GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 18 November 1870
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 18 November 1870
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 18 November 1870
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1870-11-18
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 18 November 1870
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 121-123.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 18. 70.
My dear Sara
Think how far we are behind our contemporaries: -- yesterday, for the first time, we went to hear Spurgeon! 230 Mr. Lewes, who likes to surprize me with the fulfilment of some half-forgotten wish, had come home a day or two before with tickets for admission to a chapel within five minutes' walk of our house. So the experience was gained by very slight exertion, and certainly it was not worth more. I remembered what you had said about his vulgar, false emphasis, but there remained the fact of his celebrity, and such testimony as that of Ruskin, who after hearing him sent him (I think) £200 231 for his chapel, saying that he had never heard such preaching before. I was glad of the opportunity. But my impressions fell below the lowest judgment I ever heard passed upon him. He has the gift of a fine voice, very flexible and various; he is admirably fluent and clear in his language, and every now and then his enunciation is effective. But I never heard any pulpit reading and speaking which in its level tone was more utterly common and empty of guiding intelligence or emotion: it was as if the words had been learned by heart and uttered without comprehension by a man who had no instinct of rhythm, or music, in his soul.
And the doctrine! It was a libel on Calvinism, that it should be presented in such a form. I never heard any attempt to exhibit the soul's experience that was more destitute of insight. The sermon was against Fear in the elect Christian, as being a distrust of God, but never once did he touch the true ground of fear -- the doubt whether the signs of God's choice are present in the soul. We had plenty of anecdotes, but they were all poor and pointless -- Tract Society anecdotes of the feeblest kind. It was the most superficial, Grocer's-back-parlour view of Calvinistic Christianity; and I was shocked to find how low the mental pitch of our society must be, judged by the standard of this man's celebrity. Mr. Lewes was struck with some of his tones, as good actor's tones, and was not so wroth as I was. 232 But just now, with all Europe stirred by events, that make every conscience tremble after some great principle as a consolation and guide, it was too exasperating to sit and listen to doctrine that seemed to look no farther than the retail Christian's tea and muffins. He said, "Let us approach the throne of God," very much as he might have invited you to take a chair -- and there followed this fine touch: "We feel no love to God because he hears the prayers of others: it is because he hears my prayer that I love him."
You see, I am relieving myself by pouring out my disgust to you. And also, I write now, because next week 233 I might be out of town for a day or two and find it less easy to send you my love and affectionate memories in a letter. Oh how short life -- how near death -- seems to me! But this is not an uncheerful thought. The only great dread is the protraction of life into imbecility, or the visitation of lingering pain. I wish I could know from you that we are both together more capable of calm enjoyment, as each year is added to our lives. But I fear, dear Sara, from what Cara says, that you have been lately depressed by a worse state of health than usual. That seems to me the insurmountable calamity, though there is an ignorant affectation, in many people, of under-rating what they call bodily suffering. I am most anxious to have a fuller account of you from your own hand, and I think I can reckon on it now, from your kind habit of writing to me (troublesome as such writing is) at this time of the year. I enter into your indisposition to letter-writing, and am simply grateful when I receive, uncomplaining when nothing comes. For my own part, I system[at]ically abstain from correspondence, yet the number of acquaintances and consequent little appeals so continually increases that I often find myself inwardly rebelling against the amount of note-writing that I cannot avoid.
Have the great events of these months interfered with your freedom of spirit in writing? Mr. Lewes has got so interested in various parts of his revision -- reading and re-reading Leibnitz, Hegel, and much of Kant, and being led on to alterations which he had not contemplated -- that the business of this fourth edition is much more important than we had expected. One has to dwell continually on the permanent, growing influence of ideas, in spite of temporary reactions however violent, in order to get courage and perseverance for any work which lies aloof from the immediate wants of society. You remember Goethe's contempt for the Revolution of '30, compared with the researches on the Vertebrate Structure of the Skull? "My good friend, I was not thinking of those people." 234 But the changes we are seeing cannot be doffed aside in that way. Always, dear Sara,
Your faithfully loving
Pollian.
Tell Cara, with my love, that I would fain have helped poor Mrs. Bill 235 with more information; but I am sadly destitute of useful knowledge.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 121-123.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 18. 70.
