GE Journal, London, 19 June 1861
Title
GE Journal, London, 19 June 1861
Title
GE Journal, London, 19 June 1861
Sender
Ge Journal
Recipient
U
Date(s)
- 1861-06-19
Place
London
Letter Content
GE Journal, London, 19 June 1861
MS: Yale. Published: Cross, II, 305-307.
The next day, June 14th, we reached home, and found all well there. Blackwood, having waited in town to see us, came to lunch with us, and asked me if I would go to dine at Greenwich on the following Monday, to which I said "Yes" by way of exception to my resolve that I will go nowhere for the rest of the year. He drove us there with Colonel Stewart, and we had a pleasant evening -- the sight of a game at Golf in the Park, and a hazy view of the distant shipping with the Hospital finely broken by trees in the foreground. At dinner Colonel Hamley and Mr. Skene 787 joined us: Delane who had been invited, was unable to come. The chat was agreeable enough, but the sight of the gliding ships darkening against the dying sunlight made me feel chat rather importunate. I think, when I give a white bait dinner I will invite no one but my second self, and we will agree not to talk audibly.
This morning for the first time I feel myself quietly settled at home. I am in excellent health, and long to work steadily and effectively. If it were possible that I should produce better work than I have yet done! At least there is a possibility that I may make greater efforts against indolence and the despondency that comes from too egoistic a dread of failure.
This is the last entry I mean to make in my old book in which I wrote for the first time at Geneva, in 1849. 788 What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.
June 19th 1861.
MS: Yale. Published: Cross, II, 305-307.
The next day, June 14th, we reached home, and found all well there. Blackwood, having waited in town to see us, came to lunch with us, and asked me if I would go to dine at Greenwich on the following Monday, to which I said "Yes" by way of exception to my resolve that I will go nowhere for the rest of the year. He drove us there with Colonel Stewart, and we had a pleasant evening -- the sight of a game at Golf in the Park, and a hazy view of the distant shipping with the Hospital finely broken by trees in the foreground. At dinner Colonel Hamley and Mr. Skene 787 joined us: Delane who had been invited, was unable to come. The chat was agreeable enough, but the sight of the gliding ships darkening against the dying sunlight made me feel chat rather importunate. I think, when I give a white bait dinner I will invite no one but my second self, and we will agree not to talk audibly.
This morning for the first time I feel myself quietly settled at home. I am in excellent health, and long to work steadily and effectively. If it were possible that I should produce better work than I have yet done! At least there is a possibility that I may make greater efforts against indolence and the despondency that comes from too egoistic a dread of failure.
This is the last entry I mean to make in my old book in which I wrote for the first time at Geneva, in 1849. 788 What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.
June 19th 1861.
Citation
Ge Journal, GE Journal, London, 19 June 1861, 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/91902