GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 23 June 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 23 June 1840
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 23 June 1840
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1840-06-23
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 23 June 1840
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | Duke's Head | Margate. Postmark: COVENTRY | JU 23 | 1840. Extracts published: Cross, I, 67-69.
Griff | June 23d 1840.
My very dear Friend,
Your letter greeted me last night on my arrival from Staffordshire, 211 and it is my first employment this morning after arranging sundry household matters to prepare such a representative of myself for tonight's post as my rather dissipated brain will allow. If my affection for you did not lead me to dwell chiefly on your trial in being despoiled of your only season of refreshment, I should feel more deeply for the almost desolate sufferer 212 to whom Providence has made you a ministering angel. I hear this morning that Mr. B. is journeying to or has arrived at Margate, the latter I hope is fact. I will hope that what you have regarded as a stormy petrel may prove a halcyon and that after all I shall once more give you a bon'e2 fide kiss. Having thus put on my spectacles couleur de rose, as Mrs. Jameson says, I shall write as cheerfully as I can. If I had not almost lost that "constant hectic of a fool," 213 wishing, I should wish myself in the noose of matrimony solely for your dear sake. I would not then hear of comfortable establishments for governesses near London. As it is, alas, I must be content to feel that I can offer you no refuge that would be an equivalent to such a one as you describe. Only I must protest against your segregating yourself so completely that your friends can never get a sight of you. As long as I am here you know well that my dear Father will be delighted to welcome you as my friend, in addition to his respect for you, and should I migrate to Meriden our meeting will be facilitated in every way.
The prospectus of Mr. Henslowe's work 214 is as marvellous to my ignorant conceptions as a prophecy of the wonders of the steam engine would have been to some British worthy in the days of Caractacus; I can only gape as he would probably have done. I hope Mr. H. has not imitated certain showkeepers who give so exaggerated a representation of their giantess on the outside that the spectators have disappointment for their cash within. Whichever arrangement as to forwarding the book will be in your opinion best will suit me. If I do not see you how shall I send the money and your Don Quixote which I hope soon to finish? I have been sadly interrupted by other books that have taken its scanty allowance of time or I should have made better haste with it. Many thanks for the trouble you have taken to get me Silvio Pellico; I will not have the other at present, but if your passage through town be altogether such as to allow of a little shopping, will you try to get me Spenser's Faery Queen? The cheapest edition with a glossary, which is quite indispensable, together with a clear and correct type. This book is of no importance whatever, so do not burden yourself with a straw's weight of inconvenience on its account. My only reason for mentioning it to you is that if I order it of Mr. Short I am almost certain to have either an inferior or a very expensive edition.
I should like to know what sights you were allowed in London. I have had some treats on my little excursion, not the least of which was the gazing on some, albeit the smallest, of "the everlasting hills" and on those noblest children of the earth, fine healthy trees, as independent in their beauty as virtue; set them where you will, they adorn and need not adornment. Father indulged me with a sight of Ashborne Church, 215 the finest mere parish church in the Kingdom -- in the interior, of Alton Gardens, 216 where I saw actually what I have so often seen mentally, the breadfruit tree, the fan palm, and the papyrus, and last of Lichfield Cathedral, where, besides the exquisite architectural beauties both external and internal, I saw Chantrey's famous monument of the sleeping children. 217 There is a tasteless monument to the learned and brilliant female pedant of Lichfield Miss Seward, with a poor epitaph by Sir Walter Scott. 218 In the town we saw a large monument erected 219 to Johnson's memory, showing his Titanic body in a sitting posture on the summit of a pedestal which is ornamented with bas reliefs of three passages in his life. His penance in Uttoxeter Market, his chairing on the shoulders of his schoolmates, and his listening to the preaching of Sacheverel. 220 The statue is opposite the house in which Johnson was born. Altogether inferior to that in St. Paul's, which shook me almost as much as a real glance from the literary monarch.
I send you a little burst of feeling of my own, which would not be fit to send you if you were not in trouble, and even now it is not applicable fully to any but myself. I am ashamed to send you so many ill-clothed nothings. My excuse shall be a state of head that calls for four leeches before I can attack Mrs. Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences. 221 I promise to write better English next time. I am thoroughly dissatisfied with my letter but it is dinner time and I must think of my Father's mind and body. My love to poor Mrs. Buchanan, when she is able to receive it. I will pray as well as my earth-bound spirit may for an abundant harvest of joy after this seed-time of tears, to you and her. The latter will last just as long as your All-wise and Tender Parent sees necessary -- it is but part of the dower to which you are entitled as one of His family. Blessed, is it not, to belong to that family in heaven and in earth which is as much superior to the rest of this "corner of the universe" as Pascal argues man to be compared with all matter. 222 Man is greater than what destroys him because he knows the destructive agent. He alone possesses reasoning consciousness. So the Christian is greater than others in that he knows the object, the end of all his chastisements, the state to which he is tending, and while all mankind beside are either dizzy with intoxication, locked in the stupor of indifference, or shuddering at the spectre of despair, he alone walks calmly and wakefully, and with an eye freed from the film of pride, prejudice and discontent he sees all things in Nature and in Providence in those soul gladdening hues with which the great Fountain of Light has clothed them. I say good bye very reluctantly.
