GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 6 December 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 6 December 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 6 December 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1861-12-06
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 6 December 1861
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 321-323.
Blandford Sq. | December 6. 61.
Dear Sara
Thank you for that pretty bit of news. I shall delight in thinking that your Christmas will be cheered by such companionship.
Miss Marshall came to see us yesterday. That is always a pleasure to me, not only from the sense I have of her goodness, but because she stirs so many remembrances. The first time I saw her was at Rufa's wedding, and don't you remember the evening we spent at Mrs. Dobson's? How young we all were then -- how old now! She says, you are all under the impression that Mr. Lewes is still very ailing. Thank all good influences, it is not so. He has been mending ever since we went to Malvern, and is enjoying life and work more than he has done before for nearly a year. He has long had it in his mind to write a history of science -- a great, great undertaking, which it is a happiness for both of us to contemplate as possible for him. And now he is busy with Aristotle, and works with all the zest that belongs to fresh ideas. Strangely enough, after all the ages of writing about Aristotle, there exists no fair appreciation of his position in natural science. 878
I am particularly grumbling, and disagreeable to myself, just now, having been teazed with a slight cough that would not be shaken off, and now that is better, feeling constant Hemicrania and pain in the side -- all debility, I have no doubt, and carrying no consequences except those of present discomfort and depression. The way in which a slight cough affects me makes me think all the more of you, who have to suffer so frequently and severely from a cough. I think no one bears physical pain so ill as I do, or is so thoroughly upset by it mentally.
I must tell you a story which Mr. Wilkie Collins told us about Bulwer the other night. 879 I don't know whether you are reading "The Strange Story," 880 which from its air of lofty science along with representations of preternatural power, is, in our opinion of rather unwholesome tendency for popular reading -- and indeed would be wicked if it were not done by Bulwer in perfectly good faith, as it is. He is quite caught by the spirit of the marvellous, and a little while ago, at Dickens's house, was telling of a French woman who could raise the dead, but only at great expense. "What," said Dickens, "is the cause of this expense in raising the dead?" "The Perfumes!" said Bulwer, with deep seriousness, stretching out his hand with his usual air of lofty emphasis. -- I feel as if I ought not to tell you this, for if you repeat it to anybody else, I don't know what sort of monstrosity it may be turned into by the time it gets to the fifth narrator. I ought also to tell you, by way of balance to this absurdity, that Bulwer has behaved very nicely to me, and that -- quite apart from that personal question -- I have a great respect for the energetic industry with which he has made the most of his powers. He has been writing diligently in very various departments for more than thirty years, constantly improving his position, and profiting by the lessons of public opinion and of other writers.
I'm sorry you feel any degeneracy in Mr. George Dawson. There was something very winning about him in old days, and even what was not winning, but the reverse, affected me with a sort of kindly pity. With such a gift of tongue as he had, it was inevitable that speech should outrun feeling and experience, and I could well imagine that his present self might look back on that self of 21-27 with a sort of disgust. It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self, while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow. It would interest me a good deal to know just how Mr. Dawson preaches now.
Charles is come back from Hofwyl now, and settled to work again -- but with a weight on his mind -- and on ours too -- about his box from which he parted company on the journey, and which contains almost all his earthly goods -- music, dress suit, new shirts, journal, a ring which his grandmamma gave him, and presents from his Hofwyl friends.
Mr. Spencer is coming to lodge in Harewood Square 881 close by us, but as we exclude visitors except on a Saturday we shall not, I dare say, see the more of him. He is very delightful when we don't get on art and classical literature -- subjects on which there is a great gulf fixed between us. I don't mind it when we are alone, but I am always uneasy for him when I see he is boring other people. For, to my thinking, it is more pitiable to bore than to be bored.
I am writing on my knees with my feet on the fender and in that attitude I always write very small -- but I hope your sight is not teazed by small writing. Give my best love to Cara and sympathy with her in the pleasure of grasping an old friend by the hand, and having long talks after the distance of years. I know Mr. Bray will enjoy this too -- and the new house will seem more like the old one for this warming.
I should have been sorry for you to come to London in this dreary season. Come in Spring instead.
