GE to Charles Lee Lewes, Malvern, 11 September 1861
Title
GE to Charles Lee Lewes, Malvern, 11 September 1861
Title
GE to Charles Lee Lewes, Malvern, 11 September 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Lee Lewes
Date(s)
- 1861-09-11
Place
Malvern
Letter Content
GE to Charles Lee Lewes, Malvern, 11 September 1861
Text: Paterson, pp. 100-102.
Malvern. 839 | September 11, 1861.
Dearest Boy,
Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the cheque, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist. We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders, we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility -- whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral.
I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so loveable an aspect. On the south-eastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands well nestled in fine trees -- chiefly "sounding sycamores," and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedgerows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood. It is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look upon -- freundlich, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills, there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide south-eastern valley from our sitting-room window.
Our landlady 840 is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick"; and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply-baked mortals.
Text: Paterson, pp. 100-102.
Malvern. 839 | September 11, 1861.
Dearest Boy,
Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the cheque, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist. We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders, we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility -- whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral.
I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so loveable an aspect. On the south-eastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands well nestled in fine trees -- chiefly "sounding sycamores," and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedgerows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood. It is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look upon -- freundlich, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills, there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide south-eastern valley from our sitting-room window.
Our landlady 840 is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick"; and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply-baked mortals.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Lee Lewes, Malvern, 11 September 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/92214