GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 30 October 1839
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 30 October 1839
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 30 October 1839
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1839-10-30
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 30 October 1839
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | The Revd L. Harper's | Burton Latimer | Northamptonshire. Postmark: COVENTRY | OC 30 | 1839. Hitherto unpublished.
Griff October 30th 1839.
My very dear Friend,
An interview I had with Mrs. Buchanan this morning has given a spur to my desire of convincing you that in my profession, at least as much was meant as met the ear, though I have given you reason to suspect the contrary. If you knew the clouds and meteors that have appeared above my little horizon since I had your letter you would not be surprized that my attention has been wholly occupied by them. Though I have fetched a metaphor from the sky I confess that my troubles referred to have been of a very grovelling nature, but for that very reason they constitute the discipline most suitable for me and best fitted to elicit my manifold conceptions. "Any cross but this," we generally are tempted to say, forgetting that the irritability we are exhibiting is a clear proof that no other trial would answer the purpose, the merciful purpose of the Great Lord of the Vineyard, who digs about his choice plants, and loosens the earth from around their roots that the breezes of heaven may be more effective with them. What a curse would it prove for us to have our own way, even in the fruit of our best efforts, those in which we are in a measure seeking the glory of God, still more in the regulation of our worldly circumstances. If I were truly spiritually minded I should rather delight in an occasion of proving to myself the genuineness of my religious experience and of exercising a cheerful submission to the will of my Saviour, instead of acting as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, murmuring at the slightest opposition to my taste, the slightest mortification of my fleshly mind. I want to feel what St. Paul so strikingly expresses: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again." 145 Here is the all-powerful lever or rather the magnet that can alone lift our souls heavenward or quicken our steps in the paths of righteousness; it is for want of this, of a continual "looking to Jesus" as my "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" 146 that makes my character and conduct so chequered, and my mind a stranger to the continuous enjoyment of that peace that no man can take from its possessors.
You, too, my dear Friend, are just now undergoing some chastisement of a far more severe and real kind than mine. Would that I were one of those well instructed scribes that can bring from their treasure things old and new, and offer to others the same comfort wherewith they themselves have been comforted of God. As it is I know no better way of counteracting such troubles as I fear are yours than just that of looking out of ourselves to the approaching changes that are coming over the scene of things throughout the world, realizing our situation as one of a multitude that no man can number, whom God, if we are His children, is rescuing at an inconceivable expense (if I may so speak,) of Providential agency as well as redeeming and sanctifying Grace, from the common mass of corruption, humbly seeking for a fellowship in design with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and by taking an enlarged view of material and immaterial existences, representing to ourselves our insignificance among them while we remember that this does not hinder even the hairs of our head from being numbered, 147 nor cause us to be so overlooked as to be without the chastisement of which all the true offspring of God are partakers. Again it is, as I have no doubt you have found it, good to look within at the aggravated evils that lurk there and seek for utter prostration of spirit.
Both Mrs. Buchanan and Mrs. T. Bull have begged me to send their kind love to you; the former is in her usual style busy preparing for the reception of Queen Adelaide. 148 The latter has nothing in particular to say and therefore will not write at present but Mrs. Buchanan will do so as soon as her bustle is over. Will you not give me the parings of your time at Christmas? I shall try to be offended with you if you do not. Badly written as my former letters have been I am inclined to think this will carry off the palm and be pronounced preeminent in illegibility. I have truly written fast and with a disagreeable pen: I want you to make me some of your good ones. With much love
Yours faithfully
Mary Ann Evans.
Hardened as I am by evil habits I positively cannot look at my letter now that candles are come in without shame. I will not tax you thus again.
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | The Revd L. Harper's | Burton Latimer | Northamptonshire. Postmark: COVENTRY | OC 30 | 1839. Hitherto unpublished.
Griff October 30th 1839.
My very dear Friend,
An interview I had with Mrs. Buchanan this morning has given a spur to my desire of convincing you that in my profession, at least as much was meant as met the ear, though I have given you reason to suspect the contrary. If you knew the clouds and meteors that have appeared above my little horizon since I had your letter you would not be surprized that my attention has been wholly occupied by them. Though I have fetched a metaphor from the sky I confess that my troubles referred to have been of a very grovelling nature, but for that very reason they constitute the discipline most suitable for me and best fitted to elicit my manifold conceptions. "Any cross but this," we generally are tempted to say, forgetting that the irritability we are exhibiting is a clear proof that no other trial would answer the purpose, the merciful purpose of the Great Lord of the Vineyard, who digs about his choice plants, and loosens the earth from around their roots that the breezes of heaven may be more effective with them. What a curse would it prove for us to have our own way, even in the fruit of our best efforts, those in which we are in a measure seeking the glory of God, still more in the regulation of our worldly circumstances. If I were truly spiritually minded I should rather delight in an occasion of proving to myself the genuineness of my religious experience and of exercising a cheerful submission to the will of my Saviour, instead of acting as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, murmuring at the slightest opposition to my taste, the slightest mortification of my fleshly mind. I want to feel what St. Paul so strikingly expresses: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again." 145 Here is the all-powerful lever or rather the magnet that can alone lift our souls heavenward or quicken our steps in the paths of righteousness; it is for want of this, of a continual "looking to Jesus" as my "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" 146 that makes my character and conduct so chequered, and my mind a stranger to the continuous enjoyment of that peace that no man can take from its possessors.
You, too, my dear Friend, are just now undergoing some chastisement of a far more severe and real kind than mine. Would that I were one of those well instructed scribes that can bring from their treasure things old and new, and offer to others the same comfort wherewith they themselves have been comforted of God. As it is I know no better way of counteracting such troubles as I fear are yours than just that of looking out of ourselves to the approaching changes that are coming over the scene of things throughout the world, realizing our situation as one of a multitude that no man can number, whom God, if we are His children, is rescuing at an inconceivable expense (if I may so speak,) of Providential agency as well as redeeming and sanctifying Grace, from the common mass of corruption, humbly seeking for a fellowship in design with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and by taking an enlarged view of material and immaterial existences, representing to ourselves our insignificance among them while we remember that this does not hinder even the hairs of our head from being numbered, 147 nor cause us to be so overlooked as to be without the chastisement of which all the true offspring of God are partakers. Again it is, as I have no doubt you have found it, good to look within at the aggravated evils that lurk there and seek for utter prostration of spirit.
Both Mrs. Buchanan and Mrs. T. Bull have begged me to send their kind love to you; the former is in her usual style busy preparing for the reception of Queen Adelaide. 148 The latter has nothing in particular to say and therefore will not write at present but Mrs. Buchanan will do so as soon as her bustle is over. Will you not give me the parings of your time at Christmas? I shall try to be offended with you if you do not. Badly written as my former letters have been I am inclined to think this will carry off the palm and be pronounced preeminent in illegibility. I have truly written fast and with a disagreeable pen: I want you to make me some of your good ones. With much love
Yours faithfully
Mary Ann Evans.
Hardened as I am by evil habits I positively cannot look at my letter now that candles are come in without shame. I will not tax you thus again.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 30 October 1839, 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/92913