GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1876
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1876
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1876
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1876-11-22
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1876
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 296-297.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22. 76.
My dear Sara
I am sadly disappointed to find that you have been, and are, suffering so much, Cara's last account having suggested a more cheerful picture of you. Any one who knows from experience what bodily infirmity is -- how it spoils life even for those who have no other trouble -- gets a little impatient of healthy complainants strong enough for extra work and ignorant of indigestion. I at least should be inclined to scold the discontented young people who tell me in one breath that they never have anything the matter with them and that life is not worth having -- if I did not remember my own young discontent. What a pity that you did not get to Penmaenmaur before the bad weather set in! When I think of your cough and trouble of breathing, it makes my own ailments seem small -- I imagine so vividly the distressing effect on your head. It is a comfort that Cara is comparatively strong. Please tell her that I want to be [posted up] in her affairs by another little noteful of news.
We are perfectly happy, save and excepting the old headaches and other newer infirmities incident to our advancing years. 562 Mr. Lewes is getting his third volume through the press -- it turns entirely on the physiology of the nervous system -- though he can't work half so long as he used to do, he works with much enjoyment, reviving quickly after a crushing headache or an attack of lumbago. It is remarkable to me that I have entirely lost my personal melancholy. I often, of course, have melancholy thoughts about the destinies of my fellow-creatures, but I am never in that mood of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant even in the midst of external happiness. And this, notwithstanding a very vivid sense that life is declining and death close at hand.
Perhaps it will amuse you to know that our friend Mr. Spencer, who used to despise biography as the least profitable occupation of brain, is now busily collecting the materials of his own family and personal history! 563 The Spencer family is really interesting. H. S's father was a strong, peculiar character, and there seems to have been a strain of mental force through former generations.
We are waiting with some expectation for Miss Martineau's autobiography, which I fancy will be charming so far as her younger and less renowned life extends. All biography diminishes in interest when the subject has won celebrity -- or some reputation that hardly comes up to celebrity. But autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called [memoirs.]
Apropos -- you will not think me blasphemous if I pass to the memoirs of Jesus Christ. I remember you used to possess a volume containing the apocryphal gospels. If you don't use it, will you lend it me for a few months? I shall be very grateful.
It would be nice if we could be a trio -- I mean you, Cara and I -- chatting together for an hour as we used to do when I had walked over the hill to see you. But that pleasure belongs to "the days that are no more." 564 Will you believe that an accomplished man some years ago said to me, that he saw no place for the exercise of resignation when there was no personal Divine Will contemplated as ordaining sorrow or privation? He is not yet aware that he is getting old, and needing that unembittered compliance of soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough meaning for the word [resignation.]
I wish I had more news to tell you about people whom we know in common. Madame Bodichon is still, I think, at the coast with Miss Julia Smith, to whom she is a very loving, duteous niece. What a pretty delicate little old lady that aunt was the last time I saw her! With best love to Cara. Always, dear Sara,
Your faithfully affectionate
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 296-297.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22. 76.
My dear Sara
I am sadly disappointed to find that you have been, and are, suffering so much, Cara's last account having suggested a more cheerful picture of you. Any one who knows from experience what bodily infirmity is -- how it spoils life even for those who have no other trouble -- gets a little impatient of healthy complainants strong enough for extra work and ignorant of indigestion. I at least should be inclined to scold the discontented young people who tell me in one breath that they never have anything the matter with them and that life is not worth having -- if I did not remember my own young discontent. What a pity that you did not get to Penmaenmaur before the bad weather set in! When I think of your cough and trouble of breathing, it makes my own ailments seem small -- I imagine so vividly the distressing effect on your head. It is a comfort that Cara is comparatively strong. Please tell her that I want to be [posted up] in her affairs by another little noteful of news.
We are perfectly happy, save and excepting the old headaches and other newer infirmities incident to our advancing years. 562 Mr. Lewes is getting his third volume through the press -- it turns entirely on the physiology of the nervous system -- though he can't work half so long as he used to do, he works with much enjoyment, reviving quickly after a crushing headache or an attack of lumbago. It is remarkable to me that I have entirely lost my personal melancholy. I often, of course, have melancholy thoughts about the destinies of my fellow-creatures, but I am never in that mood of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant even in the midst of external happiness. And this, notwithstanding a very vivid sense that life is declining and death close at hand.
Perhaps it will amuse you to know that our friend Mr. Spencer, who used to despise biography as the least profitable occupation of brain, is now busily collecting the materials of his own family and personal history! 563 The Spencer family is really interesting. H. S's father was a strong, peculiar character, and there seems to have been a strain of mental force through former generations.
We are waiting with some expectation for Miss Martineau's autobiography, which I fancy will be charming so far as her younger and less renowned life extends. All biography diminishes in interest when the subject has won celebrity -- or some reputation that hardly comes up to celebrity. But autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called [memoirs.]
Apropos -- you will not think me blasphemous if I pass to the memoirs of Jesus Christ. I remember you used to possess a volume containing the apocryphal gospels. If you don't use it, will you lend it me for a few months? I shall be very grateful.
It would be nice if we could be a trio -- I mean you, Cara and I -- chatting together for an hour as we used to do when I had walked over the hill to see you. But that pleasure belongs to "the days that are no more." 564 Will you believe that an accomplished man some years ago said to me, that he saw no place for the exercise of resignation when there was no personal Divine Will contemplated as ordaining sorrow or privation? He is not yet aware that he is getting old, and needing that unembittered compliance of soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough meaning for the word [resignation.]
I wish I had more news to tell you about people whom we know in common. Madame Bodichon is still, I think, at the coast with Miss Julia Smith, to whom she is a very loving, duteous niece. What a pretty delicate little old lady that aunt was the last time I saw her! With best love to Cara. Always, dear Sara,
Your faithfully affectionate
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1876, 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/94030