GE to Florence Cross, Witley, 3 August 1880
Title
GE to Florence Cross, Witley, 3 August 1880
Title
GE to Florence Cross, Witley, 3 August 1880
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Florence Cross
Date(s)
- 1880-08-03
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to Florence Cross, Witley, 3 August 1880
MS: Yale. Envelope: Miss Florence Cross | Weybridge Heath | Weybridge. Postmarks: GODALMING | C | 3 AU | 80; WEYBRIDGE-STATION | A | 4 AU | 80. Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
August 3. 80.
Dearest Florence
Thanks for the receipt which came to me at the breakfast table before Johnnie set off to town. He did not say whether he would be with you to lunch on Thursday, but I will use my influence that way so that he may begin his tennis comfortably. Our journey home on Wednesday was made shorter than we had expected by Bank holiday conditions. We came by the so-called 4 o'clock train and reached Witley at 6.13! -- not having waited anywhere. It was a sort of Railway Saturnalia, third class people getting into first class carriages without any question. Poor things, we wished on Sunday that they had had better weather.
We have been taking beautiful drives in a hired trap with a coachman in the smallest of billycocks and the least brushed of coats, a figure on whom the grocer's boy would look with pitying condescension. But we hope that some arrangement may be made for a coachman of our own today.
Will you let me say here to Eleanor that if she happens to be going into town I should be grateful for another collar and pair of cuffs, and also for two yards of very light creamed lace and a couple (or more yards, if there were a very fortunate find) of narrow creamed lace suitable for a bonnet border. But she must not take any special trouble or go much out of her way.
"My strength is to sit still" 459 while Johnnie is away. I shall go to meet him at 5.6.
Your loving
Sister.
MS: Yale. Envelope: Miss Florence Cross | Weybridge Heath | Weybridge. Postmarks: GODALMING | C | 3 AU | 80; WEYBRIDGE-STATION | A | 4 AU | 80. Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
August 3. 80.
Dearest Florence
Thanks for the receipt which came to me at the breakfast table before Johnnie set off to town. He did not say whether he would be with you to lunch on Thursday, but I will use my influence that way so that he may begin his tennis comfortably. Our journey home on Wednesday was made shorter than we had expected by Bank holiday conditions. We came by the so-called 4 o'clock train and reached Witley at 6.13! -- not having waited anywhere. It was a sort of Railway Saturnalia, third class people getting into first class carriages without any question. Poor things, we wished on Sunday that they had had better weather.
We have been taking beautiful drives in a hired trap with a coachman in the smallest of billycocks and the least brushed of coats, a figure on whom the grocer's boy would look with pitying condescension. But we hope that some arrangement may be made for a coachman of our own today.
Will you let me say here to Eleanor that if she happens to be going into town I should be grateful for another collar and pair of cuffs, and also for two yards of very light creamed lace and a couple (or more yards, if there were a very fortunate find) of narrow creamed lace suitable for a bonnet border. But she must not take any special trouble or go much out of her way.
"My strength is to sit still" 459 while Johnnie is away. I shall go to meet him at 5.6.
Your loving
Sister.
Signature
Sister.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Florence Cross, Witley, 3 August 1880, 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/92327