GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 11 February 1875
Title
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 11 February 1875
Title
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 11 February 1875
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby
Date(s)
- 1875-02-11
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 11 February 1875
Text: Cross, III, 255-256.
Do send me the papers you have written -- I mean as a help and instruction to me. I need very much to know how ideas lie in other minds than my own, that I may not miss their difficulties while I am urging only what satisfies myself. I shall be deeply interested in knowing exactly what you wrote at that particular stage. Please remember that I don't consider myself a teacher, but a companion in the struggle of thought. What can consulting physicians do without pathological knowledge? -- and the more they have of it, the less absolute -- the more tentative -- are their procedures.
You will see by the [Fortnightly,] 212 which you have not read, that Mr Spencer is very anxious to vindicate himself from neglect of the logical necessity that the evolution of the abstraction "society" is dependent on the modified action of the units; indeed he is very sensitive on the point of being supposed to teach an enervating fatalism.
Consider what the human mind en masse would have been if there had been no such combination of elements in it as has produced poets. All the philosophers and savants would not have sufficed to supply that deficiency. And how can the life of nations be understood without the inward light of poetry -- that is, of emotion blending with thought?
But the beginning and object of my letter must be the end -- please send me your papers.
Text: Cross, III, 255-256.
Do send me the papers you have written -- I mean as a help and instruction to me. I need very much to know how ideas lie in other minds than my own, that I may not miss their difficulties while I am urging only what satisfies myself. I shall be deeply interested in knowing exactly what you wrote at that particular stage. Please remember that I don't consider myself a teacher, but a companion in the struggle of thought. What can consulting physicians do without pathological knowledge? -- and the more they have of it, the less absolute -- the more tentative -- are their procedures.
You will see by the [Fortnightly,] 212 which you have not read, that Mr Spencer is very anxious to vindicate himself from neglect of the logical necessity that the evolution of the abstraction "society" is dependent on the modified action of the units; indeed he is very sensitive on the point of being supposed to teach an enervating fatalism.
Consider what the human mind en masse would have been if there had been no such combination of elements in it as has produced poets. All the philosophers and savants would not have sufficed to supply that deficiency. And how can the life of nations be understood without the inward light of poetry -- that is, of emotion blending with thought?
But the beginning and object of my letter must be the end -- please send me your papers.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 11 February 1875, 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/94153