GE to John Sibree Jr., [Foleshill, 8 March 1848]
Title
GE to John Sibree Jr., [Foleshill, 8 March 1848]
Title
GE to John Sibree Jr., [Foleshill, 8 March 1848]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Sibree, Jr.
Date(s)
- 1848-03-08
Place
Foleshill
Letter Content
GE to John Sibree Jr., [Foleshill, 8 March 1848]
Text: Copy (by Mary Sibree Cash?), Yale. Endorsed: Feby 1848? Mostly published: Cross, I, 178-183.
Wednesday.
Write and tell you that I join you in your happiness about the French Revolution? Very fine, my good friend. If I made you wait for a letter as long as you do me, our little échantillon of a Millennium would be over. Satan would be let loose again, and I should have to share your humiliation instead of your triumph. Natheless I absolve you, for the sole merit of thinking rightly (that is, of course, just as I do) about la grande nation and its doings. You and Carlyle (have you seen his article in last week's Examiner?) 710 are the only two people who feel just as I would have them -- who can glory in what is actually great and beautiful without putting forth any cold reservations and incredulities to save their credit for wisdom. I am all the more delighted with your enthusiasm because I didn't expect it. I feared that you lacked revolutionary ardour. But no -- you are just as sansculottish and rash as I would have you. You are not one of those sages whose reason keeps so tight a rein on their emotions that they are too constantly occupied in calculating consequences to rejoice in any great manifestation of the forces that underlie our everyday existence. I should have written a soprano to your Jubilate the very next day, but that, lest I should be exalted above measure, 711 a messenger of Satan was sent in the guise of a headache and directly on the back of that a face-ache, so that I have been a mere victim of sensations memories and visions for the last week. I am even now, as you may imagine, in a very shattered limbo-like mental condition -- but I remember you are very fond of feminine dependence and stupidity, so I have some chance of your admiration.
I thought we had fallen on such evil days that we were to see no really great movement -- that ours was what St. Simon calls a purely critical epoch, not at all an organic one 712 -- but I begin to be glad of my date. I would consent, however, to have a year clipt off my life for the sake of witnessing such a scene as that of the men of the barricade bowing to the image of Christ "who first taught fraternity to men." One trembles to look into every fresh newspaper lest there should be something to mar the picture; but hitherto even the scoffing newspaper critics have been compelled into a tone of genuine respect for the French people and the Provisional Government. Lamartine 713 can act a poem if he cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pictoral newspaper is really his, it is worthy of an aureole. I am chiefly anxious about Albert, the operative, 714 but his picture is not to be seen. I have little patience with people who can find time to pity Louis Philippe and his moustachioed sons. 715 Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pensioned off: we should have a hospital for them, or a sort of Zoological Garden, where these wornout humbugs may be preserved. 716 It is but justice that we should keep them, since we have spoiled them for any honest trade. Let them sit on soft cushions and have their dinner regularly, but for heaven's sake preserve me from sentimentalizing over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies. Surely he is not so Ahab-like as to wish that the revolution had been deferred till his son's days; 717 and I think the shades of the Stuarts would have some reason to complain if the Bourbons who are so little better than they, had been allowed to reign much longer.
I should have no hope of good from any imitative movement at home. Our working classes are eminently inferior to the mass of the French people. In France, the mind of the people is highly electrified -- they are full of ideas on social subjects -- they really desire social reform -- not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favourite proverb "Yesterday for you, to-day for me." 718 The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and embraced the rural population -- not merely as with us, the artisans of the towns. Here there is so much larger a proportion of selfish radicalism and unsatisfied, brute sensuality (in the agricultural and mining districts especially) than of perception or desire of justice, that a revolutionary movement would be simply destructive -- not constructive. Besides, it would be put down. Our military have no notion of "fraternizing." They have the same sort of inveteracy as dogs have for the ill-drest canaille. They are as mere a brute force as a battering ram and the aristocracy have got firm hold of them. Our little humbug of a queen is more endurable than the rest of her race because she calls forth a chivalrous feeling, 719 and there is nothing in our constitution to obstruct the slow progress of political reform. This is all we are fit for at present. The social reform which may prepare us for great changes is more and more the object of effort both in Parliament and out of it. But we English are slow crawlers. The sympathy in Ireland seems at present only of the water toast kind. The Glasgow riots 720 are more serious, but one cannot believe in a Scotch Reign of Terror in these days. I should not be sorry to hear that the Italians had risen en masse and chased the odious Austrians out of beautiful Lombardy. 721 But this they could hardly do without help, and that involves another European war. But I am writing in utter misery with toothache and headache and the greasiest of pens -- and all to give you the trouble of reading what is not worth that compliment.
