Edith Simcox to GE, London, [28 March 1880]
Title
Edith Simcox to GE, London, [28 March 1880]
Title
Edith Simcox to GE, London, [28 March 1880]
Sender
Edith Simcox
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1880-03-28
Place
London
Letter Content
Edith Simcox to GE, London, [28 March 1880]
MS: Bodleian. Published: McKenzie, pp. 107-109.
Douro Place, | Victoria Road W. | Sunday.
My own Darling,
There are no frosts in particular at Sark and as I am going there especially to be out of temptation to torment you, I want, as a reward, leave for one more last caress. For, my own, you have [done your duty] to us, and as I can't forget how hard that is I can't help loving you more and more dearly for the sake of the sweet patience that bears and does what is so hard. And therefore, darling, I do want you to leave us before you are quite outworn, and I ought to be able to let you go without moaning, that it is like dying once a year, and that each year it is harder than the last.
It seems horrible that I should be better off than you, and yet while you are here, I cannot help being happy for every moment in your presence. A word you let fall on Thursday makes me want to say one thing -- you said some people wrote to you more freely from thinking you were alone. Darling, just because my love for you is the one great joy and blessing of my life, I should like you to know that if you had been alone seven years ago, I should not have ventured to let the love I felt have all its way. I tried to love you like this and to tell you so because he liked for you to be told, and all one's love couldn't be more than he thought due, than he liked to have poured out at your feet. He delighted in sharing the blessedness of loving you and but for the sweet memory of his generous welcome I could not bear to be glad in feeling your dearness now. All my little bits of good fortune seemed to come through him, and the thought of him is never more vividly present than when I am happiest in your love. If it were not so it would seem a disloyalty -- as it is I often half hate myself because your happiness is dead and mine because of yours must live while you do.
One more little confession: it does not hurt me in the least not to say it, but [Sweet Mother] has come a hundred times to the tip of my pen since it was told not. Do you see darling that I can only love you three lawful ways, idolatrously as Faber the Virgin Mary, 546 in romance wise as Petrarch, Laura, or with a child's fondness for the mother one leans on notwithstanding the irreverence of one's longing to pet and take care of her. Sober friendship seems to make the ugliest claim to a kind of equality: friendship is a precious thing indeed but between friends I think if there is love at all it must be equal, and whichever way we take it, our relation is between unequals. -- It is a quite impractical trifle but I am impelled to say this because any change in one's speech seems to imply a change of feeling and there has been none in my feeling for you except a growing desire not to make any burdensome claim, not even to weary you with the boundless, grateful love that must still and always be yours -- as I am.
Edith kisses are launched upon the foggy air. Goodbye darling.
MS: Bodleian. Published: McKenzie, pp. 107-109.
Douro Place, | Victoria Road W. | Sunday.
My own Darling,
There are no frosts in particular at Sark and as I am going there especially to be out of temptation to torment you, I want, as a reward, leave for one more last caress. For, my own, you have [done your duty] to us, and as I can't forget how hard that is I can't help loving you more and more dearly for the sake of the sweet patience that bears and does what is so hard. And therefore, darling, I do want you to leave us before you are quite outworn, and I ought to be able to let you go without moaning, that it is like dying once a year, and that each year it is harder than the last.
It seems horrible that I should be better off than you, and yet while you are here, I cannot help being happy for every moment in your presence. A word you let fall on Thursday makes me want to say one thing -- you said some people wrote to you more freely from thinking you were alone. Darling, just because my love for you is the one great joy and blessing of my life, I should like you to know that if you had been alone seven years ago, I should not have ventured to let the love I felt have all its way. I tried to love you like this and to tell you so because he liked for you to be told, and all one's love couldn't be more than he thought due, than he liked to have poured out at your feet. He delighted in sharing the blessedness of loving you and but for the sweet memory of his generous welcome I could not bear to be glad in feeling your dearness now. All my little bits of good fortune seemed to come through him, and the thought of him is never more vividly present than when I am happiest in your love. If it were not so it would seem a disloyalty -- as it is I often half hate myself because your happiness is dead and mine because of yours must live while you do.
One more little confession: it does not hurt me in the least not to say it, but [Sweet Mother] has come a hundred times to the tip of my pen since it was told not. Do you see darling that I can only love you three lawful ways, idolatrously as Faber the Virgin Mary, 546 in romance wise as Petrarch, Laura, or with a child's fondness for the mother one leans on notwithstanding the irreverence of one's longing to pet and take care of her. Sober friendship seems to make the ugliest claim to a kind of equality: friendship is a precious thing indeed but between friends I think if there is love at all it must be equal, and whichever way we take it, our relation is between unequals. -- It is a quite impractical trifle but I am impelled to say this because any change in one's speech seems to imply a change of feeling and there has been none in my feeling for you except a growing desire not to make any burdensome claim, not even to weary you with the boundless, grateful love that must still and always be yours -- as I am.
Edith kisses are launched upon the foggy air. Goodbye darling.
Citation
Edith Simcox, Edith Simcox to GE, London, [28 March 1880], Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/91764