GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Dover, 16 March 1855
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Dover, 16 March 1855
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Dover, 16 March 1855
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1855-03-16
Place
Dover
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Dover, 16 March 1855
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, I, 380-381.
Sydney Place | Dover | March 16. 1855.
My dear Sara
It has been very pleasant to me to think of you ever since I had your last letter as happy in work which I feel sure will be useful in some way or other even if it does not win the prize. 576 Mr. Lewes was particularly interested in your letter and thought your characterization of the Archbishop and Co. admirable. Pray let me know as soon as there is any issue connected with the essays.
I dare say you will be surprized to see that I write from Dover. We left Berlin on the 11th and a friendly fit of sea-sickness enabled me to rejoice at the sight of the British cliffs on Wednesday. I have taken lodgings here for a little while, until Mr. Lewes has concluded some arrangements in London, and with the aid of lovely weather am even enjoying my solitude, though I don't mind how soon it ends. News of you all at Rosehill -- how health and business and all other things are faring -- would be very welcome to me, if you can find time for a little note of homely details.
I am well and calmly happy -- feeling much stronger and clearer in mind for the last eight months of new experience. We were sorry to leave our quiet rooms and agreeable friends in Berlin, though the place itself is certainly ugly and am ende must become terribly wearisome for those who have not a vocation there. We left all our sight-seeing till the last week and so had a very large bite at pictures and statuary by crowding them all into three or four days.
Berlin, to be sure, has not many riches of this sort, but I increased my acquaintance with the modern German painters by our visits to three private galleries 577 and to the New Museum where Kaulbach is employed in painting the frescoes on the grand stair-case. There is a figure of the Deutsche Saga 578 which I should love you to see. I at once compared it with Michael Angelo's Sybils. It certainly satisfies one better in the colourless cartoon than in the finished painting, for Kaulbach seems greater in conception than in execution. He is also at work on some illustrations of Shakspeare, and we saw the originals of two from Macbeth. 579 They are very Germanesque, but still, finer than any other attempt at Shakspeare illustrations that I have seen. One of them represents the moment when Macbeth is girding on his armour and receives the news of his wife's death. The spirits of those he has murdered are hovering in the air above him and amongst them of course is Banquo with his children. This group of childish spirits, looking on in chubby composedness while their murderer is torn with contending passions, is the best bit of the picture. The Macbeth is too demoniacal -- not Shakespearian. But I am forgetting that my words are not likely to call up the idea of the picture in your mind. We went again and again to the New Museum to look at the casts of the Parthenon sculptures, and registered a vow that we would go to feast on the sight of the originals, the first day we could spare in London. I had never cast more than a fleeting look on them before, but now I can in some degree understand the effect they produced on their first discovery.
Apropos of Greek art, should you like to add an autograph of Liszt's to your collection? If so I can send you one.
Dover looks very lovely under a blue sky. The cliffs with the soft outline of the hills beyond, looking, as Kingsley says, like the soft limbs of mother Hertha lying down to rest, and the town with its blue smoke, made a charming picture under the afternoon sun as I walked up the castle hill. But here as everywhere else "man is vile," 580 cheating one out of sixpences and making one feel misanthropic in spite of oneself. My lodgings, however, are very comfortable and I have a nice quiet woman to wait on me. I think I have earned a little news about you now, and please to remember that it is for the sake of that I write. Ever, dear Sara,
Your affectionate Friend
Marian Evans.
Love to all.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, I, 380-381.
Sydney Place | Dover | March 16. 1855.
My dear Sara
It has been very pleasant to me to think of you ever since I had your last letter as happy in work which I feel sure will be useful in some way or other even if it does not win the prize. 576 Mr. Lewes was particularly interested in your letter and thought your characterization of the Archbishop and Co. admirable. Pray let me know as soon as there is any issue connected with the essays.
I dare say you will be surprized to see that I write from Dover. We left Berlin on the 11th and a friendly fit of sea-sickness enabled me to rejoice at the sight of the British cliffs on Wednesday. I have taken lodgings here for a little while, until Mr. Lewes has concluded some arrangements in London, and with the aid of lovely weather am even enjoying my solitude, though I don't mind how soon it ends. News of you all at Rosehill -- how health and business and all other things are faring -- would be very welcome to me, if you can find time for a little note of homely details.
I am well and calmly happy -- feeling much stronger and clearer in mind for the last eight months of new experience. We were sorry to leave our quiet rooms and agreeable friends in Berlin, though the place itself is certainly ugly and am ende must become terribly wearisome for those who have not a vocation there. We left all our sight-seeing till the last week and so had a very large bite at pictures and statuary by crowding them all into three or four days.
Berlin, to be sure, has not many riches of this sort, but I increased my acquaintance with the modern German painters by our visits to three private galleries 577 and to the New Museum where Kaulbach is employed in painting the frescoes on the grand stair-case. There is a figure of the Deutsche Saga 578 which I should love you to see. I at once compared it with Michael Angelo's Sybils. It certainly satisfies one better in the colourless cartoon than in the finished painting, for Kaulbach seems greater in conception than in execution. He is also at work on some illustrations of Shakspeare, and we saw the originals of two from Macbeth. 579 They are very Germanesque, but still, finer than any other attempt at Shakspeare illustrations that I have seen. One of them represents the moment when Macbeth is girding on his armour and receives the news of his wife's death. The spirits of those he has murdered are hovering in the air above him and amongst them of course is Banquo with his children. This group of childish spirits, looking on in chubby composedness while their murderer is torn with contending passions, is the best bit of the picture. The Macbeth is too demoniacal -- not Shakespearian. But I am forgetting that my words are not likely to call up the idea of the picture in your mind. We went again and again to the New Museum to look at the casts of the Parthenon sculptures, and registered a vow that we would go to feast on the sight of the originals, the first day we could spare in London. I had never cast more than a fleeting look on them before, but now I can in some degree understand the effect they produced on their first discovery.
Apropos of Greek art, should you like to add an autograph of Liszt's to your collection? If so I can send you one.
Dover looks very lovely under a blue sky. The cliffs with the soft outline of the hills beyond, looking, as Kingsley says, like the soft limbs of mother Hertha lying down to rest, and the town with its blue smoke, made a charming picture under the afternoon sun as I walked up the castle hill. But here as everywhere else "man is vile," 580 cheating one out of sixpences and making one feel misanthropic in spite of oneself. My lodgings, however, are very comfortable and I have a nice quiet woman to wait on me. I think I have earned a little news about you now, and please to remember that it is for the sake of that I write. Ever, dear Sara,
Your affectionate Friend
Marian Evans.
Love to all.
Signature
Marian Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Dover, 16 March 1855, 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/93887