GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Earlswood Common, 16 July 1874
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Earlswood Common, 16 July 1874
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Earlswood Common, 16 July 1874
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon
Date(s)
- 1874-07-16
Place
Earlswood Common
Letter Content
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Earlswood Common, 16 July 1874
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Extracts published: Cross, III, 238-239, dated 17 July 1874.
The Cottage | Earlswood Common | July 16. 74.
Dearest Barbara
Your letter brings delightful news. I was in a resigned condition about you -- hoping as the best thing that you were gone on a painting expedition. But it is better that everybody should be good, and that there should be no ugly corners of anxiety in your mind. And the addition of the little Baby for you to rescue and befriend is also pretty. I like much better to hear of the children already born being taken care of, than to be asked to rejoice greatly because a new one is born.
Your picture of poor Miss E[dwards] 127 is deplorable. I cannot help thinking it a misfortune that she took to writing. But it seems that the only chance of her finding dignity and independence is that she should be left to extricate herself. That chlorale is a very pernicious thing to begin taking: the doctors say that women who begin with it never leave it off. 128
We enjoy our country peacefulness greatly, [5 lines deleted] George has had some headachiness, and for the last day or two it has been my turn to grumble, but I am very much stronger since I came into this pure air. I was a great wretch, you know, just before we left town.
And now I have two questions to ask of your benevolence. First, was there not some village near Stonehenge where you stayed the night? -- nearer to Stonehenge than Amesbury? -- Secondly, Do you know anything specific about Holmwood Common as a place of residence? It is ravishingly beautiful: is it in its higher part thoroughly unobjectionable as a site for a dwelling? I ask in reference to a house which is built on the higher part of the Common -- a thick-walled substantial house, but with no high trees round it. 129
We shall be very grateful if you will answer these questions, so far as you can, by a speedy post.
It seems that they have been having the heat of Tophet in London, whereas we have never had more than agreeable sunniness, this common being almost always breezy. And the country around us must I think, be the loveliest -- of its undulating woody kind -- in all England.
I remember when we were driving together last, something was said about my disposition to melancholy. I ought to have said then, but did not, that I am no longer one of those whom Dante found in a Hellborder because they had been sad under the blessed daylight. I am uniformly cheerful now -- feeling the preciousness of these moments in which I still possess love and thought.
I can't think who Mary Ewart 130 is. And do you know how our dear Mrs. Senior is tormented by the officials about her capital Report?
G. sends his love and I am
Always your faithful
M. E. L.
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Extracts published: Cross, III, 238-239, dated 17 July 1874.
The Cottage | Earlswood Common | July 16. 74.
Dearest Barbara
Your letter brings delightful news. I was in a resigned condition about you -- hoping as the best thing that you were gone on a painting expedition. But it is better that everybody should be good, and that there should be no ugly corners of anxiety in your mind. And the addition of the little Baby for you to rescue and befriend is also pretty. I like much better to hear of the children already born being taken care of, than to be asked to rejoice greatly because a new one is born.
Your picture of poor Miss E[dwards] 127 is deplorable. I cannot help thinking it a misfortune that she took to writing. But it seems that the only chance of her finding dignity and independence is that she should be left to extricate herself. That chlorale is a very pernicious thing to begin taking: the doctors say that women who begin with it never leave it off. 128
We enjoy our country peacefulness greatly, [5 lines deleted] George has had some headachiness, and for the last day or two it has been my turn to grumble, but I am very much stronger since I came into this pure air. I was a great wretch, you know, just before we left town.
And now I have two questions to ask of your benevolence. First, was there not some village near Stonehenge where you stayed the night? -- nearer to Stonehenge than Amesbury? -- Secondly, Do you know anything specific about Holmwood Common as a place of residence? It is ravishingly beautiful: is it in its higher part thoroughly unobjectionable as a site for a dwelling? I ask in reference to a house which is built on the higher part of the Common -- a thick-walled substantial house, but with no high trees round it. 129
We shall be very grateful if you will answer these questions, so far as you can, by a speedy post.
It seems that they have been having the heat of Tophet in London, whereas we have never had more than agreeable sunniness, this common being almost always breezy. And the country around us must I think, be the loveliest -- of its undulating woody kind -- in all England.
I remember when we were driving together last, something was said about my disposition to melancholy. I ought to have said then, but did not, that I am no longer one of those whom Dante found in a Hellborder because they had been sad under the blessed daylight. I am uniformly cheerful now -- feeling the preciousness of these moments in which I still possess love and thought.
I can't think who Mary Ewart 130 is. And do you know how our dear Mrs. Senior is tormented by the officials about her capital Report?
G. sends his love and I am
Always your faithful
M. E. L.
Signature
M. E. L.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Earlswood Common, 16 July 1874, 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/92986