. L.
Have you seen [Nature] with the letters from Darwin, Wallace and others respecting hereditary hatred of butchers in a family of mastiffs? -- These letters were in the numbers 172 and 3 -- perhaps this week's 174 will contain more. 141
Signature
G. H. L.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Sir Arthur Helps, London, [28 February 1873], 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/95020