GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1869
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1869
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1869
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1869-11-22
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1869
MS: Coventry City Libraries. Envelope: Miss Hennell | 3 Barr's Hill Terrace | Coventry. Postmark: LONDON-N.W | X | NO 22 | 69. Endorsed: About a month before Jubal appeared. 115 Jubal is dated 1869. The "Choir Invisible" 1867. Hitherto unpublished.
North Bank | November 22. 69.
My dear Sara
The view you express in the paragraph marked with your penstroke is entirely mine. I must found my belief not on what is glorious for this one or that one, but on what is probable for all. One cannot but feel tenderly towards the yearnings of individual sufferers, but theoretically speaking, it seems to me that the conception of religion as chiefly valuable for the personal consolations that may be extracted from it, is among the most active sources of falsity. The test of a higher religion might be, that it should enable the believer to do without the consolations which his egoism would demand. And this test, I imagine, coincides with what you have written in the first half of p. 256.
Misprints in an advertisement are particularly cruel, and that was a nasty one. I do enter with fellow-feeling into your vexation. Mr. Lewes has a singular faculty for remembering what is advertised, and what forms the common or exceptional material of Book-catalogues. It comes of his diligent, hungry search in his days of youthful penury, when he dined on a sausage in order to buy a longed-for book.
Your good wishes for me, dear Sara, tend to fulfil themselves. It is already a chief blessing, that others wish us well.
Ever your grateful
Pollian.
I don't like making statements about other people's opinions, but to prevent mistake, I had better say, that I believe Mde. Bodichon's sentiments are not at all in agreement with Miss Cobbe's, so far as I know these. 116
MS: Coventry City Libraries. Envelope: Miss Hennell | 3 Barr's Hill Terrace | Coventry. Postmark: LONDON-N.W | X | NO 22 | 69. Endorsed: About a month before Jubal appeared. 115 Jubal is dated 1869. The "Choir Invisible" 1867. Hitherto unpublished.
North Bank | November 22. 69.
My dear Sara
The view you express in the paragraph marked with your penstroke is entirely mine. I must found my belief not on what is glorious for this one or that one, but on what is probable for all. One cannot but feel tenderly towards the yearnings of individual sufferers, but theoretically speaking, it seems to me that the conception of religion as chiefly valuable for the personal consolations that may be extracted from it, is among the most active sources of falsity. The test of a higher religion might be, that it should enable the believer to do without the consolations which his egoism would demand. And this test, I imagine, coincides with what you have written in the first half of p. 256.
Misprints in an advertisement are particularly cruel, and that was a nasty one. I do enter with fellow-feeling into your vexation. Mr. Lewes has a singular faculty for remembering what is advertised, and what forms the common or exceptional material of Book-catalogues. It comes of his diligent, hungry search in his days of youthful penury, when he dined on a sausage in order to buy a longed-for book.
Your good wishes for me, dear Sara, tend to fulfil themselves. It is already a chief blessing, that others wish us well.
Ever your grateful
Pollian.
I don't like making statements about other people's opinions, but to prevent mistake, I had better say, that I believe Mde. Bodichon's sentiments are not at all in agreement with Miss Cobbe's, so far as I know these. 116
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 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/94028