GE TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL, GENEVA, 20 AUGUST [1849]
Title
GE TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL, GENEVA, 20 AUGUST [1849]
Title
GE TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL, GENEVA, 20 AUGUST [1849]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL
Date(s)
- 1849-08-20
Place
GENEVA
Letter Content
GE TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL, GENEVA, 20 AUGUST [1849]
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre | Voie de France. Postmarks: GENEVE | 21 AOUT | 49 | 10'bd M; COVENTRY | AU 24 | 1849 | D. Extracts published: Cross, I, 213-216.
Plongeon August 20th. Monday.
Dear Friends
I have no head for writing today for I have been keeping my bed for the last three days -- but I must remember that writing to you is like ringing a bell hung in the planet Jupiter -- it is so weary a while before one's letters reach. I have been positively sickening for want of my boxes and anxiety to hear of my relations. Your kind letter of this morning has quieted the latter a little, but my boxes alas! have not appeared. Do not be alarmed about my health. I have only had a terrible headache prolonged in fact by the assiduities of the good people here -- for the first day I lay in bed I had the whole female world of Plongeon in my bedroom, and talked so incessantly that I was unable to sleep after it -- the consequence, as you may imagine, was that the next day I was very much worse -- but I am getting better, and indeed it was worth while to be ill to have so many kind attentions.
There is a fresh German family from Frankfort here just now -- Mde. Cornelius and her children. She is the daughter of the richest banker in Frankfort and, what is better, full of heart and mind with a face that tells you so before she opens her lips. She has more reading than the Marquise, being German and Protestant, and it is a real refreshment to talk to her for half an hour.
The dear Marquise is a truly devout Catholic -- it is beautiful to hear her speak of the comfort she has in the confessional -- for our t'eates-'e0-t'eate have lately turned on religious matters. She says, I am in a "mauvaise voie sans le rapport de la religion. Peut-'eatre vous vous marierez -- et le mariage, ch'e8re amie, sans la foi religieuse --" She says I have isolated myself by my studies -- that I am too cold and have too little confidence in the feelings of others towards me -- that I do not believe how deep an interest she has conceived in my lot. She says Signor Goldrini (the young Italian who was here for a week) told her when he had been talking to me one evening -- Vous aimerez cette demoiselle, j'en suis s'fbr -- and she has found his prediction true. Their residence is a short distance from Turin. They were obliged to escape from Piedmont because her brother-in-law the Duke de Visconti 813 was proscribed and the St. Germains were accused of harbouring him. An amnesty has been obtained and they are leaving for their own country on Wednesday. She hopes I shall go to Italy and see her, and when I tell her that I have no faith that she will remember me long enough for me to venture on paying her a visit if ever I should go to Italy again, she shakes her head at my incredulity. She was born at Genoa, where there are two palaces belonging to her family -- one close to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Carignano from which we had the view of the city. Her father 814 was three years Sardinian Minister at Constantinople before she was married, and she speaks with enthusiasm of her life there -- C'est l'e0 le pays de la vraie poésie -- o'f9 l'on sent ce que c'est que de vivre par le coeur. The gouvernante of Mde. Cornelius's little girl is an excellent person, simple in her manners and very intelligent.
M. de Herder is returned from M. Rosa, with a face and mouth such as we had at Chamouni. He would be a nice person if he had another soul added to the one he has by nature -- the soul that comes by sorrow and love. I stole his book while he was gone -- the 1 volume of Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years. 815 It contains a very interesting account of the 3 days of July 1830. His brother is coming to join him, so I hope he will not go at present.
Two other young Germans 816 -- Prussians -- are here -- the eldest odious, with an eternal simper and a mouth of dubious cleanliness. He speaks French very little and has a miserable splutter between a grunt and a snuffle so that when he begins to speak to one one's brain begins to twist and one feels inclined to rush out of the room. His brother frowns instead of simpering and is therefore more endurable. I gave a description of them something like this to M. de Herder the first night he came back. I found to my dismay that he knew them -- however he disclaimed any friendship for them. After all they are very harmless young men and I fancy very rich -- [so the world will love its own.] 817 Then we have a family from Holland, gone now on an excursion to Chamouni, but coming back.
I hardly know yet whether I shall like this place well enough to stay here through the winter. I have been under the disadvantage of wanting all on which I chiefly depend -- my books, etc. When I have been here another month I shall be better able to judge. When you write, have the goodness to send me the names of McCracken's agents, 818 and also the number of Miss Massy's residence in the Rue St. Honoré. Mlle. Elise the housekeeper has been away on account of her health for the last fortnight and Mariane the housemaid has been sent away ill. Matters have gone on all the worse, for poor Mde. de Valli'e8re is not the best manager in the world. But perhaps there will be an alteration for the better by and bye.
