GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 12 August 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 12 August 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 12 August 1840
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1840-08-12
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 12 August 1840
MS: Yale. Address: The Revd L. Harper | Burton Latimer | near Kettering | For Miss Lewis. Postmark: COVENTRY | AU 13 | 1840. Extracts published: Cross, I, 70-71.
Griff | August 12th 1840.
My very dear Friend,
Although you seem to intimate that my parcel will be detained some time before it reaches you, I will enclose my letter in it, first, because its trivialities will offer themselves to you with a better grace in this more modest way of conveyance, and secondly, because I am expecting a young friend (Martha Jackson) to join me on Monday next, and it is therefore probable that the desire to render her stay with me agreeable, may, in addition to ordinary occupations, quite engross me. Although I could wish to hear that you are quite well, I will look at the right end of the beam, and be only glad that you are "getting better."
I have received "The Faerie Queen," and am trebly pleased with it, first for its clear type, next for its cheapness, and last, not least, for the tacit witness it gives to your anxiety to gratify my little wishes in the midst of your own far weightier anxieties. I am able to destroy your claims to vaticination by telling you that I am so well as to find both rest and labour sweet, and that I would pass several days of languor to behold some of those guileless wearers of purple and scarlet, which the Germans call summer birds, 238 but which have not justified that name in our country lately. I mean, moths and butterflies, yea and dragon flies. I have since last I wrote to you, been blessed with an unusual placidity of mind, partly perhaps attributable, though I hope in a slight degree, to those physical sensations by which a beneficent Creator shews kindness even to the unthankful and the evil; chiefly I trust I may assign my feelings to the far more precious rills of mercy that flow to the willing soul not only through the appointed channels which we are commanded diligently to keep open, but by an infinity of passages too narrow for the natural eye to discern.
Did you read Mr. Keble's hymn for the Sunday before last? That sweetly describes the way in which Jesus' love "can turn earth's worst and least, into a conqueror's royal feast." 239 Mr. Finney in his Lectures on Revivals 240 a powerful book but to be read with broad views of the differences in national character) says that the whole of religion is, simply to submit to God. The phrase is common enough but I doubt whether the idea, still less the act be fully comprehended and carried out by the majority even of professing Christians. The confession "we are not our own" is readily made but where is the vivid consciousness of it that can alone conform us to His image who sought not His own will? It is this that makes dwelling in God and He in us. The Christian realizes the apparent paradox of glorying in the possession of the very summit of honour, honour inconceivable until revealed, with the lowest self-abasement. With this man will I dwell, even with him who is of an humble and a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my word. "I send you the Comforter that He may abide with you forever. He dwelleth with you and shall be in you." 241
The Epistle to the Colossians is preeminently rich in the colouring with which it portrays the Divine fulness contained in the Saviour contrasted with the beggarly elements that a spirit of self-righteousness would in some way mingle with the light of life, the filthy rags it would tack round the "fine raiment" of His righteousness. I have been reading it in connexion with a train of thought suggested by the reading of "Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, 242 one of the most eloquent, acute, and pious of writers. Five numbers only have yet appeared. Have you seen them? If not I should like to send you an abstract of his argument. I have gulped it (pardon my coarseness) in a most reptile-like fashion; I must chew it thoroughly to facilitate its assimilation with my mental frame. You will think me interminably loquacious, and still worse you will be ready to compare my scribbled sheet to the walls of an Egyptian tomb for mystery, and determine not to imitate certain wise antiquaries or antiquarian wiseacres who "waste their precious years, how soon to fail?" in deciphering information which has only the lichen and moss of age to make it more valuable than the facts graphically conveyed by an upholsterer's pattern book.
When your pupils can relish Church History I venture to recommend the Chart lately published by Seeley and Burnside, only 7s. far superior in conception to mine, as being more compendious, yet answering the purpose of presenting epochs as nuclei round which less important events instinctively cluster. Much, much love and a request that you will write as soon as you can do so comfortably, from
Your affectionate
Polly.
Am I right in the sum I have sent? 12.6?
I was disappointed in my expectation of forwarding this letter with the parcel, I therefore send it with all its imperfections on its head to prevent your probable surprise at my silence. May Aaron's blessing which involves the sum total of human bliss be ever with you and your
Polly.
