GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, London, 24 December 1879
Title
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, London, 24 December 1879
Title
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, London, 24 December 1879
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Elma Stuart
Date(s)
- 1879-12-24
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, London, 24 December 1879
MS: British Museum. Published: Stuart, pp. 136-141.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 24. 79.
Dearest Elma
I have just finished reading your letter and I cannot be wise enough to defer answering you till I have had time to reflect on the deeply-moving things it tells me of -- I yearn too much to let you know that I feel with you. Words are feeble things without strong faith to receive them, but you are full, too full, of faith in me, and always care for my words more than they deserve.
It is the bodily pain that afflicts me most for you, and I am as impatient as you are with the robust and smiling preachers of patience. Such people think their talk virtuous, when the real virtue one should strive after is to understand and tenderly tolerate the sufferer's impatience. But you have one angel-friend who knows all the secrets of loving compassion. I comfort my mind with thinking that you have found comfortable rooms and a comfortable host. Otherwise, this cold time in Florence would make one think of Dante's frozen tears. We were one spring at the Victoria Hotel on the Arno, so that I can imagine your view -- just as I can imagine your beds and pillows. The pillows were the worse torture. They always produced a neck-ache, which remains a part of Italian travel for me along with glorious campanili and awful apses with Christ sitting in judgment.
What shall I say about that other sore affliction? I can say nothing wiser than what you have yourself said. You have thought as well as felt all round the subject, and what seems to be your strongest instinct seems to me also to be the right guidance. I mean, that you should express no discontent, use no remonstrance. He came to see me, and was exactly as he used to be -- kissed me and told me quite boyishly about his examination difficulties. The change towards you remains a mystery to me in spite of what you suggest as a cause for it. It is hard, very hard, and I fear I should not be equal to the heroism which you have hitherto shown in not appearing to notice the difference. But if you were able to go on with the same resolve, I should venerate your self-control, and I think no other conduct would promise so good an issue.
And now I will obey your command to tell you something about myself. I am very well, in spite of the weather. Indeed, I feel stronger than I have felt for the last two years, my country doctor having got me into a reformed condition before I left the country. I see some friends now, and they are all very good to me. I occupy myself constantly and find the time too short for all I have to do. The Dr. Roy who was elected to the Studentship is believed to be the most promising of our advanced physiologists in the generation that has its best days yet to come. This is a great satisfaction to me -- and the Studentship altogether is what I know that my Husband would have rejoiced in. The last volume (500 pp.) of "Problems of Life and Mind" has lately been published, and with that I have finished what I had set myself as my year's work.
With regard to the Bust, dear, which your lovely and noble feeling has impelled you to exert yourself about -- I think you would prefer that I should tell you the exact truth. Any portrait or bust of Him that others considered good I should be glad to have placed in any public institution. But for myself I would rather have neither portrait nor bust. My inward representation even of comparatively indifferent faces is so vivid as to make portraits of them unsatisfactory to me. And I am bitterly repenting now that I was led into buying Mayall's enlarged copy of the photograph you mention. It is smoothed down and altered, and each time I look at it I feel its unlikeness more. Himself as he was is what I see inwardly, and I am afraid of outward images lest they should corrupt the inward. It is painful to me to write this after all the generous effort you have given to the subject, but it would be a sort of treachery not to tell you that it would be repugnant to me to have the bust and that I could not myself present it to any public institution. Perhaps you will think this an almost blameworthy strangeness in me. But it is unalterable.
Certainly I look at the Savonarola and Dante sometimes and think of you in consequence, but I think of you much oftener than I look at them. You have been very often in my mind, but I have been indulging in too hopeful visions about you, seeing you almost well on the Riviera! Miss Simcox was here last week and was inquiring very feelingly about you. She has been elected a member of the London School Board and is much mellowed by a sense of increasing usefulness and by the respect justly awarded to her.
I am so glad to think of your having a professional [rubber.] I have heard much of good results from that treatment. Please let me know of any decided change in your condition, if it is not a burthen to you to write. I have so many letters of business or politeness to write now -- things which used to be done for me -- that I am disposed to be greedy of receiving and chary of giving in this way.
