GE to Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve, London, 12 December 1872
Title
GE to Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve, London, 12 December 1872
Title
GE to Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve, London, 12 December 1872
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve
Date(s)
- 1872-12-12
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve, London, 12 December 1872
Text: Cross, III, 182-185.
I have had the news that you are safely landed at Pooree, 657 so now I can write with some courage. I have got some comfort -- I trust it is not false comfort -- out of the probability that there will be much good mingled with the evil of this winter's exile for you. You must be the richer for it mentally, and your health may be the better -- and then, you will be back again in the late spring. In this way I make myself contented under the incompleteness of our life without you, and I am determined not to grumble at my share of the loss which falls so sadly on Dr Congreve and the children. Dr Congreve kindly let me know when you had got through the trials of the Red Sea, rather better than might have been expected; and Sophie 658 tells me that you speak of the brilliant colouring in your new world as quite equal to any description you had read. Beyond that all is a blank to me except the fact of your arrival at Pooree, and all my feeling is taken up with the joy there must have been in the meeting with Mr Geddes. You find it very difficult to write in the heat -- so don't make the thought of me disagreeable by associating it with a claim on you for a letter. I will be grateful for scraps from your correspondence with home, and wait for my turn when you come back to us.
For ourselves, we think our little grand-daughter, Blanche, the perfection of a baby. She is, dispassionately speaking, very pretty, and has a cooing, chanting song of her own which it makes me happy to hear. Mr. Lewes goes on at his writing with as much interest as ever, and is bringing the first part of his work into its final shape. Since we came home I have been reading his manuscript, which has been piling itself up in preparation for my leisure, and I have been wearing my gravest philosophic cap. Altogether we are dangerously happy.
You remember Mrs Merridew 659 of Coventry? You know hers was another name for astonishing cleverness in that town. Now, of course, she is old, and her cleverness seems to have a mouldy flavour. Apropos of the seventh book of [Middlemarch] -- which you may not have read, but never mind -- Mrs Merridew, having lain awake all night from compassion for Bulstrode, said, "Poor, dear creature, after he had done so much for that wretch, sitting up at night and attending on him! and I don't believe it was the brandy that killed him: and what is to become of Bulstrode now, -- he has nobody left but Christ!" I think this is worth sending to India, you see: it is a little bit of old Coventry life that may make you and Emily laugh with all the more lively memory in the midst of your strange scenery. But there is a hovering terror while I write to you from far off, lest my trivialities should find you when you are ill or have some cause for being sad. In any case, however, you will take my letter for a simple proof that I dwell on you and Emily as images constantly present in my mind, and very often moving to the foreground in my contemplation. Mr Lewes is one with me in many affectionate thoughts about you, and your names are often on our lips.
We are going to pass the Christmas week with our friends at Weybridge; and I shall be glad to escape the London aspects of that season, -- aspects that are without any happy association for me. Mr Lewes has just been in to speak to me, and begs me to say that he hopes baby is raised to the nth power. You see the lofty point of view from which he regards the world at present. But there is enough of the sap of affection in him to withstand all the dryness of the dryest mathematics, and he has very hearty regards for you all, including Mr Geddes, not as a matter of course, but with special emphasis. Goodbye dear, dear friend. May it give you some little satisfaction to think of me as yours always lovingly.
Text: Cross, III, 182-185.
I have had the news that you are safely landed at Pooree, 657 so now I can write with some courage. I have got some comfort -- I trust it is not false comfort -- out of the probability that there will be much good mingled with the evil of this winter's exile for you. You must be the richer for it mentally, and your health may be the better -- and then, you will be back again in the late spring. In this way I make myself contented under the incompleteness of our life without you, and I am determined not to grumble at my share of the loss which falls so sadly on Dr Congreve and the children. Dr Congreve kindly let me know when you had got through the trials of the Red Sea, rather better than might have been expected; and Sophie 658 tells me that you speak of the brilliant colouring in your new world as quite equal to any description you had read. Beyond that all is a blank to me except the fact of your arrival at Pooree, and all my feeling is taken up with the joy there must have been in the meeting with Mr Geddes. You find it very difficult to write in the heat -- so don't make the thought of me disagreeable by associating it with a claim on you for a letter. I will be grateful for scraps from your correspondence with home, and wait for my turn when you come back to us.
For ourselves, we think our little grand-daughter, Blanche, the perfection of a baby. She is, dispassionately speaking, very pretty, and has a cooing, chanting song of her own which it makes me happy to hear. Mr. Lewes goes on at his writing with as much interest as ever, and is bringing the first part of his work into its final shape. Since we came home I have been reading his manuscript, which has been piling itself up in preparation for my leisure, and I have been wearing my gravest philosophic cap. Altogether we are dangerously happy.
You remember Mrs Merridew 659 of Coventry? You know hers was another name for astonishing cleverness in that town. Now, of course, she is old, and her cleverness seems to have a mouldy flavour. Apropos of the seventh book of [Middlemarch] -- which you may not have read, but never mind -- Mrs Merridew, having lain awake all night from compassion for Bulstrode, said, "Poor, dear creature, after he had done so much for that wretch, sitting up at night and attending on him! and I don't believe it was the brandy that killed him: and what is to become of Bulstrode now, -- he has nobody left but Christ!" I think this is worth sending to India, you see: it is a little bit of old Coventry life that may make you and Emily laugh with all the more lively memory in the midst of your strange scenery. But there is a hovering terror while I write to you from far off, lest my trivialities should find you when you are ill or have some cause for being sad. In any case, however, you will take my letter for a simple proof that I dwell on you and Emily as images constantly present in my mind, and very often moving to the foreground in my contemplation. Mr Lewes is one with me in many affectionate thoughts about you, and your names are often on our lips.
We are going to pass the Christmas week with our friends at Weybridge; and I shall be glad to escape the London aspects of that season, -- aspects that are without any happy association for me. Mr Lewes has just been in to speak to me, and begs me to say that he hopes baby is raised to the nth power. You see the lofty point of view from which he regards the world at present. But there is enough of the sap of affection in him to withstand all the dryness of the dryest mathematics, and he has very hearty regards for you all, including Mr Geddes, not as a matter of course, but with special emphasis. Goodbye dear, dear friend. May it give you some little satisfaction to think of me as yours always lovingly.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria [Mrs. Richard] Congreve, London, 12 December 1872, 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/93619