GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, Witley, 18 June 1879
Title
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, Witley, 18 June 1879
Title
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, Witley, 18 June 1879
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Elma Stuart
Date(s)
- 1879-06-18
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, Witley, 18 June 1879
MS: British Museum. Published: Stuart, pp. 124-127.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
June 18. 79.
My poor dear, dear Elma!
It has been a sad unriddling to me of the carefully written address on the outside of the letter to find that it was written with your left hand. Ah how I enter into that one sentence, "Pain (and all its attendants) has been my constant state since I saw you" -- and worse -- "it is so still." I enter into it the more that I am just emerging from a little attack of pain, quite tiny compared with a day or two of yours, but enough to fill my mind with the thought how much more others have had and now have to bear. I am writing in bed, where I am now easy, but my lines will probably run askew.
What courage you are endowed with, dear, what fortitude, to occupy yourself with your sculpture 276 while you are suffering so cruelly. And tell the angelic Mrs. Menzies that she has a most blessed reason for being glad that she was born in the fact that she is your comfort in your great trial. Since there is sorrow and pain, the best experience is to know that one has done something to lessen or soothe them.
As for me, I try to make life as interesting as I can, and everybody is good to me. But I am of course more uninterruptedly alone here, and friendship comes to me chiefly in letters. The silence and beauty of this spot would be bliss to me but for -- what I cannot write about. I have simply to live, and I must live as well as I can, making myself as little as possible a burthen on the earth and trying not to be one of that crowd whom Dante puts in the chill mud, making them confess,
. . . "Tristi fummo nell' aer dolce che'l Sol rallume." 277
There is no virtue in gloom which is the easiest hiding-place for languid idleness.
The African daughter-in-law is going on better, and becoming more reconciled to our non-colonial inferiority. And the little girl now goes every day to the Kindergarten with her cousins. Charles writes me word this morning that Eliza is beginning to think better of the Kafirs because she finds our common men so much ruder!
I shall venture to send you a copy of "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" -- written by me in the spring and summer of last year and sent in manuscript to the publisher by His hands the last morning he sat at his desk. I was not quite certain before hearing from you that you were still at Dinan.
I have published one volume of His, "The Study of Psychology" -- a comparatively thin volume, and am now beginning to print the final volume which will be as thick as either of the three first.
I think I have nothing else to tell you except the old news that I am the happier for feeling a grateful love raised in me by your tender constant love that sprang up in my path all suddenly -- in our path, and was a fragrant plant that made us both glad.
My love to Mrs. Menzies and thanks to her for being so good a thing in this too evil world. Let me hear when you are better, dear, and believe me
Always your loving Mother
M. E. L.
MS: British Museum. Published: Stuart, pp. 124-127.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
June 18. 79.
My poor dear, dear Elma!
It has been a sad unriddling to me of the carefully written address on the outside of the letter to find that it was written with your left hand. Ah how I enter into that one sentence, "Pain (and all its attendants) has been my constant state since I saw you" -- and worse -- "it is so still." I enter into it the more that I am just emerging from a little attack of pain, quite tiny compared with a day or two of yours, but enough to fill my mind with the thought how much more others have had and now have to bear. I am writing in bed, where I am now easy, but my lines will probably run askew.
What courage you are endowed with, dear, what fortitude, to occupy yourself with your sculpture 276 while you are suffering so cruelly. And tell the angelic Mrs. Menzies that she has a most blessed reason for being glad that she was born in the fact that she is your comfort in your great trial. Since there is sorrow and pain, the best experience is to know that one has done something to lessen or soothe them.
As for me, I try to make life as interesting as I can, and everybody is good to me. But I am of course more uninterruptedly alone here, and friendship comes to me chiefly in letters. The silence and beauty of this spot would be bliss to me but for -- what I cannot write about. I have simply to live, and I must live as well as I can, making myself as little as possible a burthen on the earth and trying not to be one of that crowd whom Dante puts in the chill mud, making them confess,
. . . "Tristi fummo nell' aer dolce che'l Sol rallume." 277
There is no virtue in gloom which is the easiest hiding-place for languid idleness.
The African daughter-in-law is going on better, and becoming more reconciled to our non-colonial inferiority. And the little girl now goes every day to the Kindergarten with her cousins. Charles writes me word this morning that Eliza is beginning to think better of the Kafirs because she finds our common men so much ruder!
I shall venture to send you a copy of "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" -- written by me in the spring and summer of last year and sent in manuscript to the publisher by His hands the last morning he sat at his desk. I was not quite certain before hearing from you that you were still at Dinan.
I have published one volume of His, "The Study of Psychology" -- a comparatively thin volume, and am now beginning to print the final volume which will be as thick as either of the three first.
I think I have nothing else to tell you except the old news that I am the happier for feeling a grateful love raised in me by your tender constant love that sprang up in my path all suddenly -- in our path, and was a fragrant plant that made us both glad.
My love to Mrs. Menzies and thanks to her for being so good a thing in this too evil world. Let me hear when you are better, dear, and believe me
Always your loving Mother
M. E. L.
Signature
M. E. L.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Elma Stuart, Witley, 18 June 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/93430