Concerning the "tent-making," there is much more to be said; but am I to adopt your rule and never speak of what I suppose we agree about? That would turn out altogether wrong, mon ami. It is necessary to me, not simply to be but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends. What is it to me that I think the same thoughts? I think them in a somewhat different fashion. No mind that has any real life is a mere echo of another. If the perfect unison comes occasionally, as in music, it enhances the harmonies. It is like a diffusion or expansion of one's own life to be assured that its vibrations are repeated in another, and words are the media of those vibrations. How can you say that music must end in silence? Is not the universe itself a perpetual utterance of the One Being? I want you to write me a Confession of Faith -- not merely what you believe but why you believe it. I have no right in the world to make such a request, but your goodness will give me more than my mere right. Never mind what you write to me -- your letters shall be quite sacred, and you see I write any nonsense that can come into a poor woman's brain to you.
I wish you would burn my letters when you have read them once through, and then you would not have time to find out how good for nothing they are, and there would be no risk of a critical third pair of eyes getting a sight of them, which would certainly be a death blow to my reputation for gravity and wisdom -- not that I am very careful in this matter -- for this bump of cautiousness with which nature has furnished me is of very little use to me. But I will be as careful for you as if I were ultra-cautious on my own behalf, so I say again utter, utter, utter, and it will be a deed of mercy twice blest, for I shall be a safety-valve for your communicativeness and prevent it from splitting honest peoples' brains who don't understand you and moreover it will be fraught with ghostly comfort to me. Forgive me for writing to you when I am hardly able to write rationally, and accept it as the more gracious alternative -- rather than remaining silent another week.
Ever your sincere friend
Mary Ann Evans.
Text: Copy (by Mary Sibree Cash?), Yale. Endorsed: Feby 1848? Mostly published: Cross, I, 178-183.
Wednesday.
Write and tell you that I join you in your happiness about the French Revolution? Very fine, my good friend. If I made you wait for a letter as long as you do me, our little échantillon of a Millennium would be over. Satan would be let loose again, and I should have to share your humiliation instead of your triumph. Natheless I absolve you, for the sole merit of thinking rightly (that is, of course, just as I do) about la grande nation and its doings. You and Carlyle (have you seen his article in last week's Examiner?) 710 are the only two people who feel just as I would have them -- who can glory in what is actually great and beautiful without putting forth any cold reservations and incredulities to save their credit for wisdom. I am all the more delighted with your enthusiasm because I didn't expect it. I feared that you lacked revolutionary ardour. But no -- you are just as sansculottish and rash as I would have you. You are not one of those sages whose reason keeps so tight a rein on their emotions that they are too constantly occupied in calculating consequences to rejoice in any great manifestation of the forces that underlie our everyday existence. I should have written a soprano to your Jubilate the very next day, but that, lest I should be exalted above measure, 711 a messenger of Satan was sent in the guise of a headache and directly on the back of that a face-ache, so that I have been a mere victim of sensations memories and visions for the last week. I am even now, as you may imagine, in a very shattered limbo-like mental condition -- but I remember you are very fond of feminine dependence and stupidity, so I have some chance of your admiration.
