GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, 31 July-2 August 1841
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, 31 July-2 August 1841
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, 31 July-2 August 1841
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1841-07-31–<br /> 1841-08-02
Place
FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, 31 July-2 August 1841
MS: Yale. Brief extract: Cross, 1, 89.
Foleshill Road | July 31st 1841.
My beloved Veronica,
Among all my queries I have never yet asked what is your destination after your holidays supposing you do not meet with a settled home. Are you to return to Burton? I am very anxious to know the answer to this question and I hope your poor eyes will by the time you receive this be free from tears, that writing may not be a grievance. Your tempting allusion to the half bed and your items of description would be a powerful loadstone if I were not already firmly fixed by a still mightier one. I am beginning to be interlaced with multiplying ties of duty and affection that, while they render my new home happier, forbid me to leave it on a pleasure-seeking expedition. I think indeed that both my heart and my limbs would leap to behold the [great and wide sea] 336 that old Ocean on which man can leave no trace; 337 but the emotions created by soul-stirring sights are more healthful and commonly stronger when duty leads us by them than when we go to them. You my Veronica have been thus led and I trust the breezes may invigorate your body while a more precious wind may blow on your soul's garden and call the spices forth. 338 I am instigated just now to increased -- o'clock. This letter my Veronica is written in odds and ends of time, and the thoughts will be equally fragmentary. I have forgotten or at least lost zest for the idea I was going to pursue, so I will take up another, in which I am very desirous that you should [jump with me.] It is a proposal that we should endeavour to think of each other and if possible lift up an ejaculation to our common Father on each other's behalf at Curfew time and that if no impediment exist we should take a glance at the firmament. I do not tax you with a long meditation on my worthless self; two minutes will suffice for my object. And will you choose one of the books of Scripture that we may each take the same morsel morning by morning, a verse at a time until we have reached the end?
If you return to town and make a prolongued stay there I really shall beg you to execute some commissions for me of the same kind as those you so nicely performed before. I can enclose the money in a letter as I should be rather extravagant if I had the opportunity. This is altogether a selfish letter, written to gratify my curiosity and obtain my own wishes. I shall so far persist in my self pleasing as to beg you to write me an answer as quickly as possible. Should a work, now I believe out of print entitled [Thoughts preparative or persuasive to private devotion] by John Sheppard 339 fall in your way, read it -- it is a sweet booklet of pious meditation adapted to accompany the Christian in all the windings of his experience. I am sorry to send you a letter that breathes no fragrance my Veronica but you will believe me when I tell you that I have much business for body and mind. Lebe wohl --
Your Clematis.
August 2d.
MS: Yale. Brief extract: Cross, 1, 89.
Foleshill Road | July 31st 1841.
My beloved Veronica,
Among all my queries I have never yet asked what is your destination after your holidays supposing you do not meet with a settled home. Are you to return to Burton? I am very anxious to know the answer to this question and I hope your poor eyes will by the time you receive this be free from tears, that writing may not be a grievance. Your tempting allusion to the half bed and your items of description would be a powerful loadstone if I were not already firmly fixed by a still mightier one. I am beginning to be interlaced with multiplying ties of duty and affection that, while they render my new home happier, forbid me to leave it on a pleasure-seeking expedition. I think indeed that both my heart and my limbs would leap to behold the [great and wide sea] 336 that old Ocean on which man can leave no trace; 337 but the emotions created by soul-stirring sights are more healthful and commonly stronger when duty leads us by them than when we go to them. You my Veronica have been thus led and I trust the breezes may invigorate your body while a more precious wind may blow on your soul's garden and call the spices forth. 338 I am instigated just now to increased -- o'clock. This letter my Veronica is written in odds and ends of time, and the thoughts will be equally fragmentary. I have forgotten or at least lost zest for the idea I was going to pursue, so I will take up another, in which I am very desirous that you should [jump with me.] It is a proposal that we should endeavour to think of each other and if possible lift up an ejaculation to our common Father on each other's behalf at Curfew time and that if no impediment exist we should take a glance at the firmament. I do not tax you with a long meditation on my worthless self; two minutes will suffice for my object. And will you choose one of the books of Scripture that we may each take the same morsel morning by morning, a verse at a time until we have reached the end?
If you return to town and make a prolongued stay there I really shall beg you to execute some commissions for me of the same kind as those you so nicely performed before. I can enclose the money in a letter as I should be rather extravagant if I had the opportunity. This is altogether a selfish letter, written to gratify my curiosity and obtain my own wishes. I shall so far persist in my self pleasing as to beg you to write me an answer as quickly as possible. Should a work, now I believe out of print entitled [Thoughts preparative or persuasive to private devotion] by John Sheppard 339 fall in your way, read it -- it is a sweet booklet of pious meditation adapted to accompany the Christian in all the windings of his experience. I am sorry to send you a letter that breathes no fragrance my Veronica but you will believe me when I tell you that I have much business for body and mind. Lebe wohl --
Your Clematis.
August 2d.
Signature
Your Clematis.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Foleshill, 31 July-2 August 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/92886