GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 2[8] May 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 2[8] May 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 2[8] May 1840
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1840-05-28
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 2[8] May 1840
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 66-67. Thursday was 28 May.
Griff May 26th 1840.
My dear Friend,
If you are in health it is well. I am also well. 201 I am so tired of artful simplicity, in modern vogue, that I have a mind to return to the antique fashion of simple formality. What if I should send you a matter of fact letter? Would you doubt the integrity of my signature? I have much that I could tell you and should like to convey to your ear, but I forbear to put down on paper, prospects that may yet after all pass by as the scenery of a Diorama. I will only hint that there seems a probability of my being an unoccupied damsel, 202 of my being severed from all the ties that have hitherto given my existence the semblance of a usefulness beyond that of making up the requisite quantum of animal matter in the universe. A second important intimation respecting my worthy self is one that I confess I impart without one sigh though perhaps you will think my callousness discreditable. It is that Seeley and Burnside have just published a Chart of Ecclesiastical History, doubtless giving to my airy vision a local habitation and a name. I console all my little regrets by thinking that what is thus evidenced to be a desideratum has been executed much better than if left to my slow fingers and slower head.
So you intend to cheat us by migrating in any direction rather than ours? I cannot be so selfish as not to wish that you should go where you can have the most invigorating breeze and the loveliest novelty, and I heartily echo your kind wish that we should be "like Juno's swans" 203 coupled together, though Brighton is not a name of stirring association with me. Give me a cliff that no tools have violated from whence to view the great deep, not a crowded splendid pier. My knowledge, conferred by my own pupillage, of the nearness of your holiday's commencement, has induced me to write you a hasty letter to-night, that I may have to expect a notification of your plans before your departure from Burton. I did hope to have the benefit of a little unfettered intercourse with you to have all those little plans and feelings to which recent circumstances have given birth passed through the crucible of your judgment, but it is good to see future disappointments in a camera obscura.
My dear Sister is in charming health with her darlings great and small. Can you imagine me domiciled at Meriden? Think you my elements are such as are likely to disturb the serenity of that atmosphere? or rather do you not think I shall be a stunted shrub? I desire to imitate my beloved father's calm endurance and humble gratitude and be quite free from anxiety respecting my destination. To be faithful to my theme, I fear I am laboriously doing nothing, for I am beguiled by the fascinations that the study of languages has for my capricious mind, and could e'en give myself up to making discoveries in the world of words. My pilot too is anything but uninteresting, all external grace and mental power, but "Cease ye from man" 204 is engraven on my amulet. And to tell you the truth I begin to feel involuntarily isolated, and without being humble, to have such a consciousness that I am a negation of all that finds love and esteem as makes me anticipate for myself -- no matter what; I shall have countless undeserved enemies if my life be prolonged, wherever my lot may be cast, and I need rigid discipline, which I have never yet had. Byron in his Childe Harold (which I have just begun the second time) checks reflections on individual and personal sorrows by reminding himself of the revolutions and woes beneath which the shores of the Mediterranean have groaned. 205 We may with more effectual comparison think of the dangers of the Great Ark of the Church in these latter times of the deluge of sin. I have written an almost unpardonably egotistical letter to say nothing of its other blemishes, but I believe you are the person that loves me well enough to bear with me. Send me word soon how you are and whither going, and think of me as your true and affectionate
Mary Ann.
Thursday Evening
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 66-67. Thursday was 28 May.
Griff May 26th 1840.
My dear Friend,
If you are in health it is well. I am also well. 201 I am so tired of artful simplicity, in modern vogue, that I have a mind to return to the antique fashion of simple formality. What if I should send you a matter of fact letter? Would you doubt the integrity of my signature? I have much that I could tell you and should like to convey to your ear, but I forbear to put down on paper, prospects that may yet after all pass by as the scenery of a Diorama. I will only hint that there seems a probability of my being an unoccupied damsel, 202 of my being severed from all the ties that have hitherto given my existence the semblance of a usefulness beyond that of making up the requisite quantum of animal matter in the universe. A second important intimation respecting my worthy self is one that I confess I impart without one sigh though perhaps you will think my callousness discreditable. It is that Seeley and Burnside have just published a Chart of Ecclesiastical History, doubtless giving to my airy vision a local habitation and a name. I console all my little regrets by thinking that what is thus evidenced to be a desideratum has been executed much better than if left to my slow fingers and slower head.
So you intend to cheat us by migrating in any direction rather than ours? I cannot be so selfish as not to wish that you should go where you can have the most invigorating breeze and the loveliest novelty, and I heartily echo your kind wish that we should be "like Juno's swans" 203 coupled together, though Brighton is not a name of stirring association with me. Give me a cliff that no tools have violated from whence to view the great deep, not a crowded splendid pier. My knowledge, conferred by my own pupillage, of the nearness of your holiday's commencement, has induced me to write you a hasty letter to-night, that I may have to expect a notification of your plans before your departure from Burton. I did hope to have the benefit of a little unfettered intercourse with you to have all those little plans and feelings to which recent circumstances have given birth passed through the crucible of your judgment, but it is good to see future disappointments in a camera obscura.
My dear Sister is in charming health with her darlings great and small. Can you imagine me domiciled at Meriden? Think you my elements are such as are likely to disturb the serenity of that atmosphere? or rather do you not think I shall be a stunted shrub? I desire to imitate my beloved father's calm endurance and humble gratitude and be quite free from anxiety respecting my destination. To be faithful to my theme, I fear I am laboriously doing nothing, for I am beguiled by the fascinations that the study of languages has for my capricious mind, and could e'en give myself up to making discoveries in the world of words. My pilot too is anything but uninteresting, all external grace and mental power, but "Cease ye from man" 204 is engraven on my amulet. And to tell you the truth I begin to feel involuntarily isolated, and without being humble, to have such a consciousness that I am a negation of all that finds love and esteem as makes me anticipate for myself -- no matter what; I shall have countless undeserved enemies if my life be prolonged, wherever my lot may be cast, and I need rigid discipline, which I have never yet had. Byron in his Childe Harold (which I have just begun the second time) checks reflections on individual and personal sorrows by reminding himself of the revolutions and woes beneath which the shores of the Mediterranean have groaned. 205 We may with more effectual comparison think of the dangers of the Great Ark of the Church in these latter times of the deluge of sin. I have written an almost unpardonably egotistical letter to say nothing of its other blemishes, but I believe you are the person that loves me well enough to bear with me. Send me word soon how you are and whither going, and think of me as your true and affectionate
Mary Ann.
Thursday Evening
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 2[8] May 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/92903