GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1879
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1879
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1879
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1879-11-22
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1879
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 384-385.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22. 79.
My dear Sara
I am very grateful to you for your kind letter. News about you all had been much desired by me, but I have now so many business letters to write that I am apt to defer such as are not absolutely necessary.
The careful Index is a sign of your effective industry, and I have no doubt that it will be a great help to yourself as well as to your readers. One very often needs an index to one's own writings.
As to health this premature winter is not encouraging, but I hope you will all keep yourselves snugly warm and avoid [passive cold] -- the demon against whom Dr. Andrew Clarke always warns us. I am writing in the yellow twilight of a London fog, from which you are happily free. And the snow which is so hideous in town remains beautiful in the country. It grieves me to learn that Cara's eyes are troubling her so cruelly. I remember that in old days they used easily to smart after working in the evening.
My chief objects are quite completed now. The Dr. Roy appointed to the Studentship is held by competent persons to be the most hopeful of our few young physiologists and was absolutely in need of monetary help to save him from being forced to give up his researches. And there is a volume of 500 pages (the last) of Problems of Life and Mind ready to appear next month.
I am quite recovered from the ailment which made me good for little in the summer, and indeed am stronger than I ever expected to be again. People are very good to me, and I am exceptionally blessed in many ways, but more blessed are the dead who rest from their labours, and have not to dread a barren useless survival. Best love to all from
Your affectionate
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 384-385.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 22. 79.
My dear Sara
I am very grateful to you for your kind letter. News about you all had been much desired by me, but I have now so many business letters to write that I am apt to defer such as are not absolutely necessary.
The careful Index is a sign of your effective industry, and I have no doubt that it will be a great help to yourself as well as to your readers. One very often needs an index to one's own writings.
As to health this premature winter is not encouraging, but I hope you will all keep yourselves snugly warm and avoid [passive cold] -- the demon against whom Dr. Andrew Clarke always warns us. I am writing in the yellow twilight of a London fog, from which you are happily free. And the snow which is so hideous in town remains beautiful in the country. It grieves me to learn that Cara's eyes are troubling her so cruelly. I remember that in old days they used easily to smart after working in the evening.
My chief objects are quite completed now. The Dr. Roy appointed to the Studentship is held by competent persons to be the most hopeful of our few young physiologists and was absolutely in need of monetary help to save him from being forced to give up his researches. And there is a volume of 500 pages (the last) of Problems of Life and Mind ready to appear next month.
I am quite recovered from the ailment which made me good for little in the summer, and indeed am stronger than I ever expected to be again. People are very good to me, and I am exceptionally blessed in many ways, but more blessed are the dead who rest from their labours, and have not to dread a barren useless survival. Best love to all from
Your affectionate
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 22 November 1879, 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/94031