GE to Martha Jackson, Foleshill, [October 1841]
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Foleshill, [October 1841]
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Foleshill, [October 1841]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Martha Jackson
Date(s)
- 1841-10
Place
FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Martha Jackson, Foleshill, [October 1841]
Text: Poet-Lore, 6 (April 1894), 183.
Coventry, 1841.
My very dear Ivy,
On reading your letter just now as a preparative to an answer I find sundry little ebullitions of suspicious feeling, indicating some distrust of my fidelity, and of my professing sufficient largeness of heart to form new attachments, and thus set up new images in the sculpture gallery of my affections without displacing those who have hitherto had an honourable niche there. I could play the interesting part of an injured person under all this injustice, but calmness and cordial forgiveness are the best proofs of innocence, and so these I will give you, begging you to accept as a memento of this same magnanimity of mine the little present that I entrust to the post. I am indeed, my dear Patty, much engaged. . . .
I have been reading the little memoir of Mrs. Rowton, 384 a person not probably unknown to you, and am shamestricken in having brought to my remembrance my own opportunities of benefitting others by conversation, writing, and the powerful eloquence of tacit obedience to the Divine precepts, and contrasting my use of them with that she made of every similar occasion. Much is said about the love of the beautiful, and the idea of perfection as a characteristic of the refined mind, and as being the spring of all high attainment in the triple sisterhood, painting, poetry, and music. But there is a more important application of the terms, a moral one, which I trust we shall ever have before our mind's eye -- the love of the beauty of holiness, and a continual yearning after a conformity to it, an habitual contemplation of Moral Perfection, and a dissatisfaction with all that falls short of that standard. These are sentiments that will issue in high attainments, in the best mode of exercising our imitative faculties; they will make us in some degree exemplars of whatsoever things are honest, pure, lovely, and of good report. 385 Let us never hear of or behold what is virtuous and holy without being stirred to new energy in its imitation; let us not be satisfied with a negative character, but seek to double the talents our Master has given us, remembering the great love wherewith He hath loved us, and the honour He has conferred on us by making us recipients of His treasures, that we may advance his glory in freely communicating what we have so freely received. . . .
Your affectionate
Clematis.
Text: Poet-Lore, 6 (April 1894), 183.
Coventry, 1841.
My very dear Ivy,
On reading your letter just now as a preparative to an answer I find sundry little ebullitions of suspicious feeling, indicating some distrust of my fidelity, and of my professing sufficient largeness of heart to form new attachments, and thus set up new images in the sculpture gallery of my affections without displacing those who have hitherto had an honourable niche there. I could play the interesting part of an injured person under all this injustice, but calmness and cordial forgiveness are the best proofs of innocence, and so these I will give you, begging you to accept as a memento of this same magnanimity of mine the little present that I entrust to the post. I am indeed, my dear Patty, much engaged. . . .
I have been reading the little memoir of Mrs. Rowton, 384 a person not probably unknown to you, and am shamestricken in having brought to my remembrance my own opportunities of benefitting others by conversation, writing, and the powerful eloquence of tacit obedience to the Divine precepts, and contrasting my use of them with that she made of every similar occasion. Much is said about the love of the beautiful, and the idea of perfection as a characteristic of the refined mind, and as being the spring of all high attainment in the triple sisterhood, painting, poetry, and music. But there is a more important application of the terms, a moral one, which I trust we shall ever have before our mind's eye -- the love of the beauty of holiness, and a continual yearning after a conformity to it, an habitual contemplation of Moral Perfection, and a dissatisfaction with all that falls short of that standard. These are sentiments that will issue in high attainments, in the best mode of exercising our imitative faculties; they will make us in some degree exemplars of whatsoever things are honest, pure, lovely, and of good report. 385 Let us never hear of or behold what is virtuous and holy without being stirred to new energy in its imitation; let us not be satisfied with a negative character, but seek to double the talents our Master has given us, remembering the great love wherewith He hath loved us, and the honour He has conferred on us by making us recipients of His treasures, that we may advance his glory in freely communicating what we have so freely received. . . .
Your affectionate
Clematis.
Signature
Clematis.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Martha Jackson, Foleshill, [October 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/92922