GE to Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans, Griff, 5 March 1839
Title
GE to Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans, Griff, 5 March 1839
Title
GE to Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans, Griff, 5 March 1839
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans
Date(s)
- 1839-03-05
Place
Griff
Letter Content
GE to Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans, Griff, 5 March 1839
MS: Yale. Address: Mrs. Evans | Tape Manufactory | Wirksworth | near Matlock | Derbyshire. Postmarks: COVENTRY [date illegible]; Missent | to | Birmingham; BIRMINGHAM | MR 7 | 1839 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 47-49.
Griff March 5th 1839.
My dear Aunt,
My dear Father is just now so plunged in business and that of a fatiguing kind, that I should put your confidence in my love and gratitude to an unreasonably severe trial if I waited until he had leisure to unite with me in filling a sheet and thanking you for your beautiful stockings and still more welcome and valuable letters. I must tell you, by the way, that you have managed exactly to measure Father's leg. You were very kind to remember my wish to see Mrs. Fletcher's life; 109 I only desire such a spiritual digestion as has enabled you to derive so much benefit from its perusal.
I am truly glad to hear that you are less embarrassed with respect to your congregation etc., than you were when we saw you; I should think that if you have evidence of a blessing on your present labours, 110 you must be in your proper sphere, but the anointing of which you partake will teach you in this as in other things. I must protest against your making apologies for speaking of yourself, for nothing that relates to you can be uninteresting to me.
The unprofitableness you lament in yourself during your visit to us had its true cause, not in your lukewarmness, but in the little improvement I sought to derive from your society and in my lack of humility and Christian simplicity that makes me willing to obtain credit for greater knowledge and deeper feeling than I really possess. Instead of putting my light under a bushel, I am in danger of ostentatiously displaying a false one. You have much too high an opinion my dear Aunt, of my spiritual condition and of my personal and circumstantial advantages. My soul seems for weeks together completely benumbed, and when I am aroused from this torpid state, the intervals of activity are comparatively short. I am ever finding excuses for this in the deprivation of outward excitement and the small scope I have for the application of my principles, instead of feeling self-abasement under the consciousness that I abuse precious hours of retirement which would be eagerly employed in spiritual exercises by many a devoted servant of God who is struggling with worldly cares and occupations. I feel that my besetting sin is the one of all others most destroying, as it is the fruitful parent of them all, Ambition, a desire insatiable for the esteem of my fellow creatures. This seems the centre whence all my actions proceed. This seems the great stumbling block in my path Zion-ward. 111 But you will perhaps remember my dear Aunt that I do not attach much value to a disclosure of religious feelings, owing probably to the dominant corruption I have just been speaking of, which "turns the milk of my good purpose all to curd." I make the most humiliating and appalling confessions with little or no corresponding feeling.
Since I wrote to you Sarah the housemaid whom you probably remember has left us on account of illness and her place is not yet filled up, but I expect a substitute for her on Saturday. I am grieved to hear of the poor health of two of my cousins. I trust that Samuel's, 112 so important to his family, may be soon restored. I can sincerely send them all my love and best wishes though all are unknown to me. I hope this will be no longer the case after the next six months, but I am quite prepared to be disappointed in all my schemes of visiting Wirksworth, as nothing but business will take Father on so long a journey, and that I do not think he at present foresees. Instead of telling you your faults, my dear Aunt, I must beg of you not to speak to me of the excellencies which your charity has led you to imagine you have seen in me. If I did not know you to abhor flattery, I should suspect you of being guilty of offering me that noxious draught, which is too apt to intoxicate me. Once more I must thank you for all the contents of your parcel, and I am sure I may beg you to thank Uncle on my Father's behalf for his kind letter. I wish I could repay you in kind for the excellent instruction your letter affords me, but I am sure in this instance as in many others "it is more blessed to you to give than to receive." 113
Poor Aunt and Uncle Evarard 114 seem to sink under the weight of years and sickness -- they were glad to hear of you. All our other friends are well. You know how it will delight me to see your handwriting whenever you feel able to bestow a little time on me. Much love to my dear Uncle and to yourself. Believe me
Your affectionate Niece
Mary Ann Evans.
You have possibly heard from Ellaston 115 of the afflictions that have befallen Mr. Hake's 116 (our clergyman's) family. When he was only just pronounced likely to recover from Typhus fever, his mother suddenly died. Since then his sister has been seized with typhus at Coton and we have heard that Mrs. H. Hake 117 who had accompanied her husband to his mother's funeral, has the same alarming disease at Ellaston. I am fearful my hasty writing will be troublesome for you to read.
