Sara Sophia Hennell to GE, Coventry, 26 June 1859
Title
Sara Sophia Hennell to GE, Coventry, 26 June 1859
Title
Sara Sophia Hennell to GE, Coventry, 26 June 1859
Sender
Sara Sophia Hennell
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1859-06-26
Place
Coventry
Letter Content
Sara Sophia Hennell to GE, Coventry, 26 June 1859
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Sunday Morning | Ivy Cottage | June 26-1859.
Dear Marian,
I have been anxious to write to you the soonest I should have rest at home, to say how sorry I was to finish a visit of such deep interest with an abrupt parting at a moment when all my feelings were painfully absorbed in myself, for it is utterly impossible to me to hold two impressions at a time. I was aware, as soon as the shock of disappointment, (at your continued disapprobation, and also the missing that for which I came quite as much as the Festival) allowed me to think, that as usual, my selfish eagerness was unreasonable. I do not like to apologize for it, for you know how to understand it -- I have been for 9 months entirely absorbed in my own abstractions -- they have worked within me, till I can endure them in silence no longer -- needs must that I preach the word within me --: and one initial difficulty stands in my way that I have tried every way to surmount in vain -- I had satisfied myself at last that I had done it, and trusted that you would just read it and find nothing objectionable -- I thought I had told you this; -- that it was this one heavy point on which I would not trust myself that I desired to refer to you, as the precious person who could at once know and feel upon the point, -- and my own impressions are so crocodilishly straightforward and incapable of tacking, that I could not at once see that the wonderfully new circumstances made all different.
I have been fancying you, as ten years ago, still interested in what we then conversed together upon -- I was not sure that the writing that now occupied you was not the "Idea of a Future Life" that was then in nubilas -- that perhaps your thoughts had not been flowing in a parallel track to my own -- I see now that I have lost the only reader in whom I felt confident in having secure sympathy with the subject (not with me) whom I most gratefully believe -- believed in -- that she has floated beyond me in another sphere, and I remain gazing at the glory into which she has departed, wistfully and very lonely. But it brought out more kindness from dear Cara than I have enjoyed for a long time. She thinks she can give me all the help I need, and I dare say she can.
Now will you forgive me, you and Mr. Lewes, for I dare say the ugliness of my behaviour at parting? -- I want earnestly and sincerely to thank you both for the advice you have had the real friendliness to give me. I will continue to turn it over in my mind, and "lay it before the Lord," and see what comes of it when the present fatigue and disappointment have subsided.
On the journey home, it seemed to me that I might address my thoughts to Cara -- she is the only person to whom it would be possible. But soon I felt that this would lead me into ground of personal feeling, in which it would be impossible to avoid saying more than private sacredness would permit. Again and again I have considered this and every form of presenting my subject: -- and I have always come to the determination that the right way is to give the thoughts as they occurred. Once more I am now sitting at my portfolio with my finished papers before me -- again something of the former serene enthusiasm returns to me under which they have been written. I could no more set myself to alter it to please the world, than I could new-trim my bonnet if I were going into a real Church. The sole thoughts that I can bear to attend to, are God's own truth, and justice to the authors who have tried to expound it.
I am quite aware, both that your advice was in no way really inconsistent with this, and that this implies an enormous conceit in the self-consciousness -- but I can't help it -- you don't know how long and how self-chastisingly I have all along been trying to look at the matter aright. If I say my say and still no one listens or the rebuke comes, I think I can take it meekly and see that I have been under delusion. But I do think that if I had my matter in print, it would suggest something to men who have the command over the treatment which I have not, that would be of real value.
Now, dear Marian, you will see how soothing it is to me to find your sweet letter waiting me here -- full of the tenderness of heart and conscience that comes with happiness! -- do not conceive that I attribute blame to what was so beautifully natural, and so invaluably precious to friendship as your outpouring of yourself! So precious, that even through my own egoism I can feel the privilege of having received it worth all the disappointment, that I should have thought beforehand, nothing in the world would have atoned for -- let me quite forget it now, and say that our visit was a little world of Elysium -- thank you a thousand times for laying it out so as 'abto fill us with so much of your overflowing'bb -- I mean to bring us so at home into your joy. How for ever remote we should have felt if you had made a pretence of being quite unchanged from your former self, and tried to converse as of former times!
My head is getting so tired I cannot say all I want to say -- but they will write about this part of our thought. On Friday we looked out in the dimmest hope of again seeing you in the gardens -- the crowd was very great -- the music very grand. I wanted to have told you that the piece that has made the deepest impression of all was that singularly appropriate one that came on Wednesday after all those painful details you had been giving me about H[erbert] S[pencer] the day before. The Times agrees that the finest thing has been the Chorus out of Saul, "Envy, elder-born of hell." I don't think I ever heard it before, and the effect was impressive beyond description -- of a rolling, monotonous, continually-depressing, grumbling-downwards in the bass -- always falling back upon its own disappointed tonic. 172
This goes on uniformly in accompaniment throughout the piece, while the voices are moralising, till it finishes in a few solemn chords of crushing deliciousness -- just the sensation when good is being wrung out of your heart -- pangs -- poor, dear, great Herbert Spencer -- and Thackeray -- and how many more! And after this came the inexpressible sighs of the Dead March. I wish it had occurred to me at the time to consider this as the echoes from the battlefield of moral conflict! Why did you not hear this!
