GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 21 September 1869
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 21 September 1869
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 21 September 1869
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1869-09-21
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 21 September 1869
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, III, 100.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
September 21. 69.
Dear Sara
I am so glad that you were inspired to write to me and let me have the pleasure of thinking of you under new, health-giving conditions.
Do bring yourself to consider these pauses from writing as an absolute duty, and spend all your spare money on them. I have such a horror of a mental break-down, like old Mrs. Trollope's, 105 for example. Her body was strong as iron; but, for years before she died, she had totally lost her memory. And the wise people say, that it is not so much the amount of work as its uninterrupted continuity, which proves fatal to the nervous functions. Therefore I rejoice to imagine you trudging about the lanes (with better weather now), and even a little disputation with your mathematical host 106 is a desirable variety from hanging over the desk.
As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets, is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce, in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poetry,
I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most vulgarminded genius that ever produced a great effect in literature.
The neighborhood of Stroud has acquired an additional interest for me, as the place or district which another friend of mine, Mrs. Burne Jones, the wife of a wonderfully fine painter, has been in the habit of visiting, to see her parents. Her father, who lately died, was a Methodist minister! Another of her sisters married Poynter, also a remarkable painter. But I forget her father's name. 107
Our poor boy Thornie is still our heavy anxiety. He is recovered from the chief symptoms of paralysis but is unable to walk or even stand long together.
Ever yours lovingly
Pollian.
Kind regards to Mr. Sibree.
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, III, 100.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
September 21. 69.
Dear Sara
I am so glad that you were inspired to write to me and let me have the pleasure of thinking of you under new, health-giving conditions.
Do bring yourself to consider these pauses from writing as an absolute duty, and spend all your spare money on them. I have such a horror of a mental break-down, like old Mrs. Trollope's, 105 for example. Her body was strong as iron; but, for years before she died, she had totally lost her memory. And the wise people say, that it is not so much the amount of work as its uninterrupted continuity, which proves fatal to the nervous functions. Therefore I rejoice to imagine you trudging about the lanes (with better weather now), and even a little disputation with your mathematical host 106 is a desirable variety from hanging over the desk.
As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets, is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce, in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poetry,
I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most vulgarminded genius that ever produced a great effect in literature.
The neighborhood of Stroud has acquired an additional interest for me, as the place or district which another friend of mine, Mrs. Burne Jones, the wife of a wonderfully fine painter, has been in the habit of visiting, to see her parents. Her father, who lately died, was a Methodist minister! Another of her sisters married Poynter, also a remarkable painter. But I forget her father's name. 107
Our poor boy Thornie is still our heavy anxiety. He is recovered from the chief symptoms of paralysis but is unable to walk or even stand long together.
Ever yours lovingly
Pollian.
Kind regards to Mr. Sibree.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 21 September 1869, 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/94021