John Blackwood to GE, London, 8 June 1857
Title
John Blackwood to GE, London, 8 June 1857
Title
John Blackwood to GE, London, 8 June 1857
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1857-06-08
Place
London
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GE, London, 8 June 1857
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Jermyn St. | June 8/57.
My Dear Sir
The first part of Janet's Repentance 894 of which I inclose proof rather puzzles me. It is exceedingly clever and some of the hits and descriptions of character are first rate, but I should have liked a pleasanter picture. Surely the colours are rather harsh for a sketch of English County Town life only 25 years ago. The glimpse at the end of the part shows that a powerful and pathetic story is coming and I rather wish you had plunged sooner into it instead of expending so much humour in the delineation of characters who do not seem likely to assist materially in the movement of the Story and who are not in themselves interesting.
The first scene especially I think you should shorten. It is deuced good but rather a staggerer in an opening scene of a Story of Clerical Life. Dempster is rather too barefaced a brute and I am sorry that the poor wife's sufferings should have driven her to so unsentimental a resource as beer. Still it is true to nature. The case is but too common, and I have no right to pass any opinion on this part of the story until I see more of it. I shall be very glad if in returning the proof you can send me a further portion of M.S. as I feel very confident that what is coming will more than dissipate the slight doubts I feel about the popular qualities of this first part.
I greatly regret not being able to give applause altogether unqualified, but I may mention a capital sign that both my brother and I liked it better on the second reading than on the first. For the meantime I feel certain that I am right in advising you to soften your picture as much as you can. Your sketches this time are all written in the harsher Thackerayan view of human nature, and I should have liked to have seen some of the good which at page 10 you so neatly indicate as existing at Milby. 895 When are you going to give us a really good active working clergyman, neither absurdly evangelical nor absurdly High Church?
The Scene at the Linnets 896 is capital. Thackeray is I think rather disposed to claim you as a disciple of his, and I daresay the beautiful touch about the flutter in the female hearts at page 17 is something in his style.
Since I last wrote I have been engaged in a regular series of London dinner parties which is the most knocking up work I know. I wish heartily I were with you in the Channel Islands instead of roasting in Jermyn St. I hear nothing but applause of the power of Gilfil. At Bulwer's the other night I was surprised by Lord Stanley 897 speaking to me most warmly about the series. I would not have thought it in his line. He was astounded when I told him that I did not know who the author was but would let the unknown know what he said.
Tell Lewes that I will write to him [in] a day or two with the proof of Sea Side Studies. The second paper from the hasty perusal I gave it in M.S. seemed to me very good indeed. I am afraid his Algerian friend will not do, but I mean to read him again.
I leave this on the morning of the 15th and go into Derbyshire for a day or two on my way home. If you find your answer will be with me here by the 15th address here, if not send packet to Edinburgh.
If my comments upon Janet disappoint you, consider that I am wrong and attribute my want of appreciation to a fortnight of hot weather and hotter dinners in London.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
G. Eliot Esq.
P.S. I have paid £22/10 into Lewes' account with Union Bank in acknowledgment of Gilfil Part IV.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Jermyn St. | June 8/57.
My Dear Sir
The first part of Janet's Repentance 894 of which I inclose proof rather puzzles me. It is exceedingly clever and some of the hits and descriptions of character are first rate, but I should have liked a pleasanter picture. Surely the colours are rather harsh for a sketch of English County Town life only 25 years ago. The glimpse at the end of the part shows that a powerful and pathetic story is coming and I rather wish you had plunged sooner into it instead of expending so much humour in the delineation of characters who do not seem likely to assist materially in the movement of the Story and who are not in themselves interesting.
The first scene especially I think you should shorten. It is deuced good but rather a staggerer in an opening scene of a Story of Clerical Life. Dempster is rather too barefaced a brute and I am sorry that the poor wife's sufferings should have driven her to so unsentimental a resource as beer. Still it is true to nature. The case is but too common, and I have no right to pass any opinion on this part of the story until I see more of it. I shall be very glad if in returning the proof you can send me a further portion of M.S. as I feel very confident that what is coming will more than dissipate the slight doubts I feel about the popular qualities of this first part.
I greatly regret not being able to give applause altogether unqualified, but I may mention a capital sign that both my brother and I liked it better on the second reading than on the first. For the meantime I feel certain that I am right in advising you to soften your picture as much as you can. Your sketches this time are all written in the harsher Thackerayan view of human nature, and I should have liked to have seen some of the good which at page 10 you so neatly indicate as existing at Milby. 895 When are you going to give us a really good active working clergyman, neither absurdly evangelical nor absurdly High Church?
The Scene at the Linnets 896 is capital. Thackeray is I think rather disposed to claim you as a disciple of his, and I daresay the beautiful touch about the flutter in the female hearts at page 17 is something in his style.
Since I last wrote I have been engaged in a regular series of London dinner parties which is the most knocking up work I know. I wish heartily I were with you in the Channel Islands instead of roasting in Jermyn St. I hear nothing but applause of the power of Gilfil. At Bulwer's the other night I was surprised by Lord Stanley 897 speaking to me most warmly about the series. I would not have thought it in his line. He was astounded when I told him that I did not know who the author was but would let the unknown know what he said.
Tell Lewes that I will write to him [in] a day or two with the proof of Sea Side Studies. The second paper from the hasty perusal I gave it in M.S. seemed to me very good indeed. I am afraid his Algerian friend will not do, but I mean to read him again.
I leave this on the morning of the 15th and go into Derbyshire for a day or two on my way home. If you find your answer will be with me here by the 15th address here, if not send packet to Edinburgh.
If my comments upon Janet disappoint you, consider that I am wrong and attribute my want of appreciation to a fortnight of hot weather and hotter dinners in London.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
G. Eliot Esq.
P.S. I have paid £22/10 into Lewes' account with Union Bank in acknowledgment of Gilfil Part IV.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GE, London, 8 June 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/95318