GE to Alice Helps, London, 31 March 1874
Title
GE to Alice Helps, London, 31 March 1874
Title
GE to Alice Helps, London, 31 March 1874
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Alice Helps
Date(s)
- 1874-03-31
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Alice Helps, London, 31 March 1874
MS: Dr. Peter Helps.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 31. 74.
Dear Ministering Spirit
I want to write to you this morning because I have no other way of trying to let you know that your kindness still keeps me company and makes me the happier. The sweet services and signs of care for me which you call little are to me very great, and create a warm soothing climate for my rather shivering personality -- and it is the result of making other lives than your own easier which I perceive is a chief end of yours.
Thinking how I came by them I shall find a spirtual as well [as] bodily comfort in my warm capote and cloak. But you must not, please, take any tiring trouble for my sake -- only let me come into your work as an easy parenthesis.
I trust to your quick kind instinct not to mention the name of my dear friend in connection with the difficulties of my toilette. Her taste is exquisite, but all experimental beginnings are hazardous with my unlovely form, and you saw only a rough tentative representation of her design. Those sleeves which you did not like, are charming on her -- or on pretty Mrs. G. Howard. She has a fairy deftness and tact -- a bright-glancing wit like your own.
I must tell you a bit of humour that has just come to me in a letter. Having called "Society" a huge boa-constrictor in its demands, our friend goes on -- I wonder whether the rabbits of Java, as they walk down the throats of the anacondas, say to each other, "You know I hate these crushes, but one mustn't shirk one's social duties."
Yours always sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
MS: Dr. Peter Helps.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 31. 74.
Dear Ministering Spirit
I want to write to you this morning because I have no other way of trying to let you know that your kindness still keeps me company and makes me the happier. The sweet services and signs of care for me which you call little are to me very great, and create a warm soothing climate for my rather shivering personality -- and it is the result of making other lives than your own easier which I perceive is a chief end of yours.
Thinking how I came by them I shall find a spirtual as well [as] bodily comfort in my warm capote and cloak. But you must not, please, take any tiring trouble for my sake -- only let me come into your work as an easy parenthesis.
I trust to your quick kind instinct not to mention the name of my dear friend in connection with the difficulties of my toilette. Her taste is exquisite, but all experimental beginnings are hazardous with my unlovely form, and you saw only a rough tentative representation of her design. Those sleeves which you did not like, are charming on her -- or on pretty Mrs. G. Howard. She has a fairy deftness and tact -- a bright-glancing wit like your own.
I must tell you a bit of humour that has just come to me in a letter. Having called "Society" a huge boa-constrictor in its demands, our friend goes on -- I wonder whether the rabbits of Java, as they walk down the throats of the anacondas, say to each other, "You know I hate these crushes, but one mustn't shirk one's social duties."
Yours always sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Alice Helps, London, 31 March 1874, 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/92011