GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [3 March 1844]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [3 March 1844]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [3 March 1844]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1844-03-03
Place
FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [3 March 1844]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: May 1844. 1843. Extracts published: Cross, I, 125-126.
Foleshill Sunday.
My dear Sara,
You would have heard from me before how much I miss you 504 and think of you, but that I have been in a sort of molluscous-animal-state without voluntary motion. I cannot say much better of myself now, but if I wait for a transmigration you will perhaps forget me altogether.
To begin with business, I must thank you for the paper, and for your intention in sending me a duplicate of the volume of Strauss which I already had, though I do not find any use in it. If there is anything in it to which you wished to direct my attention please to tell me. I send you on the other side the translations you wished, but they are perhaps no improvements on what you had done.
I know you are very much occupied now and I do not like to ask for any of your time, but when you can do so I shall be very glad to learn from you the particulars as to the mode of publication for Strauss 505 -- who are the parties that will find the funds, and whether the manuscripts are to be put into the hands of any one when complete, or whether they are to go directly from me to the publisher? I was very foolish not to inquire about these things in the first instance, but ways and means are always afterthoughts with me.
I am glad to hear that you had the pleasure of seeing the great man of the day 506 under such interesting circumstances. We had a
Coventry edition of the spectacle, with less splendour but more hooting. All this news and every thing else you have from Rosehill so I have no facts for you. I have feared for you and Mr. Hennell through all the terrible northeasterly we have had, but Mrs. Bray tells me there have been no special complaints. You will soon be settled and enjoying the blessed spring and summer time. I hope you are looking forward to it with as much delight as I, and that we shall meet before it is all past.
One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that as soon as we have found the key of life, it opes the gates of death. 507 Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one. Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect -- to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. Witness colic and whooping-cough and dread of ghosts, to say nothing of hell and Satan, and an offended Deity in the sky who was angry when I wanted too much plum cake. Then the sorrows of older persons which children see but cannot understand are worse than all. All this dear Sara, to prove that we are happier than when we were seven years old, and that we shall be happier when we are forty than we are now, which I call a comfortable doctrine and one worth trying to believe.
There are so many to whom I should like to be remembered -- Mr. Marshall and his nice son and daughter, Mrs. and Miss Dobson, 508 and every other friend of yours that I saw in London, for I liked them all. Much love to the three with whom I guess you are sitting -- Mrs. Hennell near the window, Mr. Hennell in his easy chair and Rufa very near to him. I am sitting with Father, who every now and then jerks off my attention to the history of Queen Elizabeth which he is reading. I must not forget to say that you were quite right in supposing I should be pleased for Dr. Brabant to take the two numbers of Taylor 509 with him. I shall be so pleased to have a note from you, and I am quite inclined to write oftener but I do not know whether you like to have letters that tell you nothing more than that I am, dear Sara,
Your affectionate Friend
Mary Ann Evans.
On the contrary it is shewn (by Hoffmann for instance) by a deduction from the supposed condition of the earliest races of mankind, that there can be no mythi in the Old and New Testament; a process of proof, which to use the words of its author, begins ab ovo, that is, from grounds intrinsically indeterminate, and therefore the most susceptible of such determinations as are needed for premises to a desired conclusion.
Aliter.
On the contrary Hoffmann shews, by a deduction from the supposed original condition of mankind, that in the O. and N. Testament there can be no mythi; a process of proof which as its author boasts, commences ab ovo, i.e. from grounds in themselves vague and uncertain -- to which therefore one can most easily impart the form of the presuppositions necessary to a desired conclusion (or, which therefore one can most easily mould into premises to a desired conclusion.) 510
Ne otio luxuriarentur animi. 511
Lest minds should grow voluptuous from too much leisure.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: May 1844. 1843. Extracts published: Cross, I, 125-126.
Foleshill Sunday.
My dear Sara,
You would have heard from me before how much I miss you 504 and think of you, but that I have been in a sort of molluscous-animal-state without voluntary motion. I cannot say much better of myself now, but if I wait for a transmigration you will perhaps forget me altogether.
To begin with business, I must thank you for the paper, and for your intention in sending me a duplicate of the volume of Strauss which I already had, though I do not find any use in it. If there is anything in it to which you wished to direct my attention please to tell me. I send you on the other side the translations you wished, but they are perhaps no improvements on what you had done.
I know you are very much occupied now and I do not like to ask for any of your time, but when you can do so I shall be very glad to learn from you the particulars as to the mode of publication for Strauss 505 -- who are the parties that will find the funds, and whether the manuscripts are to be put into the hands of any one when complete, or whether they are to go directly from me to the publisher? I was very foolish not to inquire about these things in the first instance, but ways and means are always afterthoughts with me.
I am glad to hear that you had the pleasure of seeing the great man of the day 506 under such interesting circumstances. We had a
Coventry edition of the spectacle, with less splendour but more hooting. All this news and every thing else you have from Rosehill so I have no facts for you. I have feared for you and Mr. Hennell through all the terrible northeasterly we have had, but Mrs. Bray tells me there have been no special complaints. You will soon be settled and enjoying the blessed spring and summer time. I hope you are looking forward to it with as much delight as I, and that we shall meet before it is all past.
One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that as soon as we have found the key of life, it opes the gates of death. 507 Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one. Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect -- to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. Witness colic and whooping-cough and dread of ghosts, to say nothing of hell and Satan, and an offended Deity in the sky who was angry when I wanted too much plum cake. Then the sorrows of older persons which children see but cannot understand are worse than all. All this dear Sara, to prove that we are happier than when we were seven years old, and that we shall be happier when we are forty than we are now, which I call a comfortable doctrine and one worth trying to believe.
There are so many to whom I should like to be remembered -- Mr. Marshall and his nice son and daughter, Mrs. and Miss Dobson, 508 and every other friend of yours that I saw in London, for I liked them all. Much love to the three with whom I guess you are sitting -- Mrs. Hennell near the window, Mr. Hennell in his easy chair and Rufa very near to him. I am sitting with Father, who every now and then jerks off my attention to the history of Queen Elizabeth which he is reading. I must not forget to say that you were quite right in supposing I should be pleased for Dr. Brabant to take the two numbers of Taylor 509 with him. I shall be so pleased to have a note from you, and I am quite inclined to write oftener but I do not know whether you like to have letters that tell you nothing more than that I am, dear Sara,
Your affectionate Friend
Mary Ann Evans.
On the contrary it is shewn (by Hoffmann for instance) by a deduction from the supposed condition of the earliest races of mankind, that there can be no mythi in the Old and New Testament; a process of proof, which to use the words of its author, begins ab ovo, that is, from grounds intrinsically indeterminate, and therefore the most susceptible of such determinations as are needed for premises to a desired conclusion.
Aliter.
On the contrary Hoffmann shews, by a deduction from the supposed original condition of mankind, that in the O. and N. Testament there can be no mythi; a process of proof which as its author boasts, commences ab ovo, i.e. from grounds in themselves vague and uncertain -- to which therefore one can most easily impart the form of the presuppositions necessary to a desired conclusion (or, which therefore one can most easily mould into premises to a desired conclusion.) 510
Ne otio luxuriarentur animi. 511
Lest minds should grow voluptuous from too much leisure.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Foleshill, [3 March 1844], 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/93905