Tell Fanny just the opposite of what you have told her -- tell her never to let her husband entertain any project of living on the continent. He would be miserable and by consequence she would too. There is just as much "world" here as in England -- just as many eyes are on you -- and one requires the utmost flexibility of mind and feeling to render intercourse tolerable. Poor Mrs. Locke, who is a thorough Englishwoman and can only speak French negro-fashion, begins to tire sadly of the bows and [Bonjours] and [Pardons.] Yet she has no intention of returning to England. She has had very bitter trials which seem to be driving her more and more aloof from society. She has not yet had courage to tell me herself what these trials are, but I have heard from Mlle. Rosa that her daughter married one of the French noblesse. 819 The match was in every way highly advantageous -- the husband excellent, fortune considerable. They lived happily for some time -- she had two little girls -- when an accursed cousin of the husband's came in the way and caused a separation within the last year. Mrs. Locke is one of the Heads -- the same family as that of Sir Francis Head. Her brother Major Head wrote an "Overland Journey from India" 820 which you may have seen. She has multitudes of relations in England, but I suppose shame at her daughter's disgrace makes all her old associations painful. No one likes her here -- simply because her manners are brusque and her French incomprehensible. She means to go to Bex for economy.
Why does Fanny say she trusts to Isaac's writing to me? Will not she write too? I shall be very ready to write to every one when every one has written to me, but I require warming up by letters first. Tell Miss Sibree my address and beg her to write to me all about herself, and to write on thin paper. Poor dear Cara -- to have had so much trouble about my muff and tippet -- after all I remember that they are in a chest of drawers lined with cedar which I have lent to Chrissey. I hope you managed to get in the black velvet dress. The people dress and think about dressing here more even than in England. You would not know me if you saw me. The Marquise took on her the office of femme de chambre and drest my hair one day. She has abolished all my curls and made two things stick out on each side of my head, like those on the head of the Sphinx. All the world says I look infinitely better so I comply, though to myself I seem uglier than ever -- if possible. Mr. Prévost has not been again -- but I do not care much about it. I have enough of monde here. In fact that becomes one of the disagreeables. If people like one they buzz round one like flies round a sugar basin, and neither one's heart nor one's vanity inclines one to make oneself odious for the sake of being left in quiet. I am fidgeted to death about my boxes, and that tiresome man not to acknowledge the receipt of them. I make no apology for writing all my peevishnesses and follies, because I want you to do the same -- to let me know everything about you, to the aching of your fingers -- and you tell me very little.
Dear Sara -- Thank you for your scrap of L.E.L. 821 I have been invoking the French muse for the Marquise's album -- since she would fain have something and it must not be in English which she cannot understand. It will make you smile -- so I write it.
As tu vu la lune se lever Dans un ciel d'azur sans voile? Mille gouttes de rosée réflechissent Sa lumi'e8re, comme autant d'étoiles. Un violet du printemps cueilles Et le caches bien dans ton sein, De la delicieuse odeur Tu et tes v'eatements seront pleins. Ainsi lorsqu'une belle 'e2me se montre Elle rev'eatit tant de ses charmes: -- Ainsi son souvenir gardons Quoique, hélas! il tire nos larmes.
I thought it would have done admirably to put in Moli'e8re's Misanthrope or Precieuses ridicules. But the thought, dear soul, is a very true one, above all when I apply it to you. Receive it as just what I am feeling and thinking about you. Love me ever in spite of everything, dear friends, and believe
Your loving
Pollian.
Dear Mr. Hennell! Give him my heartiest affectionate remembrances. Tell him I find no one here so spirituel as he -- there are no better jokes going than I can make myself. Mrs. Hennell and Mrs. C. Hennell too -- all are remembered -- if even I have only seen them in England.
A thousand loves to Mrs. Pears. Ask her to write to me. Tell her to write to me as she used to talk to me -- to fancy she is walking with me. My sympathy with Mr. P. under his heavy trials. Send some one to Geneva to call upon me, that I may have the pleasure of talking to one who is not a Plongeonite.
Many many thanks for the trouble you have taken about my luggage. I shall be particularly glad of the newspaper 822 for I never see anything here except daily French papers which one might spend one's day in reading. Have you heard anything of Froude 823 again or of any one else worth hearing about? I am afraid you have not received the German books since you say nothing about them.
I have been interrupted by the Marquise who has been talking to me for the last hour about going to Italy -- she is sure I should be happier in Italy than anywhere else -- that England is not good for me etc. etc. I am tired to death and can write no more. My boxes, my boxes! I dream of them night and day.
