GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [16? September 1842]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [16? September 1842]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [16? September 1842]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1842-09-16
Place
FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [16? September 1842]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Sep. 1842. Extracts published: Cross, I, 115-116.
Foleshill Friday.
My dear Sarah
If I could not say with a good conscience that I have thought of you since receiving your merry kind notes almost as often as a lover of his Geliebte, I should have had some pangs of self-reproach in looking at your precious gift, which is the one among all other remembrances of you that I would have chosen; the dear little picture too, with the interesting trio in the foreground, enhances its value. I shall often look at it through a veil of tears, (I mean no pun, for I hate the genus) happy tears, such as are heralded by no long face. Your charm, by the bye, is excellent as a merely external application, and with the aid of alteratives and tonics recommended by my chief physicians, reason and conscience will, I have no doubt, effect the desiderated cure. I owe you so much that I shall forget to thank you for half the pretty things and words you have sent me; among others, I am not least pleased with your reply to my vague queries. I will not tell you that I am an impartial judge, for I plead guilty to an exaggeration of my friend's attractions and of the merit of all she produces; it is an exaggeration, though, that purchases me so much pleasure that I shall not willingly exchange it for the cold accuracy of the sensible world.
I have not yet accounted for my tardiness in writing, which I assure you is no representation of my usual habit, and has been occasioned only by a week's indisposition, the foster parent to the illfavoured offspring of my character and circumstances, gloom and stolidity, and I could not write to you with such companions to my thought. One word more about self, and that uninteresting personage shall make her exit. I am anxious that you should not imagine me unhappy even in my most melancholy moods, for I hold all indulgence of sadness that has the slightest tincture of discontent to be a grave delinquency. I think there can be few who more truly feel than I that this is a world of bliss and beauty, that is, that bliss and beauty are the end, the tendency of creation, that evil is the foil to the jewel, the intaglio without which there could be no cammeo, the shadows that are the only conditions of light in the picture and I live in much, much enjoyment; but I crave leave to keep my idiosyncrasy, if it deserve that long name, and find my pleasure now and then in thorough melancholy.
And now I am going to talk of you and ask you some questions about this same study of magic to which I owe my charm and cherubim. Have you made acquaintance with any well-disposed, respectable genii who can assist gross clay-clothed souls to cheat their fetters and do the deeds that the spirit wills and the flesh denies? because if so, remember you are bound by the laws of friendship to initiate and introduce me. Only do not, I beseech you, become intimate with any gnome, sylph, salamander, or naiad who will waft you from the ken of those who love you at Coventry. By the bye, your query about the harvest moon. As the lunar months do not of course remain stationary with respect to the calendar months (19 years is the cycle, I think, at the end of which the full moon falls a second time on the same day of the calendar month) the time of the harvest moon must vary, but I believe it is the first full moon after the sun enters Virgo on the 22d August. This is my own inference for I have not looked long enough to assure myself, though I know that I have a precise statement of the matter somewhere. The said moon, honey dear, did not call forth any new compliments and invocations from your faithful servant and poetaster, she having like others of her tribe almost exhausted her material in that line, for albeit the sun awakened Memnon's harp, it is generally chaste Diana's light that draws the first notes from the young poet's lyre. Tell me another subject and I shall be inspired by your wish though by no other muse.
I am glad to hear that you approved dear Mrs. Bray's picture. I should think it is like, only that her benevolence extends to the hiding of faults in my visage as well as my character. How I wish I could kiss you and talk to you, for I am afflicted with a sort of bashfulness in the early stages of correspondence, and dare not say what I would on paper. An unfortunate lady wrote a note, one page of which contained thirty I's. I dare not count mine lest they should equal hers in number. The worsted work is in statu quo. I have had some young classics with me for a few days who have helped me a little. They sanction ego and 'f4s (final) instead of uc0u265 go and os. I am beginning to enjoy the Eneid, 443 though I suppose much in the same way as the uninitiated enjoy wine, compared with the connoisseurs, who can distinguish a dozen different samples. I am not drinking wine, dear, though I use this suspicious illustration. Do write to me again, though I do not deserve it. Remember "Liebe schenkt, egoismus leiht," as Mr. Bray and I have been reading, and you will be really generous if you pour your showers of goodness on the barren sands. Give my love to Miss Hennell, 444 but do not suppose I have any to send you, for you already have as much as my little sould can give you. It will go on stretching I hope and you will have large space in proportion.