Your own affectionate
Polly.
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | Duke's Head | Margate. Postmark: COVENTRY | JU 23 | 1840. Extracts published: Cross, I, 67-69.
Griff | June 23d 1840.
My very dear Friend,
Your letter greeted me last night on my arrival from Staffordshire, 211 and it is my first employment this morning after arranging sundry household matters to prepare such a representative of myself for tonight's post as my rather dissipated brain will allow. If my affection for you did not lead me to dwell chiefly on your trial in being despoiled of your only season of refreshment, I should feel more deeply for the almost desolate sufferer 212 to whom Providence has made you a ministering angel. I hear this morning that Mr. B. is journeying to or has arrived at Margate, the latter I hope is fact. I will hope that what you have regarded as a stormy petrel may prove a halcyon and that after all I shall once more give you a bon'e2 fide kiss. Having thus put on my spectacles couleur de rose, as Mrs. Jameson says, I shall write as cheerfully as I can. If I had not almost lost that "constant hectic of a fool," 213 wishing, I should wish myself in the noose of matrimony solely for your dear sake. I would not then hear of comfortable establishments for governesses near London. As it is, alas, I must be content to feel that I can offer you no refuge that would be an equivalent to such a one as you describe. Only I must protest against your segregating yourself so completely that your friends can never get a sight of you. As long as I am here you know well that my dear Father will be delighted to welcome you as my friend, in addition to his respect for you, and should I migrate to Meriden our meeting will be facilitated in every way.
The prospectus of Mr. Henslowe's work 214 is as marvellous to my ignorant conceptions as a prophecy of the wonders of the steam engine would have been to some British worthy in the days of Caractacus; I can only gape as he would probably have done. I hope Mr. H. has not imitated certain showkeepers who give so exaggerated a representation of their giantess on the outside that the spectators have disappointment for their cash within. Whichever arrangement as to forwarding the book will be in your opinion best will suit me. If I do not see you how shall I send the money and your Don Quixote which I hope soon to finish? I have been sadly interrupted by other books that have taken its scanty allowance of time or I should have made better haste with it. Many thanks for the trouble you have taken to get me Silvio Pellico; I will not have the other at present, but if your passage through town be altogether such as to allow of a little shopping, will you try to get me Spenser's Faery Queen? The cheapest edition with a glossary, which is quite indispensable, together with a clear and correct type. This book is of no importance whatever, so do not burden yourself with a straw's weight of inconvenience on its account. My only reason for mentioning it to you is that if I order it of Mr. Short I am almost certain to have either an inferior or a very expensive edition.
I should like to know what sights you were allowed in London. I have had some treats on my little excursion, not the least of which was the gazing on some, albeit the smallest, of "the everlasting hills" and on those noblest children of the earth, fine healthy trees, as independent in their beauty as virtue; set them where you will, they adorn and need not adornment. Father indulged me with a sight of Ashborne Church, 215 the finest mere parish church in the Kingdom -- in the interior, of Alton Gardens, 216 where I saw actually what I have so often seen mentally, the breadfruit tree, the fan palm, and the papyrus, and last of Lichfield Cathedral, where, besides the exquisite architectural beauties both external and internal, I saw Chantrey's famous monument of the sleeping children. 217 There is a tasteless monument to the learned and brilliant female pedant of Lichfield Miss Seward, with a poor epitaph by Sir Walter Scott. 218 In the town we saw a large monument erected 219 to Johnson's memory, showing his Titanic body in a sitting posture on the summit of a pedestal which is ornamented with bas reliefs of three passages in his life. His penance in Uttoxeter Market, his chairing on the shoulders of his schoolmates, and his listening to the preaching of Sacheverel. 220 The statue is opposite the house in which Johnson was born. Altogether inferior to that in St. Paul's, which shook me almost as much as a real glance from the literary monarch.
I send you a little burst of feeling of my own, which would not be fit to send you if you were not in trouble, and even now it is not applicable fully to any but myself. I am ashamed to send you so many ill-clothed nothings. My excuse shall be a state of head that calls for four leeches before I can attack Mrs. Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences. 221 I promise to write better English next time. I am thoroughly dissatisfied with my letter but it is dinner time and I must think of my Father's mind and body. My love to poor Mrs. Buchanan, when she is able to receive it. I will pray as well as my earth-bound spirit may for an abundant harvest of joy after this seed-time of tears, to you and her. The latter will last just as long as your All-wise and Tender Parent sees necessary -- it is but part of the dower to which you are entitled as one of His family. Blessed, is it not, to belong to that family in heaven and in earth which is as much superior to the rest of this "corner of the universe" as Pascal argues man to be compared with all matter. 222 Man is greater than what destroys him because he knows the destructive agent. He alone possesses reasoning consciousness. So the Christian is greater than others in that he knows the object, the end of all his chastisements, the state to which he is tending, and while all mankind beside are either dizzy with intoxication, locked in the stupor of indifference, or shuddering at the spectre of despair, he alone walks calmly and wakefully, and with an eye freed from the film of pride, prejudice and discontent he sees all things in Nature and in Providence in those soul gladdening hues with which the great Fountain of Light has clothed them. I say good bye very reluctantly.
Your own affectionate
Polly.
Signature
Polly.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 23 June 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/92907