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre | Voie de France. Postmarks: GENEVE | 21 AOUT | 49 | 10'bd M; COVENTRY | AU 24 | 1849 | D. Extracts published: Cross, I, 213-216.
Plongeon August 20th. Monday.
Dear Friends
I have no head for writing today for I have been keeping my bed for the last three days -- but I must remember that writing to you is like ringing a bell hung in the planet Jupiter -- it is so weary a while before one's letters reach. I have been positively sickening for want of my boxes and anxiety to hear of my relations. Your kind letter of this morning has quieted the latter a little, but my boxes alas! have not appeared. Do not be alarmed about my health. I have only had a terrible headache prolonged in fact by the assiduities of the good people here -- for the first day I lay in bed I had the whole female world of Plongeon in my bedroom, and talked so incessantly that I was unable to sleep after it -- the consequence, as you may imagine, was that the next day I was very much worse -- but I am getting better, and indeed it was worth while to be ill to have so many kind attentions.
There is a fresh German family from Frankfort here just now -- Mde. Cornelius and her children. She is the daughter of the richest banker in Frankfort and, what is better, full of heart and mind with a face that tells you so before she opens her lips. She has more reading than the Marquise, being German and Protestant, and it is a real refreshment to talk to her for half an hour.
The dear Marquise is a truly devout Catholic -- it is beautiful to hear her speak of the comfort she has in the confessional -- for our t'eates-'e0-t'eate have lately turned on religious matters. She says, I am in a "mauvaise voie sans le rapport de la religion. Peut-'eatre vous vous marierez -- et le mariage, ch'e8re amie, sans la foi religieuse --" She says I have isolated myself by my studies -- that I am too cold and have too little confidence in the feelings of others towards me -- that I do not believe how deep an interest she has conceived in my lot. She says Signor Goldrini (the young Italian who was here for a week) told her when he had been talking to me one evening -- Vous aimerez cette demoiselle, j'en suis s'fbr -- and she has found his prediction true. Their residence is a short distance from Turin. They were obliged to escape from Piedmont because her brother-in-law the Duke de Visconti 813 was proscribed and the St. Germains were accused of harbouring him. An amnesty has been obtained and they are leaving for their own country on Wednesday. She hopes I shall go to Italy and see her, and when I tell her that I have no faith that she will remember me long enough for me to venture on paying her a visit if ever I should go to Italy again, she shakes her head at my incredulity. She was born at Genoa, where there are two palaces belonging to her family -- one close to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Carignano from which we had the view of the city. Her father 814 was three years Sardinian Minister at Constantinople before she was married, and she speaks with enthusiasm of her life there -- C'est l'e0 le pays de la vraie poésie -- o'f9 l'on sent ce que c'est que de vivre par le coeur. The gouvernante of Mde. Cornelius's little girl is an excellent person, simple in her manners and very intelligent.
M. de Herder is returned from M. Rosa, with a face and mouth such as we had at Chamouni. He would be a nice person if he had another soul added to the one he has by nature -- the soul that comes by sorrow and love. I stole his book while he was gone -- the 1 volume of Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years. 815 It contains a very interesting account of the 3 days of July 1830. His brother is coming to join him, so I hope he will not go at present.
Two other young Germans 816 -- Prussians -- are here -- the eldest odious, with an eternal simper and a mouth of dubious cleanliness. He speaks French very little and has a miserable splutter between a grunt and a snuffle so that when he begins to speak to one one's brain begins to twist and one feels inclined to rush out of the room. His brother frowns instead of simpering and is therefore more endurable. I gave a description of them something like this to M. de Herder the first night he came back. I found to my dismay that he knew them -- however he disclaimed any friendship for them. After all they are very harmless young men and I fancy very rich -- [so the world will love its own.] 817 Then we have a family from Holland, gone now on an excursion to Chamouni, but coming back.
I hardly know yet whether I shall like this place well enough to stay here through the winter. I have been under the disadvantage of wanting all on which I chiefly depend -- my books, etc. When I have been here another month I shall be better able to judge. When you write, have the goodness to send me the names of McCracken's agents, 818 and also the number of Miss Massy's residence in the Rue St. Honoré. Mlle. Elise the housekeeper has been away on account of her health for the last fortnight and Mariane the housemaid has been sent away ill. Matters have gone on all the worse, for poor Mde. de Valli'e8re is not the best manager in the world. But perhaps there will be an alteration for the better by and bye.