Ever your loving
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 321-323.
Blandford Sq. | December 6. 61.
Dear Sara
Thank you for that pretty bit of news. I shall delight in thinking that your Christmas will be cheered by such companionship.
Miss Marshall came to see us yesterday. That is always a pleasure to me, not only from the sense I have of her goodness, but because she stirs so many remembrances. The first time I saw her was at Rufa's wedding, and don't you remember the evening we spent at Mrs. Dobson's? How young we all were then -- how old now! She says, you are all under the impression that Mr. Lewes is still very ailing. Thank all good influences, it is not so. He has been mending ever since we went to Malvern, and is enjoying life and work more than he has done before for nearly a year. He has long had it in his mind to write a history of science -- a great, great undertaking, which it is a happiness for both of us to contemplate as possible for him. And now he is busy with Aristotle, and works with all the zest that belongs to fresh ideas. Strangely enough, after all the ages of writing about Aristotle, there exists no fair appreciation of his position in natural science. 878
I am particularly grumbling, and disagreeable to myself, just now, having been teazed with a slight cough that would not be shaken off, and now that is better, feeling constant Hemicrania and pain in the side -- all debility, I have no doubt, and carrying no consequences except those of present discomfort and depression. The way in which a slight cough affects me makes me think all the more of you, who have to suffer so frequently and severely from a cough. I think no one bears physical pain so ill as I do, or is so thoroughly upset by it mentally.
I must tell you a story which Mr. Wilkie Collins told us about Bulwer the other night. 879 I don't know whether you are reading "The Strange Story," 880 which from its air of lofty science along with representations of preternatural power, is, in our opinion of rather unwholesome tendency for popular reading -- and indeed would be wicked if it were not done by Bulwer in perfectly good faith, as it is. He is quite caught by the spirit of the marvellous, and a little while ago, at Dickens's house, was telling of a French woman who could raise the dead, but only at great expense. "What," said Dickens, "is the cause of this expense in raising the dead?" "The Perfumes!" said Bulwer, with deep seriousness, stretching out his hand with his usual air of lofty emphasis. -- I feel as if I ought not to tell you this, for if you repeat it to anybody else, I don't know what sort of monstrosity it may be turned into by the time it gets to the fifth narrator. I ought also to tell you, by way of balance to this absurdity, that Bulwer has behaved very nicely to me, and that -- quite apart from that personal question -- I have a great respect for the energetic industry with which he has made the most of his powers. He has been writing diligently in very various departments for more than thirty years, constantly improving his position, and profiting by the lessons of public opinion and of other writers.
I'm sorry you feel any degeneracy in Mr. George Dawson. There was something very winning about him in old days, and even what was not winning, but the reverse, affected me with a sort of kindly pity. With such a gift of tongue as he had, it was inevitable that speech should outrun feeling and experience, and I could well imagine that his present self might look back on that self of 21-27 with a sort of disgust. It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self, while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow. It would interest me a good deal to know just how Mr. Dawson preaches now.
Charles is come back from Hofwyl now, and settled to work again -- but with a weight on his mind -- and on ours too -- about his box from which he parted company on the journey, and which contains almost all his earthly goods -- music, dress suit, new shirts, journal, a ring which his grandmamma gave him, and presents from his Hofwyl friends.
Mr. Spencer is coming to lodge in Harewood Square 881 close by us, but as we exclude visitors except on a Saturday we shall not, I dare say, see the more of him. He is very delightful when we don't get on art and classical literature -- subjects on which there is a great gulf fixed between us. I don't mind it when we are alone, but I am always uneasy for him when I see he is boring other people. For, to my thinking, it is more pitiable to bore than to be bored.
I am writing on my knees with my feet on the fender and in that attitude I always write very small -- but I hope your sight is not teazed by small writing. Give my best love to Cara and sympathy with her in the pleasure of grasping an old friend by the hand, and having long talks after the distance of years. I know Mr. Bray will enjoy this too -- and the new house will seem more like the old one for this warming.
I should have been sorry for you to come to London in this dreary season. Come in Spring instead.
Ever your loving
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 6 December 1861, 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/94054