GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 26 December 1863
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 26 December 1863
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 26 December 1863
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1863-12-26
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 26 December 1863
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 372.
The Priory, N. Bank | December 26. 1863.
Dear Sara
I should have written to you before but that I was uncertain whether you had left Lea Hurst. But one great charm of your correspondence is that you give one a perfect sense of freedom about it, instead of seeming to exact answers in punctilious regularity. I don't suspect that you are getting angry with me when I don't write; and that saves me from any uneasy association with the thought of you. For I get less and less inclined to write any but the briefest letters.
Thanks for the pretty story about your Leicester visit. My books seem to get so far off me when once I have written them, that I should be afraid of looking into "The Mill"; but it was written faithfully and with intense feeling when it was written, so I will hope that it will do no mortal any harm.
I am indulging myself frightfully, reading everything except the "current literature" and getting more and more out of rapport with the public taste. I have read Renan's book, however, which has proved to be eminently in the public taste. It will have a good influence on the whole I imagine; but this "Vie de J'e9sus" and still more Renan's Letter to Berthelot in the Revue des deux Mondes 218 have compelled me to give up the high estimate I had formed of his mind. Judging from the indications in some other writings of his I had reckoned him amongst the finest thinkers of the time. Still his Life of Jesus has so much artistic merit that it will do a great deal towards the culture of ordinary minds by giving them a sense of unity between that far-off past and our present. I have witnessed this effect in our own Charlie, who is now reading Strauss on the strength of the interest which Renan created.
I wonder what you are most enjoying now -- what subjects your mind is dwelling on. But I deserve to know nothing about you, for I have no patience to write more than these scribbling notes about nothings. Nevertheless I do care about everything that affects you, and shall share all the good that I can know of as befalling you in this coming year.
I am, as ever, a person who feel and talk a great deal, and do very little to correspond. Not a rare character, but your loving friend
P.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 372.
The Priory, N. Bank | December 26. 1863.
Dear Sara
I should have written to you before but that I was uncertain whether you had left Lea Hurst. But one great charm of your correspondence is that you give one a perfect sense of freedom about it, instead of seeming to exact answers in punctilious regularity. I don't suspect that you are getting angry with me when I don't write; and that saves me from any uneasy association with the thought of you. For I get less and less inclined to write any but the briefest letters.
Thanks for the pretty story about your Leicester visit. My books seem to get so far off me when once I have written them, that I should be afraid of looking into "The Mill"; but it was written faithfully and with intense feeling when it was written, so I will hope that it will do no mortal any harm.
I am indulging myself frightfully, reading everything except the "current literature" and getting more and more out of rapport with the public taste. I have read Renan's book, however, which has proved to be eminently in the public taste. It will have a good influence on the whole I imagine; but this "Vie de J'e9sus" and still more Renan's Letter to Berthelot in the Revue des deux Mondes 218 have compelled me to give up the high estimate I had formed of his mind. Judging from the indications in some other writings of his I had reckoned him amongst the finest thinkers of the time. Still his Life of Jesus has so much artistic merit that it will do a great deal towards the culture of ordinary minds by giving them a sense of unity between that far-off past and our present. I have witnessed this effect in our own Charlie, who is now reading Strauss on the strength of the interest which Renan created.
I wonder what you are most enjoying now -- what subjects your mind is dwelling on. But I deserve to know nothing about you, for I have no patience to write more than these scribbling notes about nothings. Nevertheless I do care about everything that affects you, and shall share all the good that I can know of as befalling you in this coming year.
I am, as ever, a person who feel and talk a great deal, and do very little to correspond. Not a rare character, but your loving friend
P.
Signature
P.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 26 December 1863, 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/94037