Please ask Mrs. Menzies to accept my best -- my most respectful love -- the tribute my heart gives to her for her goodness, and believe me always, dear,
Your tenderly sympathizing and gratefully loving Friend
M. E. L.
MS: British Museum. Published: Stuart, pp. 136-141.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 24. 79.
Dearest Elma
I have just finished reading your letter and I cannot be wise enough to defer answering you till I have had time to reflect on the deeply-moving things it tells me of -- I yearn too much to let you know that I feel with you. Words are feeble things without strong faith to receive them, but you are full, too full, of faith in me, and always care for my words more than they deserve.
It is the bodily pain that afflicts me most for you, and I am as impatient as you are with the robust and smiling preachers of patience. Such people think their talk virtuous, when the real virtue one should strive after is to understand and tenderly tolerate the sufferer's impatience. But you have one angel-friend who knows all the secrets of loving compassion. I comfort my mind with thinking that you have found comfortable rooms and a comfortable host. Otherwise, this cold time in Florence would make one think of Dante's frozen tears. We were one spring at the Victoria Hotel on the Arno, so that I can imagine your view -- just as I can imagine your beds and pillows. The pillows were the worse torture. They always produced a neck-ache, which remains a part of Italian travel for me along with glorious campanili and awful apses with Christ sitting in judgment.
What shall I say about that other sore affliction? I can say nothing wiser than what you have yourself said. You have thought as well as felt all round the subject, and what seems to be your strongest instinct seems to me also to be the right guidance. I mean, that you should express no discontent, use no remonstrance. He came to see me, and was exactly as he used to be -- kissed me and told me quite boyishly about his examination difficulties. The change towards you remains a mystery to me in spite of what you suggest as a cause for it. It is hard, very hard, and I fear I should not be equal to the heroism which you have hitherto shown in not appearing to notice the difference. But if you were able to go on with the same resolve, I should venerate your self-control, and I think no other conduct would promise so good an issue.
And now I will obey your command to tell you something about myself. I am very well, in spite of the weather. Indeed, I feel stronger than I have felt for the last two years, my country doctor having got me into a reformed condition before I left the country. I see some friends now, and they are all very good to me. I occupy myself constantly and find the time too short for all I have to do. The Dr. Roy who was elected to the Studentship is believed to be the most promising of our advanced physiologists in the generation that has its best days yet to come. This is a great satisfaction to me -- and the Studentship altogether is what I know that my Husband would have rejoiced in. The last volume (500 pp.) of "Problems of Life and Mind" has lately been published, and with that I have finished what I had set myself as my year's work.
With regard to the Bust, dear, which your lovely and noble feeling has impelled you to exert yourself about -- I think you would prefer that I should tell you the exact truth. Any portrait or bust of Him that others considered good I should be glad to have placed in any public institution. But for myself I would rather have neither portrait nor bust. My inward representation even of comparatively indifferent faces is so vivid as to make portraits of them unsatisfactory to me. And I am bitterly repenting now that I was led into buying Mayall's enlarged copy of the photograph you mention. It is smoothed down and altered, and each time I look at it I feel its unlikeness more. Himself as he was is what I see inwardly, and I am afraid of outward images lest they should corrupt the inward. It is painful to me to write this after all the generous effort you have given to the subject, but it would be a sort of treachery not to tell you that it would be repugnant to me to have the bust and that I could not myself present it to any public institution. Perhaps you will think this an almost blameworthy strangeness in me. But it is unalterable.
Certainly I look at the Savonarola and Dante sometimes and think of you in consequence, but I think of you much oftener than I look at them. You have been very often in my mind, but I have been indulging in too hopeful visions about you, seeing you almost well on the Riviera! Miss Simcox was here last week and was inquiring very feelingly about you. She has been elected a member of the London School Board and is much mellowed by a sense of increasing usefulness and by the respect justly awarded to her.
I am so glad to think of your having a professional [rubber.] I have heard much of good results from that treatment. Please let me know of any decided change in your condition, if it is not a burthen to you to write. I have so many letters of business or politeness to write now -- things which used to be done for me -- that I am disposed to be greedy of receiving and chary of giving in this way.
Please ask Mrs. Menzies to accept my best -- my most respectful love -- the tribute my heart gives to her for her goodness, and believe me always, dear,
Your tenderly sympathizing and gratefully loving Friend
M. E. L.
Signature
M. E. L.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, London, 24 December 1879, 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/93401