MS: Yale. Address: The Revd L. Harper | Burton Latimer | near Kettering | For Miss Lewis. Postmark: COVENTRY | AU 13 | 1840. Extracts published: Cross, I, 70-71.
Griff | August 12th 1840.
My very dear Friend,
Although you seem to intimate that my parcel will be detained some time before it reaches you, I will enclose my letter in it, first, because its trivialities will offer themselves to you with a better grace in this more modest way of conveyance, and secondly, because I am expecting a young friend (Martha Jackson) to join me on Monday next, and it is therefore probable that the desire to render her stay with me agreeable, may, in addition to ordinary occupations, quite engross me. Although I could wish to hear that you are quite well, I will look at the right end of the beam, and be only glad that you are "getting better."
I have received "The Faerie Queen," and am trebly pleased with it, first for its clear type, next for its cheapness, and last, not least, for the tacit witness it gives to your anxiety to gratify my little wishes in the midst of your own far weightier anxieties. I am able to destroy your claims to vaticination by telling you that I am so well as to find both rest and labour sweet, and that I would pass several days of languor to behold some of those guileless wearers of purple and scarlet, which the Germans call summer birds, 238 but which have not justified that name in our country lately. I mean, moths and butterflies, yea and dragon flies. I have since last I wrote to you, been blessed with an unusual placidity of mind, partly perhaps attributable, though I hope in a slight degree, to those physical sensations by which a beneficent Creator shews kindness even to the unthankful and the evil; chiefly I trust I may assign my feelings to the far more precious rills of mercy that flow to the willing soul not only through the appointed channels which we are commanded diligently to keep open, but by an infinity of passages too narrow for the natural eye to discern.
Did you read Mr. Keble's hymn for the Sunday before last? That sweetly describes the way in which Jesus' love "can turn earth's worst and least, into a conqueror's royal feast." 239 Mr. Finney in his Lectures on Revivals 240 a powerful book but to be read with broad views of the differences in national character) says that the whole of religion is, simply to submit to God. The phrase is common enough but I doubt whether the idea, still less the act be fully comprehended and carried out by the majority even of professing Christians. The confession "we are not our own" is readily made but where is the vivid consciousness of it that can alone conform us to His image who sought not His own will? It is this that makes dwelling in God and He in us. The Christian realizes the apparent paradox of glorying in the possession of the very summit of honour, honour inconceivable until revealed, with the lowest self-abasement. With this man will I dwell, even with him who is of an humble and a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my word. "I send you the Comforter that He may abide with you forever. He dwelleth with you and shall be in you." 241
The Epistle to the Colossians is preeminently rich in the colouring with which it portrays the Divine fulness contained in the Saviour contrasted with the beggarly elements that a spirit of self-righteousness would in some way mingle with the light of life, the filthy rags it would tack round the "fine raiment" of His righteousness. I have been reading it in connexion with a train of thought suggested by the reading of "Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, 242 one of the most eloquent, acute, and pious of writers. Five numbers only have yet appeared. Have you seen them? If not I should like to send you an abstract of his argument. I have gulped it (pardon my coarseness) in a most reptile-like fashion; I must chew it thoroughly to facilitate its assimilation with my mental frame. You will think me interminably loquacious, and still worse you will be ready to compare my scribbled sheet to the walls of an Egyptian tomb for mystery, and determine not to imitate certain wise antiquaries or antiquarian wiseacres who "waste their precious years, how soon to fail?" in deciphering information which has only the lichen and moss of age to make it more valuable than the facts graphically conveyed by an upholsterer's pattern book.
When your pupils can relish Church History I venture to recommend the Chart lately published by Seeley and Burnside, only 7s. far superior in conception to mine, as being more compendious, yet answering the purpose of presenting epochs as nuclei round which less important events instinctively cluster. Much, much love and a request that you will write as soon as you can do so comfortably, from
Your affectionate
Polly.
Am I right in the sum I have sent? 12.6?
I was disappointed in my expectation of forwarding this letter with the parcel, I therefore send it with all its imperfections on its head to prevent your probable surprise at my silence. May Aaron's blessing which involves the sum total of human bliss be ever with you and your
Polly.
Signature
Polly.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 12 August 1840, 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/92899