GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [25 November 1853]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [25 November 1853]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [25 November 1853]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1853-11-25
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [25 November 1853]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Nov. 22. 1853. Extracts published: Cross, I, 317-318.
Cambridge Street | Friday Morning.
Dear Sara
Sundry hindrances external and internal have prevented me from fulfilling my desire to write to you. Chiefly an uncomfortable state of body -- indeed I am now writing on my knee because I don't feel able to sit up at the desk. But you know that my life is a perpetual werden. I have not the less felt all that your letter said. Thank you for it dear, and for all the helpful love you have given me for the last ten years. I begin this year 402 more happily than I have done most years of my life. "Notre vraie destin'e9e," says Comte, "se compose de resignation et d'activit'e9" -- and I seem more disposed to both than I have ever been before. Let us hope that we shall both get stronger by the year's activity -- calmer by its resignation. I know it may be just the contrary -- don't suspect me of being a canting optimist. We may both find ourselves at the end of the year going faster to the hell of conscious moral and intellectual weakness. Still there is a possibility -- even a probability -- the other way.
My ailments and the fog together have prevented me from going to Blandford Square 403 to see Robert Noel and his wife and to Mrs. Wedgewood's 404 where H. Martineau is staying. I have not seen H. M's Comte yet -- she is going to give me a copy -- but Mr. Lewes tells me it seems to him admirably well done. I don't know whether you noticed the article on Mahomedanism and the Greek Church extracted from the Daily News, in the Leader 405 of last week. That was hers, and I think it excellent. [Seven words deleted.] James Martineau tells Mr. Chapman that he shall never write another book on theology! Don't you think that a good sign?
I told Mr. Chapman yesterday that I wished to give up any connection with the editorship of the Westminster. He wishes me to continue the present state of things until April, but admits that he is so straitened for money and for assistance in the mechanical part of his business that he feels unable to afford an expense on the less tangible services which I render. I shall be much more satisfied on many accounts to have done with that affair -- but I shall find the question of supplies rather a difficult one this year, as I am not likely to get any money either for Feuerbach, which, after all, Mr. Chapman I think will be afraid of publishing in his Series, or for "The Idea of a Future Life," for which I am to have "half profits" = 0/0!
Herbert Spencer writes me word that he has had an attack of palpitation of the heart -- but is quite recovered. 406 I am going to quote to him a passage I found in Sainte-Beuve which just fits him. "Quand j'ai dit qu'il n'avait jamais eu de passion et d'exc'e8s, je me suis trop avanc'e9; il a eu un exc'e8s de raison."
Give my love to Cara and thank her for her kind letter. I shall write to her soon. Love to Mr. Bray too. Tell him to send me word of any new phase in matters of business, and any leader as brilliant as the last I saw.
Ever your loving
Pollian.
I hope you will appreciate this bon-mot as thoroughly as I did -- "C'est un homme admirable -- il se tait en sept langues!" 407
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Nov. 22. 1853. Extracts published: Cross, I, 317-318.
Cambridge Street | Friday Morning.
Dear Sara
Sundry hindrances external and internal have prevented me from fulfilling my desire to write to you. Chiefly an uncomfortable state of body -- indeed I am now writing on my knee because I don't feel able to sit up at the desk. But you know that my life is a perpetual werden. I have not the less felt all that your letter said. Thank you for it dear, and for all the helpful love you have given me for the last ten years. I begin this year 402 more happily than I have done most years of my life. "Notre vraie destin'e9e," says Comte, "se compose de resignation et d'activit'e9" -- and I seem more disposed to both than I have ever been before. Let us hope that we shall both get stronger by the year's activity -- calmer by its resignation. I know it may be just the contrary -- don't suspect me of being a canting optimist. We may both find ourselves at the end of the year going faster to the hell of conscious moral and intellectual weakness. Still there is a possibility -- even a probability -- the other way.
My ailments and the fog together have prevented me from going to Blandford Square 403 to see Robert Noel and his wife and to Mrs. Wedgewood's 404 where H. Martineau is staying. I have not seen H. M's Comte yet -- she is going to give me a copy -- but Mr. Lewes tells me it seems to him admirably well done. I don't know whether you noticed the article on Mahomedanism and the Greek Church extracted from the Daily News, in the Leader 405 of last week. That was hers, and I think it excellent. [Seven words deleted.] James Martineau tells Mr. Chapman that he shall never write another book on theology! Don't you think that a good sign?
I told Mr. Chapman yesterday that I wished to give up any connection with the editorship of the Westminster. He wishes me to continue the present state of things until April, but admits that he is so straitened for money and for assistance in the mechanical part of his business that he feels unable to afford an expense on the less tangible services which I render. I shall be much more satisfied on many accounts to have done with that affair -- but I shall find the question of supplies rather a difficult one this year, as I am not likely to get any money either for Feuerbach, which, after all, Mr. Chapman I think will be afraid of publishing in his Series, or for "The Idea of a Future Life," for which I am to have "half profits" = 0/0!
Herbert Spencer writes me word that he has had an attack of palpitation of the heart -- but is quite recovered. 406 I am going to quote to him a passage I found in Sainte-Beuve which just fits him. "Quand j'ai dit qu'il n'avait jamais eu de passion et d'exc'e8s, je me suis trop avanc'e9; il a eu un exc'e8s de raison."
Give my love to Cara and thank her for her kind letter. I shall write to her soon. Love to Mr. Bray too. Tell him to send me word of any new phase in matters of business, and any leader as brilliant as the last I saw.
Ever your loving
Pollian.
I hope you will appreciate this bon-mot as thoroughly as I did -- "C'est un homme admirable -- il se tait en sept langues!" 407
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [25 November 1853], 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/93959