GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 18 February 1847]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 18 February 1847]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 18 February 1847]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1847-02-18
Place
[FOLESHILL]
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 18 February 1847]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Feb. 18, 1847 | 1847-April 1850. Partly published: Cross, I, 153-154.
Dearest Lalla, 652
Lying in bed this morning, grievously tormented, your Heliados visited me and revealed itself to me more completely than it had ever done before. How true that "it is only when all portions of an individual nature or all members of society move forward harmoniously together that religious progress is calm and beneficial"l 653 I imagine the sorrowful amaze of a child who had been dwelling with delight on the idea that the stars were the pavement of heaven's court and that there above them sat the kind but holy God, looking like a venerable Father who would smile on his good little ones -- when it was cruelly told, before its mind had substance enough to bear such tension, that the sky was not real, that the stars were worlds, and that even the sun could not be God's dwelling because there were many, many suns. These ideas would introduce atheism into a child's mind, instead of assisting it to form a nobler conception of God -- (of course I am supposing the bare information given and left to the child to work upon) -- whereas the idea it previously had of God was perfectly adapted to its intellectual condition and formed to the child as perfect an embodiment of the all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful as the most enlightened philosopher ever formed to himself.
Thou wast very good for writing to me so soon. I have no doubt that your having gone home at the call of all sorts of heavenly voices will be a source of satisfaction to you. 654
Mr. Bray will carry to London Dr. Brabant's Spinoza. Will you be so kind as to send it forward to Devizes, paying the carriage, for which Mr. B. will settle with you.
Best love to Mrs. Hennell.
Thy
Meine.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Feb. 18, 1847 | 1847-April 1850. Partly published: Cross, I, 153-154.
Dearest Lalla, 652
Lying in bed this morning, grievously tormented, your Heliados visited me and revealed itself to me more completely than it had ever done before. How true that "it is only when all portions of an individual nature or all members of society move forward harmoniously together that religious progress is calm and beneficial"l 653 I imagine the sorrowful amaze of a child who had been dwelling with delight on the idea that the stars were the pavement of heaven's court and that there above them sat the kind but holy God, looking like a venerable Father who would smile on his good little ones -- when it was cruelly told, before its mind had substance enough to bear such tension, that the sky was not real, that the stars were worlds, and that even the sun could not be God's dwelling because there were many, many suns. These ideas would introduce atheism into a child's mind, instead of assisting it to form a nobler conception of God -- (of course I am supposing the bare information given and left to the child to work upon) -- whereas the idea it previously had of God was perfectly adapted to its intellectual condition and formed to the child as perfect an embodiment of the all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful as the most enlightened philosopher ever formed to himself.
Thou wast very good for writing to me so soon. I have no doubt that your having gone home at the call of all sorts of heavenly voices will be a source of satisfaction to you. 654
Mr. Bray will carry to London Dr. Brabant's Spinoza. Will you be so kind as to send it forward to Devizes, paying the carriage, for which Mr. B. will settle with you.
Best love to Mrs. Hennell.
Thy
Meine.
Signature
Meine.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 18 February 1847], 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/93807