Saturday morning comes our innocent Mr. Barker 173 down to breakfast, with a solemn adjunction "Now, I have one thing I want to ask you three -- with just a plain answer -- do you know who is the Author of Adam Bede" -- which we parried in all styles, including a relation of CB's favourite tale of the evasive answer, "Axe my eye, you pig." He is so simple-minded and honourable, that the only way with him was to make him feel the impropriety, and he explained his impertinence by saying that the day before he had met a friend in the
Crystal Palace who told him, also in strict confidence who said author was -- which secret he himself would tell to no one but "his wife," when he got home. He would not even betray the sex -- so we tried to laugh off our knowledge as standing on equal terms with his.
Getting in the train for Coventry at Euston Square, Mrs. Delf 174 joined us, and no sooner were we settled into our seats than she leaned forwards to me, and solemnly intreated -- "Do you know the author of A.B." -- to which we could give no answer but fun. She was also [too] delicate and honourable to push the question, but I could see the whole journey she was intent upon the subject and catching any hint as to where we had been, etc. One thing she told us, which we sucked in with our ears -- Mr. Evans of Griff has been heard to say, after reading Adam Bede -- "No one but his Sister could write the book" -- "there are things in it about his Father that she must have written" -- and his impression has been the same for "Clerical Sketches." This was said to Mr. Gill 175 of the neighbourhood, and the repeating of it by the latter seemed to have turned the tide of attention in these parts upon you. From Mrs. Delf's manner I should judge that a storm of indignation is rising up for the poor wretch Liggins without any need of stirring on your part. When Mrs. Delf spoke of you as "Miss Evans," Charles privately asked Mr. Barker if he was at liberty to say whether that was his author? "No, certainly not" -- but it is probable that Mr. Barker knows you only as Mrs. Lewes. I told Mrs. Delf, how the thought of you as the author never entered my mind throughout Adam Bede, and how strongly I was impressed with the feeling of its being a man. "Then Mr. Lewes has helped her" -- and she told me that she has been reading in the "Lady's Magazine" how it was referred to the author of the Biographical History of Philosophy. 176
I think I have no more to say.
Farewell, meine liebe und ber'fchmte,
Sara.
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Sunday Morning | Ivy Cottage | June 26-1859.
Dear Marian,
I have been anxious to write to you the soonest I should have rest at home, to say how sorry I was to finish a visit of such deep interest with an abrupt parting at a moment when all my feelings were painfully absorbed in myself, for it is utterly impossible to me to hold two impressions at a time. I was aware, as soon as the shock of disappointment, (at your continued disapprobation, and also the missing that for which I came quite as much as the Festival) allowed me to think, that as usual, my selfish eagerness was unreasonable. I do not like to apologize for it, for you know how to understand it -- I have been for 9 months entirely absorbed in my own abstractions -- they have worked within me, till I can endure them in silence no longer -- needs must that I preach the word within me --: and one initial difficulty stands in my way that I have tried every way to surmount in vain -- I had satisfied myself at last that I had done it, and trusted that you would just read it and find nothing objectionable -- I thought I had told you this; -- that it was this one heavy point on which I would not trust myself that I desired to refer to you, as the precious person who could at once know and feel upon the point, -- and my own impressions are so crocodilishly straightforward and incapable of tacking, that I could not at once see that the wonderfully new circumstances made all different.
I have been fancying you, as ten years ago, still interested in what we then conversed together upon -- I was not sure that the writing that now occupied you was not the "Idea of a Future Life" that was then in nubilas -- that perhaps your thoughts had not been flowing in a parallel track to my own -- I see now that I have lost the only reader in whom I felt confident in having secure sympathy with the subject (not with me) whom I most gratefully believe -- believed in -- that she has floated beyond me in another sphere, and I remain gazing at the glory into which she has departed, wistfully and very lonely. But it brought out more kindness from dear Cara than I have enjoyed for a long time. She thinks she can give me all the help I need, and I dare say she can.
Now will you forgive me, you and Mr. Lewes, for I dare say the ugliness of my behaviour at parting? -- I want earnestly and sincerely to thank you both for the advice you have had the real friendliness to give me. I will continue to turn it over in my mind, and "lay it before the Lord," and see what comes of it when the present fatigue and disappointment have subsided.
