GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 19 February [1856]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 19 February [1856]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 19 February [1856]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1856-02-19
Place
Richmond
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 19 February [1856]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1856. Extracts published: Cross, I, 390-391.
Park Shot | February 19.
Dear Sara
I was so glad to have a little news of you. I should like to hear much oftener, but our days are so accurately parcelled out among regular occupations that I rarely manage to do anything not included in the programme, and without reading Mrs. Barbauld on the Inconsistency of Human Expectations, 665 I know that receiving letters is inconsistent with not writing any.
If you can let me have the petition next Sunday or Monday it will be soon enough. I suppose you have received the revised edition with the clause about the husband being responsible for the wife's debts. 666
We are in happy ignorance of the Spectator's remarks, 667 for we never see that paper. Apropos of papers, have you seen any numbers of the Saturday Review, 668 a new journal on which [all the talents] are engaged?
It is not properly a newspaper, but -- what its title expresses -- a political and literary Review. The Duke of Newcastle 669 is at the bottom of it, and it has the first requisite of a journal -- money. Mr. Lewes has written some admirable articles for it, and among the rest, (you will be glad to hear) one on Herbert Spencer's Psychology -- not yet printed, however. 670 It is a much shorter and less interesting account of the book, than he gave in the Leader, but as the Sat. R. is not to be heterodox, he was necessarily g'ean'e9. By the way, if you should happen to hear any one imputing articles in the Leader to Mr. Lewes, be so good as to say that he only writes the summary and occasional reviews, and that he has nothing to do with the editorship. Sometimes there is one article of mine in, sometimes one of his, but rarely more.
What are you doing now? We are delighting ourselves with Ruskin's 3d volume, 671 which contains some of the finest writing I have read for a long time (among recent books). I read it aloud for an hour or so after dinner -- then we jump to the Old Dramatists when Mr. Lewes reads to me as long as his voice will hold out, and after this we wind up the evening with Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 672 by which I get a confused knowledge of branchiae and such things -- perhaps on the whole a little preferable to total ignorance. These are our noctes -- without coene for the present, occasionally diversified by very dramatic singing of Figaro etc. -- which I think must alarm "that good man, the clergyman," who sits below us.
Do you know that Mr. Chapman has let his house in Blandford Sq. for a year, and that Mrs. C. is living in lodgings at Redhill, Mr. C. devoting himself body and soul to his medical studies? 673 But I dare say you hear much more news of that sort than I do. I was very sorry to hear from Mr. C. that poor little Ernest has a tendency to scrofula, which makes it necessary to take him into the country.
We have been half laughing, half indignant, over Alison's new volume of his Hist[ory] of Europe, in which he undertakes to give an account of German literature. 674 For an impudent exhibition of ignorance and imbecility, it surpasses anything I have seen -- even Mr. S. C. Fullom. 675 It is deplorable to think how many people will spend their money on his huge volume of rubbish and fancy they are making a valuable addition to their library.
Doesn't this heavy weather make your brain heavy? It does mine, and inclines me to leave off writing. So, with love to all I say goodbye. Ever dearest Sara
Your affectionate
Marian.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1856. Extracts published: Cross, I, 390-391.
Park Shot | February 19.
Dear Sara
I was so glad to have a little news of you. I should like to hear much oftener, but our days are so accurately parcelled out among regular occupations that I rarely manage to do anything not included in the programme, and without reading Mrs. Barbauld on the Inconsistency of Human Expectations, 665 I know that receiving letters is inconsistent with not writing any.
If you can let me have the petition next Sunday or Monday it will be soon enough. I suppose you have received the revised edition with the clause about the husband being responsible for the wife's debts. 666
We are in happy ignorance of the Spectator's remarks, 667 for we never see that paper. Apropos of papers, have you seen any numbers of the Saturday Review, 668 a new journal on which [all the talents] are engaged?
It is not properly a newspaper, but -- what its title expresses -- a political and literary Review. The Duke of Newcastle 669 is at the bottom of it, and it has the first requisite of a journal -- money. Mr. Lewes has written some admirable articles for it, and among the rest, (you will be glad to hear) one on Herbert Spencer's Psychology -- not yet printed, however. 670 It is a much shorter and less interesting account of the book, than he gave in the Leader, but as the Sat. R. is not to be heterodox, he was necessarily g'ean'e9. By the way, if you should happen to hear any one imputing articles in the Leader to Mr. Lewes, be so good as to say that he only writes the summary and occasional reviews, and that he has nothing to do with the editorship. Sometimes there is one article of mine in, sometimes one of his, but rarely more.
What are you doing now? We are delighting ourselves with Ruskin's 3d volume, 671 which contains some of the finest writing I have read for a long time (among recent books). I read it aloud for an hour or so after dinner -- then we jump to the Old Dramatists when Mr. Lewes reads to me as long as his voice will hold out, and after this we wind up the evening with Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom, 672 by which I get a confused knowledge of branchiae and such things -- perhaps on the whole a little preferable to total ignorance. These are our noctes -- without coene for the present, occasionally diversified by very dramatic singing of Figaro etc. -- which I think must alarm "that good man, the clergyman," who sits below us.
Do you know that Mr. Chapman has let his house in Blandford Sq. for a year, and that Mrs. C. is living in lodgings at Redhill, Mr. C. devoting himself body and soul to his medical studies? 673 But I dare say you hear much more news of that sort than I do. I was very sorry to hear from Mr. C. that poor little Ernest has a tendency to scrofula, which makes it necessary to take him into the country.
We have been half laughing, half indignant, over Alison's new volume of his Hist[ory] of Europe, in which he undertakes to give an account of German literature. 674 For an impudent exhibition of ignorance and imbecility, it surpasses anything I have seen -- even Mr. S. C. Fullom. 675 It is deplorable to think how many people will spend their money on his huge volume of rubbish and fancy they are making a valuable addition to their library.
Doesn't this heavy weather make your brain heavy? It does mine, and inclines me to leave off writing. So, with love to all I say goodbye. Ever dearest Sara
Your affectionate
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 19 February [1856], 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/94092