Ever your true and affectionate
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Sep. 1842. Extracts published: Cross, I, 115-116.
Foleshill Friday.
My dear Sarah
If I could not say with a good conscience that I have thought of you since receiving your merry kind notes almost as often as a lover of his Geliebte, I should have had some pangs of self-reproach in looking at your precious gift, which is the one among all other remembrances of you that I would have chosen; the dear little picture too, with the interesting trio in the foreground, enhances its value. I shall often look at it through a veil of tears, (I mean no pun, for I hate the genus) happy tears, such as are heralded by no long face. Your charm, by the bye, is excellent as a merely external application, and with the aid of alteratives and tonics recommended by my chief physicians, reason and conscience will, I have no doubt, effect the desiderated cure. I owe you so much that I shall forget to thank you for half the pretty things and words you have sent me; among others, I am not least pleased with your reply to my vague queries. I will not tell you that I am an impartial judge, for I plead guilty to an exaggeration of my friend's attractions and of the merit of all she produces; it is an exaggeration, though, that purchases me so much pleasure that I shall not willingly exchange it for the cold accuracy of the sensible world.
I have not yet accounted for my tardiness in writing, which I assure you is no representation of my usual habit, and has been occasioned only by a week's indisposition, the foster parent to the illfavoured offspring of my character and circumstances, gloom and stolidity, and I could not write to you with such companions to my thought. One word more about self, and that uninteresting personage shall make her exit. I am anxious that you should not imagine me unhappy even in my most melancholy moods, for I hold all indulgence of sadness that has the slightest tincture of discontent to be a grave delinquency. I think there can be few who more truly feel than I that this is a world of bliss and beauty, that is, that bliss and beauty are the end, the tendency of creation, that evil is the foil to the jewel, the intaglio without which there could be no cammeo, the shadows that are the only conditions of light in the picture and I live in much, much enjoyment; but I crave leave to keep my idiosyncrasy, if it deserve that long name, and find my pleasure now and then in thorough melancholy.
And now I am going to talk of you and ask you some questions about this same study of magic to which I owe my charm and cherubim. Have you made acquaintance with any well-disposed, respectable genii who can assist gross clay-clothed souls to cheat their fetters and do the deeds that the spirit wills and the flesh denies? because if so, remember you are bound by the laws of friendship to initiate and introduce me. Only do not, I beseech you, become intimate with any gnome, sylph, salamander, or naiad who will waft you from the ken of those who love you at Coventry. By the bye, your query about the harvest moon. As the lunar months do not of course remain stationary with respect to the calendar months (19 years is the cycle, I think, at the end of which the full moon falls a second time on the same day of the calendar month) the time of the harvest moon must vary, but I believe it is the first full moon after the sun enters Virgo on the 22d August. This is my own inference for I have not looked long enough to assure myself, though I know that I have a precise statement of the matter somewhere. The said moon, honey dear, did not call forth any new compliments and invocations from your faithful servant and poetaster, she having like others of her tribe almost exhausted her material in that line, for albeit the sun awakened Memnon's harp, it is generally chaste Diana's light that draws the first notes from the young poet's lyre. Tell me another subject and I shall be inspired by your wish though by no other muse.
I am glad to hear that you approved dear Mrs. Bray's picture. I should think it is like, only that her benevolence extends to the hiding of faults in my visage as well as my character. How I wish I could kiss you and talk to you, for I am afflicted with a sort of bashfulness in the early stages of correspondence, and dare not say what I would on paper. An unfortunate lady wrote a note, one page of which contained thirty I's. I dare not count mine lest they should equal hers in number. The worsted work is in statu quo. I have had some young classics with me for a few days who have helped me a little. They sanction ego and 'f4s (final) instead of uc0u265 go and os. I am beginning to enjoy the Eneid, 443 though I suppose much in the same way as the uninitiated enjoy wine, compared with the connoisseurs, who can distinguish a dozen different samples. I am not drinking wine, dear, though I use this suspicious illustration. Do write to me again, though I do not deserve it. Remember "Liebe schenkt, egoismus leiht," as Mr. Bray and I have been reading, and you will be really generous if you pour your showers of goodness on the barren sands. Give my love to Miss Hennell, 444 but do not suppose I have any to send you, for you already have as much as my little sould can give you. It will go on stretching I hope and you will have large space in proportion.
Ever your true and affectionate
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [16? September 1842], 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/93898