On the journey home, it seemed to me that I might address my thoughts to Cara -- she is the only person to whom it would be possible. But soon I felt that this would lead me into ground of personal feeling, in which it would be impossible to avoid saying more than private sacredness would permit. Again and again I have considered this and every form of presenting my subject: -- and I have always come to the determination that the right way is to give the thoughts as they occurred. Once more I am now sitting at my portfolio with my finished papers before me -- again something of the former serene enthusiasm returns to me under which they have been written. I could no more set myself to alter it to please the world, than I could new-trim my bonnet if I were going into a real Church. The sole thoughts that I can bear to attend to, are God's own truth, and justice to the authors who have tried to expound it.
I am quite aware, both that your advice was in no way really inconsistent with this, and that this implies an enormous conceit in the self-consciousness -- but I can't help it -- you don't know how long and how self-chastisingly I have all along been trying to look at the matter aright. If I say my say and still no one listens or the rebuke comes, I think I can take it meekly and see that I have been under delusion. But I do think that if I had my matter in print, it would suggest something to men who have the command over the treatment which I have not, that would be of real value.
Now, dear Marian, you will see how soothing it is to me to find your sweet letter waiting me here -- full of the tenderness of heart and conscience that comes with happiness! -- do not conceive that I attribute blame to what was so beautifully natural, and so invaluably precious to friendship as your outpouring of yourself! So precious, that even through my own egoism I can feel the privilege of having received it worth all the disappointment, that I should have thought beforehand, nothing in the world would have atoned for -- let me quite forget it now, and say that our visit was a little world of Elysium -- thank you a thousand times for laying it out so as 'abto fill us with so much of your overflowing'bb -- I mean to bring us so at home into your joy. How for ever remote we should have felt if you had made a pretence of being quite unchanged from your former self, and tried to converse as of former times!
My head is getting so tired I cannot say all I want to say -- but they will write about this part of our thought. On Friday we looked out in the dimmest hope of again seeing you in the gardens -- the crowd was very great -- the music very grand. I wanted to have told you that the piece that has made the deepest impression of all was that singularly appropriate one that came on Wednesday after all those painful details you had been giving me about H[erbert] S[pencer] the day before. The Times agrees that the finest thing has been the Chorus out of Saul, "Envy, elder-born of hell." I don't think I ever heard it before, and the effect was impressive beyond description -- of a rolling, monotonous, continually-depressing, grumbling-downwards in the bass -- always falling back upon its own disappointed tonic. 172
This goes on uniformly in accompaniment throughout the piece, while the voices are moralising, till it finishes in a few solemn chords of crushing deliciousness -- just the sensation when good is being wrung out of your heart -- pangs -- poor, dear, great Herbert Spencer -- and Thackeray -- and how many more! And after this came the inexpressible sighs of the Dead March. I wish it had occurred to me at the time to consider this as the echoes from the battlefield of moral conflict! Why did you not hear this!
Saturday morning comes our innocent Mr. Barker 173 down to breakfast, with a solemn adjunction "Now, I have one thing I want to ask you three -- with just a plain answer -- do you know who is the Author of Adam Bede" -- which we parried in all styles, including a relation of CB's favourite tale of the evasive answer, "Axe my eye, you pig." He is so simple-minded and honourable, that the only way with him was to make him feel the impropriety, and he explained his impertinence by saying that the day before he had met a friend in the
Crystal Palace who told him, also in strict confidence who said author was -- which secret he himself would tell to no one but "his wife," when he got home. He would not even betray the sex -- so we tried to laugh off our knowledge as standing on equal terms with his.
Getting in the train for Coventry at Euston Square, Mrs. Delf 174 joined us, and no sooner were we settled into our seats than she leaned forwards to me, and solemnly intreated -- "Do you know the author of A.B." -- to which we could give no answer but fun. She was also [too] delicate and honourable to push the question, but I could see the whole journey she was intent upon the subject and catching any hint as to where we had been, etc. One thing she told us, which we sucked in with our ears -- Mr. Evans of Griff has been heard to say, after reading Adam Bede -- "No one but his Sister could write the book" -- "there are things in it about his Father that she must have written" -- and his impression has been the same for "Clerical Sketches." This was said to Mr. Gill 175 of the neighbourhood, and the repeating of it by the latter seemed to have turned the tide of attention in these parts upon you. From Mrs. Delf's manner I should judge that a storm of indignation is rising up for the poor wretch Liggins without any need of stirring on your part. When Mrs. Delf spoke of you as "Miss Evans," Charles privately asked Mr. Barker if he was at liberty to say whether that was his author? "No, certainly not" -- but it is probable that Mr. Barker knows you only as Mrs. Lewes. I told Mrs. Delf, how the thought of you as the author never entered my mind throughout Adam Bede, and how strongly I was impressed with the feeling of its being a man. "Then Mr. Lewes has helped her" -- and she told me that she has been reading in the "Lady's Magazine" how it was referred to the author of the Biographical History of Philosophy. 176
I think I have no more to say.
Farewell, meine liebe und ber'fchmte,
Sara.
Signature
Sara.
Citation
Sara Sophia Hennell, Sara Sophia Hennell to GE, Coventry, 26 June 1859, 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/95596