GE to Bessie Rayner Parkes, Broadstairs, [15 July 1852]
Title
GE to Bessie Rayner Parkes, Broadstairs, [15 July 1852]
Title
GE to Bessie Rayner Parkes, Broadstairs, [15 July 1852]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Bessie Rayner Parkes
Date(s)
- 1852-07-15
Place
Broadstairs
Letter Content
GE to Bessie Rayner Parkes, Broadstairs, [15 July 1852]
MS: The Countess of Iddesleigh. Envelope: Miss Parkes | 2 Savile Row | London. Endorsed: July 16. Weybridge day. Postmarks: RAMSGATE | JY 15 | 1852 | C; NW? | 16 JY 16 | 1852. Hitherto unpublished.
Chandos Cottage | Broadstairs.
Dear Bessie
In return for those two glorious salmons of yours I send you a sprat, because I am not in the humour to write much and I mean to pay you the greatest of compliments -- that of neglecting you without making any apologies -- wherefrom you may gather that I truly love you.
Treating people ill is an infallible sign of special love with me.
Now, dear child, don't be playing pranks and shocking people, because I am told they lay it all to me and my bad influence over you. But I appeal to you whether I have not been the soberest properest of friends -- whether the pink of conventionalism could have shewn a graver disapproval of your chaussure than I? But thus it is that goodness is misapprehended and maligned in this ill-conditioned world -- human world that is -- for the world of sea and sky and rocks and flowers is anything but ill-conditioned. I am imbibing its peaceful beauty and dignity and half determining never to go back to that human world with its jealousies and unrest.
Publish the poems 142 with all my heart, but don't stop there. Work on and on and do better things still. I too will try to follow my own advice -- and thus we can enjoy the Nile and all other things as workers -- willing workers together with the Unnameable.
Ever thine
Marian.
MS: The Countess of Iddesleigh. Envelope: Miss Parkes | 2 Savile Row | London. Endorsed: July 16. Weybridge day. Postmarks: RAMSGATE | JY 15 | 1852 | C; NW? | 16 JY 16 | 1852. Hitherto unpublished.
Chandos Cottage | Broadstairs.
Dear Bessie
In return for those two glorious salmons of yours I send you a sprat, because I am not in the humour to write much and I mean to pay you the greatest of compliments -- that of neglecting you without making any apologies -- wherefrom you may gather that I truly love you.
Treating people ill is an infallible sign of special love with me.
Now, dear child, don't be playing pranks and shocking people, because I am told they lay it all to me and my bad influence over you. But I appeal to you whether I have not been the soberest properest of friends -- whether the pink of conventionalism could have shewn a graver disapproval of your chaussure than I? But thus it is that goodness is misapprehended and maligned in this ill-conditioned world -- human world that is -- for the world of sea and sky and rocks and flowers is anything but ill-conditioned. I am imbibing its peaceful beauty and dignity and half determining never to go back to that human world with its jealousies and unrest.
Publish the poems 142 with all my heart, but don't stop there. Work on and on and do better things still. I too will try to follow my own advice -- and thus we can enjoy the Nile and all other things as workers -- willing workers together with the Unnameable.
Ever thine
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Bessie Rayner Parkes, Broadstairs, [15 July 1852], 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/92029