GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, [12 August 1841]
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, [12 August 1841]
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, [12 August 1841]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1841-08-12
Place
FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, [12 August 1841]
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 88-89.
Foleshill | Thursday Morning.
My very dear Veronica,
Do not, I beseech you, think of crowding your half day in London with my [levities] and [ponderosities.] I am ashamed to have asked so much and certainly should not have done it had I supposed you would have taken such a bird's flight through London. I shall not be disappointed but rather relieved if you send me word that you have rested after sailing from Margate, instead of spending nerve and muscle for me. If however you determine to make some purchases for me the plan you mention for conveying them would be decidedly the best. I had some similarly conveyed last year.
How should I love to join you at Margate now that you are alone! A few days of conversation would I believe set my crazy body right. In consequence of its slight ailments I have of late felt a depression that has disordered the vision of my mind's eye, and made me alive to what is certainly a fact though my imagination when I am in health is an adept at concealing it, that I am alone in the world. I do not mean to be so sinful as to say that I have not friends most undeservedly kind and tender and disposed to form a far too favorable estimate of me, but I mean that I have no one who enters into my pleasures or my griefs, no one with whom I can pour out my soul, no one with the same yearnings the same temptations the same delights as myself. This I do not murmur under -- I am too conscious of utter unworthiness to be otherwise than astonished at the multitude of my blessings, but I merely mention it as the impression that obtrudes itself when my body tramples on its keeper (a metaphor borrowed from a menagerie of wild beasts, if it should happen to puzzle you). Mysterious [connexion exquisite of distant worlds] 340 that we present! A few drops of steel 341 will perhaps make me laugh at the simple objects that in gloom and mist I conjure into stalking apparitions.
But my Veronica I would not speak of such feelings with a self-compassionating spirit. With sins to confess, and graces to implore, and duties to be done, I have no time for sentimental sorrows, and I ought not to admit them. Neither do I like to see that I have scribbled so much about myself -- a self so bountifully provided for [compared] to you, my dearest friend, who have substantial difficulties wherewith to combat. Pray regard all I have written as cancelled in my own mind. Yes we will be cheerful in the contemplation of all but sin in ourselves and our fellow beings. I would reserve all my grief for my transgressions, and continually remember that all but these come from God. I have lately been much impressed with the truth that in Him we live and move and have our being 342 -- that He is the primal source of glory, holiness, beauty -- the final 343 cause (words often uttered and written but not fathomed) of all in the worlds of matter and mind. Our text today [Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?] 344 is rich in association, from the company of apostolic Christians into whom it breathed moral courage to the last anticipated contest between good and evil. What words could we, on whom the ends of the world are come, select as a better description of the persecutions of avowedly heathen Rome, the virtually heathen Papacy, or the wilfully heathen conspirators of infidelity, whose motto was [Ecrasez l'Infame,] 345 than those which the holy Seer, a thousand years before the signal was given for Satan's mightiest, despairing efforts, uttered under the inspiration of that Spirit [who shews things to come.] It is time I ceased to tax your patience my Veronica and I will do so. May you be enriched with heavenly blessings and if it please God with a greater degree of earthly peace than hitherto.
Ever your true
Clematis.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 88-89.
Foleshill | Thursday Morning.
My very dear Veronica,
Do not, I beseech you, think of crowding your half day in London with my [levities] and [ponderosities.] I am ashamed to have asked so much and certainly should not have done it had I supposed you would have taken such a bird's flight through London. I shall not be disappointed but rather relieved if you send me word that you have rested after sailing from Margate, instead of spending nerve and muscle for me. If however you determine to make some purchases for me the plan you mention for conveying them would be decidedly the best. I had some similarly conveyed last year.
How should I love to join you at Margate now that you are alone! A few days of conversation would I believe set my crazy body right. In consequence of its slight ailments I have of late felt a depression that has disordered the vision of my mind's eye, and made me alive to what is certainly a fact though my imagination when I am in health is an adept at concealing it, that I am alone in the world. I do not mean to be so sinful as to say that I have not friends most undeservedly kind and tender and disposed to form a far too favorable estimate of me, but I mean that I have no one who enters into my pleasures or my griefs, no one with whom I can pour out my soul, no one with the same yearnings the same temptations the same delights as myself. This I do not murmur under -- I am too conscious of utter unworthiness to be otherwise than astonished at the multitude of my blessings, but I merely mention it as the impression that obtrudes itself when my body tramples on its keeper (a metaphor borrowed from a menagerie of wild beasts, if it should happen to puzzle you). Mysterious [connexion exquisite of distant worlds] 340 that we present! A few drops of steel 341 will perhaps make me laugh at the simple objects that in gloom and mist I conjure into stalking apparitions.
But my Veronica I would not speak of such feelings with a self-compassionating spirit. With sins to confess, and graces to implore, and duties to be done, I have no time for sentimental sorrows, and I ought not to admit them. Neither do I like to see that I have scribbled so much about myself -- a self so bountifully provided for [compared] to you, my dearest friend, who have substantial difficulties wherewith to combat. Pray regard all I have written as cancelled in my own mind. Yes we will be cheerful in the contemplation of all but sin in ourselves and our fellow beings. I would reserve all my grief for my transgressions, and continually remember that all but these come from God. I have lately been much impressed with the truth that in Him we live and move and have our being 342 -- that He is the primal source of glory, holiness, beauty -- the final 343 cause (words often uttered and written but not fathomed) of all in the worlds of matter and mind. Our text today [Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?] 344 is rich in association, from the company of apostolic Christians into whom it breathed moral courage to the last anticipated contest between good and evil. What words could we, on whom the ends of the world are come, select as a better description of the persecutions of avowedly heathen Rome, the virtually heathen Papacy, or the wilfully heathen conspirators of infidelity, whose motto was [Ecrasez l'Infame,] 345 than those which the holy Seer, a thousand years before the signal was given for Satan's mightiest, despairing efforts, uttered under the inspiration of that Spirit [who shews things to come.] It is time I ceased to tax your patience my Veronica and I will do so. May you be enriched with heavenly blessings and if it please God with a greater degree of earthly peace than hitherto.
Ever your true
Clematis.
Signature
Clematis.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, [12 August 1841], 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/92869