Tell Fanny just the opposite of what you have told her -- tell her never to let her husband entertain any project of living on the continent. He would be miserable and by consequence she would too. There is just as much "world" here as in England -- just as many eyes are on you -- and one requires the utmost flexibility of mind and feeling to render intercourse tolerable. Poor Mrs. Locke, who is a thorough Englishwoman and can only speak French negro-fashion, begins to tire sadly of the bows and [Bonjours] and [Pardons.] Yet she has no intention of returning to England. She has had very bitter trials which seem to be driving her more and more aloof from society. She has not yet had courage to tell me herself what these trials are, but I have heard from Mlle. Rosa that her daughter married one of the French noblesse. 819 The match was in every way highly advantageous -- the husband excellent, fortune considerable. They lived happily for some time -- she had two little girls -- when an accursed cousin of the husband's came in the way and caused a separation within the last year. Mrs. Locke is one of the Heads -- the same family as that of Sir Francis Head. Her brother Major Head wrote an "Overland Journey from India" 820 which you may have seen. She has multitudes of relations in England, but I suppose shame at her daughter's disgrace makes all her old associations painful. No one likes her here -- simply because her manners are brusque and her French incomprehensible. She means to go to Bex for economy.
Why does Fanny say she trusts to Isaac's writing to me? Will not she write too? I shall be very ready to write to every one when every one has written to me, but I require warming up by letters first. Tell Miss Sibree my address and beg her to write to me all about herself, and to write on thin paper. Poor dear Cara -- to have had so much trouble about my muff and tippet -- after all I remember that they are in a chest of drawers lined with cedar which I have lent to Chrissey. I hope you managed to get in the black velvet dress. The people dress and think about dressing here more even than in England. You would not know me if you saw me. The Marquise took on her the office of femme de chambre and drest my hair one day. She has abolished all my curls and made two things stick out on each side of my head, like those on the head of the Sphinx. All the world says I look infinitely better so I comply, though to myself I seem uglier than ever -- if possible. Mr. Prévost has not been again -- but I do not care much about it. I have enough of monde here. In fact that becomes one of the disagreeables. If people like one they buzz round one like flies round a sugar basin, and neither one's heart nor one's vanity inclines one to make oneself odious for the sake of being left in quiet. I am fidgeted to death about my boxes, and that tiresome man not to acknowledge the receipt of them. I make no apology for writing all my peevishnesses and follies, because I want you to do the same -- to let me know everything about you, to the aching of your fingers -- and you tell me very little.
Dear Sara -- Thank you for your scrap of L.E.L. 821 I have been invoking the French muse for the Marquise's album -- since she would fain have something and it must not be in English which she cannot understand. It will make you smile -- so I write it.
As tu vu la lune se lever Dans un ciel d'azur sans voile? Mille gouttes de rosée réflechissent Sa lumi'e8re, comme autant d'étoiles. Un violet du printemps cueilles Et le caches bien dans ton sein, De la delicieuse odeur Tu et tes v'eatements seront pleins. Ainsi lorsqu'une belle 'e2me se montre Elle rev'eatit tant de ses charmes: -- Ainsi son souvenir gardons Quoique, hélas! il tire nos larmes.
I thought it would have done admirably to put in Moli'e8re's Misanthrope or Precieuses ridicules. But the thought, dear soul, is a very true one, above all when I apply it to you. Receive it as just what I am feeling and thinking about you. Love me ever in spite of everything, dear friends, and believe
Your loving
Pollian.
Dear Mr. Hennell! Give him my heartiest affectionate remembrances. Tell him I find no one here so spirituel as he -- there are no better jokes going than I can make myself. Mrs. Hennell and Mrs. C. Hennell too -- all are remembered -- if even I have only seen them in England.
A thousand loves to Mrs. Pears. Ask her to write to me. Tell her to write to me as she used to talk to me -- to fancy she is walking with me. My sympathy with Mr. P. under his heavy trials. Send some one to Geneva to call upon me, that I may have the pleasure of talking to one who is not a Plongeonite.
Many many thanks for the trouble you have taken about my luggage. I shall be particularly glad of the newspaper 822 for I never see anything here except daily French papers which one might spend one's day in reading. Have you heard anything of Froude 823 again or of any one else worth hearing about? I am afraid you have not received the German books since you say nothing about them.
I have been interrupted by the Marquise who has been talking to me for the last hour about going to Italy -- she is sure I should be happier in Italy than anywhere else -- that England is not good for me etc. etc. I am tired to death and can write no more. My boxes, my boxes! I dream of them night and day.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE TO MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BRAY AND SARA SOPHIA HENNELL, GENEVA, 20 AUGUST [1849], 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/93130