My dear Sara
Think how far we are behind our contemporaries: -- yesterday, for the first time, we went to hear Spurgeon! 230 Mr. Lewes, who likes to surprize me with the fulfilment of some half-forgotten wish, had come home a day or two before with tickets for admission to a chapel within five minutes' walk of our house. So the experience was gained by very slight exertion, and certainly it was not worth more. I remembered what you had said about his vulgar, false emphasis, but there remained the fact of his celebrity, and such testimony as that of Ruskin, who after hearing him sent him (I think) £200 231 for his chapel, saying that he had never heard such preaching before. I was glad of the opportunity. But my impressions fell below the lowest judgment I ever heard passed upon him. He has the gift of a fine voice, very flexible and various; he is admirably fluent and clear in his language, and every now and then his enunciation is effective. But I never heard any pulpit reading and speaking which in its level tone was more utterly common and empty of guiding intelligence or emotion: it was as if the words had been learned by heart and uttered without comprehension by a man who had no instinct of rhythm, or music, in his soul.
And the doctrine! It was a libel on Calvinism, that it should be presented in such a form. I never heard any attempt to exhibit the soul's experience that was more destitute of insight. The sermon was against Fear in the elect Christian, as being a distrust of God, but never once did he touch the true ground of fear -- the doubt whether the signs of God's choice are present in the soul. We had plenty of anecdotes, but they were all poor and pointless -- Tract Society anecdotes of the feeblest kind. It was the most superficial, Grocer's-back-parlour view of Calvinistic Christianity; and I was shocked to find how low the mental pitch of our society must be, judged by the standard of this man's celebrity. Mr. Lewes was struck with some of his tones, as good actor's tones, and was not so wroth as I was. 232 But just now, with all Europe stirred by events, that make every conscience tremble after some great principle as a consolation and guide, it was too exasperating to sit and listen to doctrine that seemed to look no farther than the retail Christian's tea and muffins. He said, "Let us approach the throne of God," very much as he might have invited you to take a chair -- and there followed this fine touch: "We feel no love to God because he hears the prayers of others: it is because he hears my prayer that I love him."
You see, I am relieving myself by pouring out my disgust to you. And also, I write now, because next week 233 I might be out of town for a day or two and find it less easy to send you my love and affectionate memories in a letter. Oh how short life -- how near death -- seems to me! But this is not an uncheerful thought. The only great dread is the protraction of life into imbecility, or the visitation of lingering pain. I wish I could know from you that we are both together more capable of calm enjoyment, as each year is added to our lives. But I fear, dear Sara, from what Cara says, that you have been lately depressed by a worse state of health than usual. That seems to me the insurmountable calamity, though there is an ignorant affectation, in many people, of under-rating what they call bodily suffering. I am most anxious to have a fuller account of you from your own hand, and I think I can reckon on it now, from your kind habit of writing to me (troublesome as such writing is) at this time of the year. I enter into your indisposition to letter-writing, and am simply grateful when I receive, uncomplaining when nothing comes. For my own part, I system[at]ically abstain from correspondence, yet the number of acquaintances and consequent little appeals so continually increases that I often find myself inwardly rebelling against the amount of note-writing that I cannot avoid.
Have the great events of these months interfered with your freedom of spirit in writing? Mr. Lewes has got so interested in various parts of his revision -- reading and re-reading Leibnitz, Hegel, and much of Kant, and being led on to alterations which he had not contemplated -- that the business of this fourth edition is much more important than we had expected. One has to dwell continually on the permanent, growing influence of ideas, in spite of temporary reactions however violent, in order to get courage and perseverance for any work which lies aloof from the immediate wants of society. You remember Goethe's contempt for the Revolution of '30, compared with the researches on the Vertebrate Structure of the Skull? "My good friend, I was not thinking of those people." 234 But the changes we are seeing cannot be doffed aside in that way. Always, dear Sara,
Your faithfully loving
Pollian.
Tell Cara, with my love, that I would fain have helped poor Mrs. Bill 235 with more information; but I am sadly destitute of useful knowledge.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 18 November 1870, 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/94004