Mixed bag, today’s to-do list. I have to write about Valerie Fletcher’s secret wedding and all the reasons and connections that have been missed. It’s extraordinary to me, but a fact of life, that biographers have never asked obvious questions about the Eliot story. In real life, with real people they know, even the stuffiest academic would think to ask. It seems that every word falling from the lips of Eliot, or Valerie, or anyone speaking or writing about them, is treated as accurate. Which is silly. Why would they be more truthful than the average person? Perhaps it’s that commitment to text that so misleads historians. It is definitely a problem with the reading of letters: there is an assumption that the words in a letter are accurate and composed truthfully. While in truth a letter was often an instrument of persuasion, or reassurance. Think of a young person writing home to a parent about all the work they are doing during the study-abroad year, with nary a mention of the drinking and sex.
