GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [20 February 1861]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [20 February 1861]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [20 February 1861]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1861-02-20
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [20 February 1861]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Feb. 20. 1861. Extract published: Cross, II, 288-289.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
Wednesday.
Dear Sara
I am grateful to you for your letters. They are just what I want, and prevent me from feeling so far away from you, and so shut out from your lives, as I have sometimes felt.
Mr. Lewes got through his Lecture with perfect ease, and I have been all the happier since the task has been done.
My niece Emily did not come at Christmas -- the weather was too discouraging for a long journey. But if we are at home at Easter, I think she will come for a week then. Her father's brother is very kind to her, and I think he and his wife contemplate taking her into their family; for her aunt told Emily that she need not think of being a governess, as there were plenty of friends to take care of her. I should have been inclined to have her with me a good deal, but our boy puts that out of the question. At present she is still at school, at Lichfield.
I am glad to hear that Mr. Maurice 704 impressed you agreeably. If I had strength to be adventurous on Sundays, I should go to hear him preach, as well as others. But I am unequal to the least exertion or irregularity. My only pleasure away from our own hearth is going to the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Lewes is a fellow, so we turn in there several times a week, and I find the birds and beasts there most congenial to my spirit. There is a shoe-bill, a great bird of grotesque ugliness, whose top-knot looks brushed up to a point with an exemplary deference to the demands of society, but who I am sure has no idea that he looks the handsomer for it. I cherish an unrequited attachment to him. Best love to Cara and Mr. Bray. One touch of biliousness makes the whole world kin 705 -- I dare say there was a close resemblance in our experience.
Ever thine
Pollian.
I should think it was not an advertisement that Mrs. Cash saw but one of those newspaper paragraphs which appear without the slightest authority. I know of no advertisement, at present. 706
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Feb. 20. 1861. Extract published: Cross, II, 288-289.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
Wednesday.
Dear Sara
I am grateful to you for your letters. They are just what I want, and prevent me from feeling so far away from you, and so shut out from your lives, as I have sometimes felt.
Mr. Lewes got through his Lecture with perfect ease, and I have been all the happier since the task has been done.
My niece Emily did not come at Christmas -- the weather was too discouraging for a long journey. But if we are at home at Easter, I think she will come for a week then. Her father's brother is very kind to her, and I think he and his wife contemplate taking her into their family; for her aunt told Emily that she need not think of being a governess, as there were plenty of friends to take care of her. I should have been inclined to have her with me a good deal, but our boy puts that out of the question. At present she is still at school, at Lichfield.
I am glad to hear that Mr. Maurice 704 impressed you agreeably. If I had strength to be adventurous on Sundays, I should go to hear him preach, as well as others. But I am unequal to the least exertion or irregularity. My only pleasure away from our own hearth is going to the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Lewes is a fellow, so we turn in there several times a week, and I find the birds and beasts there most congenial to my spirit. There is a shoe-bill, a great bird of grotesque ugliness, whose top-knot looks brushed up to a point with an exemplary deference to the demands of society, but who I am sure has no idea that he looks the handsomer for it. I cherish an unrequited attachment to him. Best love to Cara and Mr. Bray. One touch of biliousness makes the whole world kin 705 -- I dare say there was a close resemblance in our experience.
Ever thine
Pollian.
I should think it was not an advertisement that Mrs. Cash saw but one of those newspaper paragraphs which appear without the slightest authority. I know of no advertisement, at present. 706
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [20 February 1861], 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/93951