MS: Yale. Address: Mrs. Evans | Tape Manufactory | Wirksworth | near Matlock | Derbyshire. Postmarks: COVENTRY [date illegible]; Missent | to | Birmingham; BIRMINGHAM | MR 7 | 1839 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 47-49.
Griff March 5th 1839.
My dear Aunt,
My dear Father is just now so plunged in business and that of a fatiguing kind, that I should put your confidence in my love and gratitude to an unreasonably severe trial if I waited until he had leisure to unite with me in filling a sheet and thanking you for your beautiful stockings and still more welcome and valuable letters. I must tell you, by the way, that you have managed exactly to measure Father's leg. You were very kind to remember my wish to see Mrs. Fletcher's life; 109 I only desire such a spiritual digestion as has enabled you to derive so much benefit from its perusal.
I am truly glad to hear that you are less embarrassed with respect to your congregation etc., than you were when we saw you; I should think that if you have evidence of a blessing on your present labours, 110 you must be in your proper sphere, but the anointing of which you partake will teach you in this as in other things. I must protest against your making apologies for speaking of yourself, for nothing that relates to you can be uninteresting to me.
The unprofitableness you lament in yourself during your visit to us had its true cause, not in your lukewarmness, but in the little improvement I sought to derive from your society and in my lack of humility and Christian simplicity that makes me willing to obtain credit for greater knowledge and deeper feeling than I really possess. Instead of putting my light under a bushel, I am in danger of ostentatiously displaying a false one. You have much too high an opinion my dear Aunt, of my spiritual condition and of my personal and circumstantial advantages. My soul seems for weeks together completely benumbed, and when I am aroused from this torpid state, the intervals of activity are comparatively short. I am ever finding excuses for this in the deprivation of outward excitement and the small scope I have for the application of my principles, instead of feeling self-abasement under the consciousness that I abuse precious hours of retirement which would be eagerly employed in spiritual exercises by many a devoted servant of God who is struggling with worldly cares and occupations. I feel that my besetting sin is the one of all others most destroying, as it is the fruitful parent of them all, Ambition, a desire insatiable for the esteem of my fellow creatures. This seems the centre whence all my actions proceed. This seems the great stumbling block in my path Zion-ward. 111 But you will perhaps remember my dear Aunt that I do not attach much value to a disclosure of religious feelings, owing probably to the dominant corruption I have just been speaking of, which "turns the milk of my good purpose all to curd." I make the most humiliating and appalling confessions with little or no corresponding feeling.
Since I wrote to you Sarah the housemaid whom you probably remember has left us on account of illness and her place is not yet filled up, but I expect a substitute for her on Saturday. I am grieved to hear of the poor health of two of my cousins. I trust that Samuel's, 112 so important to his family, may be soon restored. I can sincerely send them all my love and best wishes though all are unknown to me. I hope this will be no longer the case after the next six months, but I am quite prepared to be disappointed in all my schemes of visiting Wirksworth, as nothing but business will take Father on so long a journey, and that I do not think he at present foresees. Instead of telling you your faults, my dear Aunt, I must beg of you not to speak to me of the excellencies which your charity has led you to imagine you have seen in me. If I did not know you to abhor flattery, I should suspect you of being guilty of offering me that noxious draught, which is too apt to intoxicate me. Once more I must thank you for all the contents of your parcel, and I am sure I may beg you to thank Uncle on my Father's behalf for his kind letter. I wish I could repay you in kind for the excellent instruction your letter affords me, but I am sure in this instance as in many others "it is more blessed to you to give than to receive." 113
Poor Aunt and Uncle Evarard 114 seem to sink under the weight of years and sickness -- they were glad to hear of you. All our other friends are well. You know how it will delight me to see your handwriting whenever you feel able to bestow a little time on me. Much love to my dear Uncle and to yourself. Believe me
Your affectionate Niece
Mary Ann Evans.
You have possibly heard from Ellaston 115 of the afflictions that have befallen Mr. Hake's 116 (our clergyman's) family. When he was only just pronounced likely to recover from Typhus fever, his mother suddenly died. Since then his sister has been seized with typhus at Coton and we have heard that Mrs. H. Hake 117 who had accompanied her husband to his mother's funeral, has the same alarming disease at Ellaston. I am fearful my hasty writing will be troublesome for you to read.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Elizabeth [Mrs. Samuel] Evans, Griff, 5 March 1839, 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/93693