GE to Maria Lewis, [Foleshill], 8 December 1841
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, [Foleshill], 8 December 1841
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, [Foleshill], 8 December 1841
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1841-12-08
Place
[FOLESHILL]
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, [Foleshill], 8 December 1841
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: Cross, I, 103-104.
My dear Maria,
It is actually the 8th of December and little more than a fortnight to Christmas. Such being [the case] it is high time that I should know when your Gaol delivery will happen and when I may hope to kiss, yea, actually kiss you. I conclude you will come hither directly from Burton, and I shall at least have the first grasp of you, though how soon you will shake me off I cannot predict. I am regularly both head and leg-weary and so I very generously bestow these dullest moments of my dullardship on you. 389 Your last little kind note was unsatisfactory as to the situation. The illness of Miss R. Franklin has obliged her to renounce at least for the present, school duties but the eternal dragons of Church and dissent present themselves everywhere. 390 A partner is likely to be wanted (this entre nous) and one who would ultimately have the establishment left in her hands, but I think the Miss F's desire that the future principal should be a nonconformist. I advise the two parties to file off and divide the cities of the land between them -- to follow Abraham's example -- "If thou wilt go to the right hand I will go to the left." 391 Though by the bye that would not do for the odium theologicum would find abundant food under the generic names Church and Dissent and these would begin to bite and devour each other. What pity that while mathematics are indubitable, immutable, and no one doubts the properties of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely important to man are buried in a charnel heap of bones over which nothing is heard but the barks and growls of contention. [Unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united.] 392 Here is a tolerably long coil that I have kept spite of aching limbs. No thanks, you will say. I ask none carissima. Loquacity with tongue or pen is its own reward -- or, punishment. Farewell. Please write me a scheme soon.
Ever your true
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Brief extract published: Cross, I, 103-104.
My dear Maria,
It is actually the 8th of December and little more than a fortnight to Christmas. Such being [the case] it is high time that I should know when your Gaol delivery will happen and when I may hope to kiss, yea, actually kiss you. I conclude you will come hither directly from Burton, and I shall at least have the first grasp of you, though how soon you will shake me off I cannot predict. I am regularly both head and leg-weary and so I very generously bestow these dullest moments of my dullardship on you. 389 Your last little kind note was unsatisfactory as to the situation. The illness of Miss R. Franklin has obliged her to renounce at least for the present, school duties but the eternal dragons of Church and dissent present themselves everywhere. 390 A partner is likely to be wanted (this entre nous) and one who would ultimately have the establishment left in her hands, but I think the Miss F's desire that the future principal should be a nonconformist. I advise the two parties to file off and divide the cities of the land between them -- to follow Abraham's example -- "If thou wilt go to the right hand I will go to the left." 391 Though by the bye that would not do for the odium theologicum would find abundant food under the generic names Church and Dissent and these would begin to bite and devour each other. What pity that while mathematics are indubitable, immutable, and no one doubts the properties of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely important to man are buried in a charnel heap of bones over which nothing is heard but the barks and growls of contention. [Unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united.] 392 Here is a tolerably long coil that I have kept spite of aching limbs. No thanks, you will say. I ask none carissima. Loquacity with tongue or pen is its own reward -- or, punishment. Farewell. Please write me a scheme soon.
Ever your true
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, [Foleshill], 8 December 1841, 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/92866