Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 5 June [1869]
Title
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 5 June [1869]
Title
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 5 June [1869]
Sender
Frederic Harrison
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1869-06-05
Place
London
Letter Content
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 5 June [1869]
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Hitherto unpublished.
New Square | Lincoln's Inn. | June 5.
My dear Mrs. Lewes,
I was very pleased to hear recently of your return to England, for I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you a piece of news which I am sure you will be very pleased to hear. I should come to see you and tell you all about it in person if I knew when I might find you at leisure during the week but my Saturdays and Sundays (and indeed many other days of the week very often) are sacred -- and due to that same spot -- where of late I have been drawn almost out of my friends' sight and I fear quite out of yours.
But I need no preface to tell you that I am engaged to be married. It is to a cousin of my own -- Ethel Harrison. 79 My love for her has been a very old one of which I can no more remember any origin than I can conceive any close, which as far as I can look back everything seems to have conspired to perfect, and round which everything within us both and about us both seems to me, and always has seemed to turn, as around a centre. Our two families have lived in that rare confidence and affection which is only possible amongst relatives, and ever since she was a little girl we two have felt and thought and resolved and hoped -- as one and not as two. Need I say that I know at last what it is to live. I feel sure that you will rejoice to hear of my happiness.
I hope that your journey abroad has been a success and that you have found it a fresh source of health, and of strength, and of work. I am wholly ignorant what it is to give us -- and I naturally forbear to ask or even to speculate, but wait in confidence.
Alas! to wait is a lesson I have had to learn and yet have to suffer as well as I may. My cousin is still very young and a very long delay is imposed on me. She lives in the country in the quietest way, as I do for the most part now -- so far as hard necessities of business suffer -- yet not so utterly but that I hope ere very long to see you and to find both you and Mr. Lewes well. Believe me to be
Most sincerely yours
Frederic Harrison.
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Hitherto unpublished.
New Square | Lincoln's Inn. | June 5.
My dear Mrs. Lewes,
I was very pleased to hear recently of your return to England, for I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you a piece of news which I am sure you will be very pleased to hear. I should come to see you and tell you all about it in person if I knew when I might find you at leisure during the week but my Saturdays and Sundays (and indeed many other days of the week very often) are sacred -- and due to that same spot -- where of late I have been drawn almost out of my friends' sight and I fear quite out of yours.
But I need no preface to tell you that I am engaged to be married. It is to a cousin of my own -- Ethel Harrison. 79 My love for her has been a very old one of which I can no more remember any origin than I can conceive any close, which as far as I can look back everything seems to have conspired to perfect, and round which everything within us both and about us both seems to me, and always has seemed to turn, as around a centre. Our two families have lived in that rare confidence and affection which is only possible amongst relatives, and ever since she was a little girl we two have felt and thought and resolved and hoped -- as one and not as two. Need I say that I know at last what it is to live. I feel sure that you will rejoice to hear of my happiness.
I hope that your journey abroad has been a success and that you have found it a fresh source of health, and of strength, and of work. I am wholly ignorant what it is to give us -- and I naturally forbear to ask or even to speculate, but wait in confidence.
Alas! to wait is a lesson I have had to learn and yet have to suffer as well as I may. My cousin is still very young and a very long delay is imposed on me. She lives in the country in the quietest way, as I do for the most part now -- so far as hard necessities of business suffer -- yet not so utterly but that I hope ere very long to see you and to find both you and Mr. Lewes well. Believe me to be
Most sincerely yours
Frederic Harrison.
Signature
Frederic Harrison.
Citation
Frederic Harrison, Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 5 June [1869], 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/91851