GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November [1872]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November [1872]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November [1872]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1872-11-22
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November [1872]
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 179-180.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22.
My dear Sara
A kiss to you on your birthday! -- with gratitude for your delightful letter, 632 such as only you can write me. How impossible it is to feel that we are as old as we are. Sometimes it seems a very little while since you and I were walking over the Radford fields with the youth in our limbs, talking and laughing with that easy companionship which it is difficult to find in later life. But I have been laughing with you again in reading your exquisite description of Harriet; 633 and it is comforting too, to think that she is as happy as if she were more like the average.
I have not time this morning to write a separate letter to Cara, but I thank her here for her kind words and news, and I "rejoice greatly" in the new edition of the Education of the Feelings, 634 which is likely to have extended usefulness in its new form. I don't know any sort of work more needed among the educators.
That touch of the "buckles on the slippers" in Mr. Wylie's 635 ideal, is pleasantly suggestive of Mr. Bray's picturesqueness as well as peacefulness.
I am busy now reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript which has been accumulating fast during my Middlemarch time. Did I tell you that in the last two years he has been mastering the principles of mathematics? That is an interesting fact, impersonally, at his age.
Old Professor Stowe, Mrs. H. B. Stowe's husband sent me this story which is almost better than Topsy. He heard a schoolmaster asking a little black girl the usual questions about Creation -- "Who made the earth, the sea" etc. At last came -- "Who made you?" -- Some deliberation was necessary, after which she said: "Nobody: I was so afore!"
Expect to be immensely disappointed with the close of Middlemarch. But look back to the Prelude.
I wish I could take the wings of the morning every now and then to cheer you with an hour's chat such as you feel the need of, and then fly back on the wings of the wind. I have the most vivid thoughts of you, almost like a bodily presence but these do you no good, since you can only believe that I have them -- and you are tired of believing after your work is done.
Always
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 179-180.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22.
My dear Sara
A kiss to you on your birthday! -- with gratitude for your delightful letter, 632 such as only you can write me. How impossible it is to feel that we are as old as we are. Sometimes it seems a very little while since you and I were walking over the Radford fields with the youth in our limbs, talking and laughing with that easy companionship which it is difficult to find in later life. But I have been laughing with you again in reading your exquisite description of Harriet; 633 and it is comforting too, to think that she is as happy as if she were more like the average.
I have not time this morning to write a separate letter to Cara, but I thank her here for her kind words and news, and I "rejoice greatly" in the new edition of the Education of the Feelings, 634 which is likely to have extended usefulness in its new form. I don't know any sort of work more needed among the educators.
That touch of the "buckles on the slippers" in Mr. Wylie's 635 ideal, is pleasantly suggestive of Mr. Bray's picturesqueness as well as peacefulness.
I am busy now reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript which has been accumulating fast during my Middlemarch time. Did I tell you that in the last two years he has been mastering the principles of mathematics? That is an interesting fact, impersonally, at his age.
Old Professor Stowe, Mrs. H. B. Stowe's husband sent me this story which is almost better than Topsy. He heard a schoolmaster asking a little black girl the usual questions about Creation -- "Who made the earth, the sea" etc. At last came -- "Who made you?" -- Some deliberation was necessary, after which she said: "Nobody: I was so afore!"
Expect to be immensely disappointed with the close of Middlemarch. But look back to the Prelude.
I wish I could take the wings of the morning every now and then to cheer you with an hour's chat such as you feel the need of, and then fly back on the wings of the wind. I have the most vivid thoughts of you, almost like a bodily presence but these do you no good, since you can only believe that I have them -- and you are tired of believing after your work is done.
Always
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November [1872], 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/94024