I thought we had fallen on such evil days that we were to see no really great movement -- that ours was what St. Simon calls a purely critical epoch, not at all an organic one 712 -- but I begin to be glad of my date. I would consent, however, to have a year clipt off my life for the sake of witnessing such a scene as that of the men of the barricade bowing to the image of Christ "who first taught fraternity to men." One trembles to look into every fresh newspaper lest there should be something to mar the picture; but hitherto even the scoffing newspaper critics have been compelled into a tone of genuine respect for the French people and the Provisional Government. Lamartine 713 can act a poem if he cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pictoral newspaper is really his, it is worthy of an aureole. I am chiefly anxious about Albert, the operative, 714 but his picture is not to be seen. I have little patience with people who can find time to pity Louis Philippe and his moustachioed sons. 715 Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pensioned off: we should have a hospital for them, or a sort of Zoological Garden, where these wornout humbugs may be preserved. 716 It is but justice that we should keep them, since we have spoiled them for any honest trade. Let them sit on soft cushions and have their dinner regularly, but for heaven's sake preserve me from sentimentalizing over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies. Surely he is not so Ahab-like as to wish that the revolution had been deferred till his son's days; 717 and I think the shades of the Stuarts would have some reason to complain if the Bourbons who are so little better than they, had been allowed to reign much longer.
I should have no hope of good from any imitative movement at home. Our working classes are eminently inferior to the mass of the French people. In France, the mind of the people is highly electrified -- they are full of ideas on social subjects -- they really desire social reform -- not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favourite proverb "Yesterday for you, to-day for me." 718 The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and embraced the rural population -- not merely as with us, the artisans of the towns. Here there is so much larger a proportion of selfish radicalism and unsatisfied, brute sensuality (in the agricultural and mining districts especially) than of perception or desire of justice, that a revolutionary movement would be simply destructive -- not constructive. Besides, it would be put down. Our military have no notion of "fraternizing." They have the same sort of inveteracy as dogs have for the ill-drest canaille. They are as mere a brute force as a battering ram and the aristocracy have got firm hold of them. Our little humbug of a queen is more endurable than the rest of her race because she calls forth a chivalrous feeling, 719 and there is nothing in our constitution to obstruct the slow progress of political reform. This is all we are fit for at present. The social reform which may prepare us for great changes is more and more the object of effort both in Parliament and out of it. But we English are slow crawlers. The sympathy in Ireland seems at present only of the water toast kind. The Glasgow riots 720 are more serious, but one cannot believe in a Scotch Reign of Terror in these days. I should not be sorry to hear that the Italians had risen en masse and chased the odious Austrians out of beautiful Lombardy. 721 But this they could hardly do without help, and that involves another European war. But I am writing in utter misery with toothache and headache and the greasiest of pens -- and all to give you the trouble of reading what is not worth that compliment.
Concerning the "tent-making," there is much more to be said; but am I to adopt your rule and never speak of what I suppose we agree about? That would turn out altogether wrong, mon ami. It is necessary to me, not simply to be but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends. What is it to me that I think the same thoughts? I think them in a somewhat different fashion. No mind that has any real life is a mere echo of another. If the perfect unison comes occasionally, as in music, it enhances the harmonies. It is like a diffusion or expansion of one's own life to be assured that its vibrations are repeated in another, and words are the media of those vibrations. How can you say that music must end in silence? Is not the universe itself a perpetual utterance of the One Being? I want you to write me a Confession of Faith -- not merely what you believe but why you believe it. I have no right in the world to make such a request, but your goodness will give me more than my mere right. Never mind what you write to me -- your letters shall be quite sacred, and you see I write any nonsense that can come into a poor woman's brain to you.
I wish you would burn my letters when you have read them once through, and then you would not have time to find out how good for nothing they are, and there would be no risk of a critical third pair of eyes getting a sight of them, which would certainly be a death blow to my reputation for gravity and wisdom -- not that I am very careful in this matter -- for this bump of cautiousness with which nature has furnished me is of very little use to me. But I will be as careful for you as if I were ultra-cautious on my own behalf, so I say again utter, utter, utter, and it will be a deed of mercy twice blest, for I shall be a safety-valve for your communicativeness and prevent it from splitting honest peoples' brains who don't understand you and moreover it will be fraught with ghostly comfort to me. Forgive me for writing to you when I am hardly able to write rationally, and accept it as the more gracious alternative -- rather than remaining silent another week.
Ever your sincere friend
Mary Ann Evans.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Sibree Jr., [Foleshill, 8 March 1848], Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/92814