GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Gorey, 22 May [1857]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Gorey, 22 May [1857]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Gorey, 22 May [1857]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1857-05-22
Place
Gorey
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Gorey, 22 May [1857]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1857. Extracts published: Cross, I, 448-449.
Rosa Cottage | Gorey | Jersey | May 22.
Yes, dear Sara, I had your letter at Scilly, with the little plan of the cottage, telling me just what I like to know. I suppose you have been keeping house for the last week during Cara's absence -- almost like the old times when you and Mrs. Hennell were in the cottage alone, only you have not had Pollian to drop in and ask you to take a walk with her over the hill. But you have had something better for company in your walk, I dare say -- perhaps meditations about a new book which shall be brought out when the Prize Essay has reached a second edition, or pictures, that you are dreaming of now the weather is bright and the hedgerows in blossom.
Such hedgerows in this island! Such orchards, white against the green slopes, and shady walks by the woodside, with distracting wild flowers that Miss Catlow 864 never says anything about, just because they are the very flowers you want to identify. We enjoy the greenery and variety of this bushy island all the better for our stay on bare Scilly, which we had gone to and fro upon till we knew it by heart.
This Gorey is a very retired spot -- a fishing place, about four miles from St. Helier's, with plenty of rich people's houses about to make it a point for omnibuses and tradesmen's carts. Our little lodgings are very snug -- only 13s/. a week -- a nice little sittingroom with a work-room adjoining for Mr. Lewes, who is this moment in all the bliss of having discovered a parasitic worm in a cuttle-fish! It is painful to think of the inequality of human lots! I dare say, now, your acquaintance with parasitic worms is of the "most meagre description."
Today, it is raining, after a long spell of fine weather, so I find a few minutes to write to you. Otherwise, now we dine at 5 our afternoons are almost exhausted in rambling. I hope to get up my strength in this delicious quiet, and have fewer interruptions to work from headache than I have been having since Christmas. Mr. Lewes is going on very well, and bears the "hunting" and the bilious sea-breezes better than he did last summer.
I wonder if I should have had the happiness of seeing Cara, if I had been at Richmond now. I would rather see her than any one else in the world -- except poor Chrissey. Give my love to Mr. Bray and tell him
I read the leader he sent me with much interest, and wish him God speed in his battle against ignorance and folly. 865 I like to think of him and Cara enjoying the pictures and other pleasant things to be seen in London just now. Where and when shall you go for your holiday?
I imagine you very vividly sitting by the piano in the lumber room and beating time as inexorably as a metronome. Does Nelly promise to play well? -- Do you ever see the Miss Franklins now? And who are the gentlemen about to marry Kate Martineau and Elinor Cash? Those are bits of gossip I should like to know, when you can think of them at the right moment for writing them.
Tell me when you have read the life of Currer Bell. Some people think its revelations in bad taste -- making money out of the dead -- wounding the feelings of the living etc. etc. What book is there that some people or other will not find abominable? We thought it admirable -- cried over it -- and felt the better for it. The article on it in the Leader -- Th. Hunt's, I dare say -- did not give a sufficiently high idea of its interest. 866
We read Cromwell's Letters again at Scilly, with great delight, and Mr. Lewes wrote an article on them which you will see in the Leader. 867 That and the one on the Oxford Essays 868 is all he has done in that way.
I have nothing to say, but a letter is pleasant either as an accompaniment to one's breakfast, or as idle reading after dinner. So I feel sure you will like to have this "nothing that I so plentifully give you." 869
Ever your loving
Marian.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1857. Extracts published: Cross, I, 448-449.
Rosa Cottage | Gorey | Jersey | May 22.
Yes, dear Sara, I had your letter at Scilly, with the little plan of the cottage, telling me just what I like to know. I suppose you have been keeping house for the last week during Cara's absence -- almost like the old times when you and Mrs. Hennell were in the cottage alone, only you have not had Pollian to drop in and ask you to take a walk with her over the hill. But you have had something better for company in your walk, I dare say -- perhaps meditations about a new book which shall be brought out when the Prize Essay has reached a second edition, or pictures, that you are dreaming of now the weather is bright and the hedgerows in blossom.
Such hedgerows in this island! Such orchards, white against the green slopes, and shady walks by the woodside, with distracting wild flowers that Miss Catlow 864 never says anything about, just because they are the very flowers you want to identify. We enjoy the greenery and variety of this bushy island all the better for our stay on bare Scilly, which we had gone to and fro upon till we knew it by heart.
This Gorey is a very retired spot -- a fishing place, about four miles from St. Helier's, with plenty of rich people's houses about to make it a point for omnibuses and tradesmen's carts. Our little lodgings are very snug -- only 13s/. a week -- a nice little sittingroom with a work-room adjoining for Mr. Lewes, who is this moment in all the bliss of having discovered a parasitic worm in a cuttle-fish! It is painful to think of the inequality of human lots! I dare say, now, your acquaintance with parasitic worms is of the "most meagre description."
Today, it is raining, after a long spell of fine weather, so I find a few minutes to write to you. Otherwise, now we dine at 5 our afternoons are almost exhausted in rambling. I hope to get up my strength in this delicious quiet, and have fewer interruptions to work from headache than I have been having since Christmas. Mr. Lewes is going on very well, and bears the "hunting" and the bilious sea-breezes better than he did last summer.
I wonder if I should have had the happiness of seeing Cara, if I had been at Richmond now. I would rather see her than any one else in the world -- except poor Chrissey. Give my love to Mr. Bray and tell him
I read the leader he sent me with much interest, and wish him God speed in his battle against ignorance and folly. 865 I like to think of him and Cara enjoying the pictures and other pleasant things to be seen in London just now. Where and when shall you go for your holiday?
I imagine you very vividly sitting by the piano in the lumber room and beating time as inexorably as a metronome. Does Nelly promise to play well? -- Do you ever see the Miss Franklins now? And who are the gentlemen about to marry Kate Martineau and Elinor Cash? Those are bits of gossip I should like to know, when you can think of them at the right moment for writing them.
Tell me when you have read the life of Currer Bell. Some people think its revelations in bad taste -- making money out of the dead -- wounding the feelings of the living etc. etc. What book is there that some people or other will not find abominable? We thought it admirable -- cried over it -- and felt the better for it. The article on it in the Leader -- Th. Hunt's, I dare say -- did not give a sufficiently high idea of its interest. 866
We read Cromwell's Letters again at Scilly, with great delight, and Mr. Lewes wrote an article on them which you will see in the Leader. 867 That and the one on the Oxford Essays 868 is all he has done in that way.
I have nothing to say, but a letter is pleasant either as an accompaniment to one's breakfast, or as idle reading after dinner. So I feel sure you will like to have this "nothing that I so plentifully give you." 869
Ever your loving
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Gorey, 22 May [1857], 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/93927