SD2654. George Henry Lewes to George Murray Smith

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 361 (in part).

[16 Blandford Square, N.W.]

[London]

Friday [?5 August] [1863]

My dear Smith

As you may imagine Maurice’s letter has made my dear wife supremely happy. …

One can no longer doubt the ultimate success of a book which can excite such feelings in such men. On all sides I hear intimations from above of the deep impression which the book creates. Lady Westmoreland is in a state of wild enthusiasm. Tennyson, chary of praise in general, is loud in praise. Browning says words cannot express what he feels about it. Monckton Milnes thinks it one of the grandest books ever written. …

Publication: The Letters of George Henry Lewes, ed. William Baker (Victoria, BC, 1995), II, 46–47.

Manuscript: National Library of Scotland.

___________________