GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 12 July 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 12 July 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 12 July 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1861-07-12
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 12 July 1861
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 308-310.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
July 12. 61.
Dear Sara
Your letter gave me a pleasant vision of Sunday sunshine on the flowers and you among them with your eyes brightened by busy and enjoyable thoughts.
Yes! I hope we are well out of that phase in which the most philosophic view of the past was held to be a smiling survey of human folly, and when the wisest man was supposed to be one who could sympathize with no age but the age to come.
When I received your Monday packet, I was fresh from six quarto volumes on the history of the monastic orders, 814 and had just begun a less formidable modern book on the same subject -- Montalembert's "Monks of the West." 815 Our reading, you see, lay in very different quarters, but I fancy our thoughts sometimes touched the same ground.
I am rather puzzled and shocked, however, by your high admiration of the articles on the Study of History in the Cornhill. I should speak with the reserve due to the fact that I have only read the second article; 816 and this, I confess, did not impress me as exhibiting any mastery of the question, while its tone towards much abler thinkers than the writer himself, is to me extremely repulsive. The writer is not Mr. Hinton 817 (who, you know, writes the physiological contributions) but Mr. Stephen, 818 a barrister -- the son of Sir James Stephen, and formerly one of the critical corps belonging to the Saturday Review. Some time ago, as we learned from his friend Mr. Fawcett, 819 he was dismissed from the Saturday, and has since written regularly for the Cornhill.
Long ago an article appeared in the Sat[urday] on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of contradictory inconceivables which both Mr. Lewes and I thought admirable, and we were told that it was Mr. Stephen's. It was written with a touch of graceful humour which I have not recognized in anything else pointed out to me as his. Such writing as -- "We should not be called upon to believe that every crotchet which tickled the insane vanity of a conceited Frenchman was an eternal and self-evident truth" -- is to me simply disgusting, though it were directed against the Father of Lies. It represents no fact except the writer's own desire to be bitter, and is worthily finished by the dull and irreverent antithesis of the eternal truth and infernal lie.
I have just been reading the survey of the Middle Ages contained in the 5th volume of the Philosophie Positive, 820 and to my apprehension few chapters can be fuller of luminous ideas. I am thankful to learn from it. There may be more profundity in Mr. Stephen's exposition than I am able to penetrate, or possibly the first article may contain weightier matter than the second. Miss Dobson 821 shares your admiration of them, according to Miss Marshall, who called and had a chat with me yesterday.
Mrs. Bodichon is near us now, and one always gets good from contact with her healthy practical life. It is a comfort to know that her sister Mrs. Ludlow is very well at present. Mr. Lewes is gone to see Mrs. Congreve and carry his net to the Wimbledon ponds: I hope he will get a little strength as well as grist for his microscope.
Ever yours affectionately
Marian.
I quite agree with you -- so far as I am able to form a judgment -- in regarding Positivism as one-sided; but Comte was a great thinker, nevertheless, and ought to be treated with reverence by all smaller fry.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 308-310.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
July 12. 61.
Dear Sara
Your letter gave me a pleasant vision of Sunday sunshine on the flowers and you among them with your eyes brightened by busy and enjoyable thoughts.
Yes! I hope we are well out of that phase in which the most philosophic view of the past was held to be a smiling survey of human folly, and when the wisest man was supposed to be one who could sympathize with no age but the age to come.
When I received your Monday packet, I was fresh from six quarto volumes on the history of the monastic orders, 814 and had just begun a less formidable modern book on the same subject -- Montalembert's "Monks of the West." 815 Our reading, you see, lay in very different quarters, but I fancy our thoughts sometimes touched the same ground.
I am rather puzzled and shocked, however, by your high admiration of the articles on the Study of History in the Cornhill. I should speak with the reserve due to the fact that I have only read the second article; 816 and this, I confess, did not impress me as exhibiting any mastery of the question, while its tone towards much abler thinkers than the writer himself, is to me extremely repulsive. The writer is not Mr. Hinton 817 (who, you know, writes the physiological contributions) but Mr. Stephen, 818 a barrister -- the son of Sir James Stephen, and formerly one of the critical corps belonging to the Saturday Review. Some time ago, as we learned from his friend Mr. Fawcett, 819 he was dismissed from the Saturday, and has since written regularly for the Cornhill.
Long ago an article appeared in the Sat[urday] on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of contradictory inconceivables which both Mr. Lewes and I thought admirable, and we were told that it was Mr. Stephen's. It was written with a touch of graceful humour which I have not recognized in anything else pointed out to me as his. Such writing as -- "We should not be called upon to believe that every crotchet which tickled the insane vanity of a conceited Frenchman was an eternal and self-evident truth" -- is to me simply disgusting, though it were directed against the Father of Lies. It represents no fact except the writer's own desire to be bitter, and is worthily finished by the dull and irreverent antithesis of the eternal truth and infernal lie.
I have just been reading the survey of the Middle Ages contained in the 5th volume of the Philosophie Positive, 820 and to my apprehension few chapters can be fuller of luminous ideas. I am thankful to learn from it. There may be more profundity in Mr. Stephen's exposition than I am able to penetrate, or possibly the first article may contain weightier matter than the second. Miss Dobson 821 shares your admiration of them, according to Miss Marshall, who called and had a chat with me yesterday.
Mrs. Bodichon is near us now, and one always gets good from contact with her healthy practical life. It is a comfort to know that her sister Mrs. Ludlow is very well at present. Mr. Lewes is gone to see Mrs. Congreve and carry his net to the Wimbledon ponds: I hope he will get a little strength as well as grist for his microscope.
Ever yours affectionately
Marian.
I quite agree with you -- so far as I am able to form a judgment -- in regarding Positivism as one-sided; but Comte was a great thinker, nevertheless, and ought to be treated with reverence by all smaller fry.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 12 July 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/93986