GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 27 January [1841]
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 27 January [1841]
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 27 January [1841]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1841-01-27
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 27 January [1841]
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 80.
Griff January 27th 1840 281
My dear Veronica,
Thrice worthy are you of the name, for what friend but one faithful and eke speedy 282 would so soon have delivered me from the thraldom of doubt in which I must necessarily be held as to the strength of the cohesive properties of your frame under the trial of some hours' concussions? Happily the moody, melancholy temperament has some counterbalancing advantages to those of the sanguine; it does sometimes meet with results more favourable than it expected, and by its nack of imagining the pessimus, cheats the world of its power to disappoint. The very worm-like originator of this [coil] of sentiment, is the fact that you write more cheerfully of yourself than I had been thinking of you and that ergo, I am pleased.
Now for my own doings. You must know, my Veronica, that as a trailing plant should be expected to do I relieved the turnpike of a little of its unimaginable, unfathomable mud on Monday by wending my way to the College alias the 'dustry, 283 and there I found poor Mrs. Kelley in her bedroom, as comfortable as in her afflicted state she can be made. She tells me she has been a great sufferer for some months, and does not anticipate recovery. A walk to Nuneaton under such circumstances is of course impossible to her. I ascertained quite to my satisfaction that Mrs. Buchanan had the little deposit, permitting her to mention the sum before I named it. The poor woman seemed not eagerly solicitous about the sovereign, merely saying that it would now be a comfort to her as she could with it purchase little cordials, recommended to her. She is aware of Mr. B's liability to find filthy lucre adhesive to his pocket, and seems to think there may be difficulties in the way of obtaining the sovereign. Thus I have acted the part of your plenipotentiary and await further advices.
I have read the [Life book of a Labourer,] 284 and can recommend it to you as wholesome food. It is a book I should choose to put in the hands of a young or a careless person as likely to benefit without disgusting.
I hope to send to you again before you leave Eathorpe 285 so I can the more easily reconcile myself to this short and slatternly letter. I am in debt to Jessie and Martha 286 at last, and I must be niggardly or become embarassed, to which participle as I am no fashionable I desire not to lay claim. By the bye, an' you talk of exertion, what think you of walking to Mrs. Carter's yesterday, along the Colliery lane, so soft that to describe it I must be reduced to the Warwickshire positive-comparative and say as soft as soft, unless I say as soft as brains -- take the latter either figuratively or literally. This I did and not this alone, but I actually sustained a fall in the sludge which took out the lustre from my lustre frock (how soon tarnished is earthly sheen!) with the coolness of a stoic and the resignation of a St. Agatha 287 or any other in the calendar.
Thinking I have written sillily, I would retrieve the injury done you by such a drainage from the golden sands of your time, but there is something beside a fair woman without discretion that may be typified by a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, 288 so I will not put silk patches on trumpery gauze.
Good bye, dear Veronica. Remember
Your true and affectionate
Clematis.
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 80.
Griff January 27th 1840 281
My dear Veronica,
Thrice worthy are you of the name, for what friend but one faithful and eke speedy 282 would so soon have delivered me from the thraldom of doubt in which I must necessarily be held as to the strength of the cohesive properties of your frame under the trial of some hours' concussions? Happily the moody, melancholy temperament has some counterbalancing advantages to those of the sanguine; it does sometimes meet with results more favourable than it expected, and by its nack of imagining the pessimus, cheats the world of its power to disappoint. The very worm-like originator of this [coil] of sentiment, is the fact that you write more cheerfully of yourself than I had been thinking of you and that ergo, I am pleased.
Now for my own doings. You must know, my Veronica, that as a trailing plant should be expected to do I relieved the turnpike of a little of its unimaginable, unfathomable mud on Monday by wending my way to the College alias the 'dustry, 283 and there I found poor Mrs. Kelley in her bedroom, as comfortable as in her afflicted state she can be made. She tells me she has been a great sufferer for some months, and does not anticipate recovery. A walk to Nuneaton under such circumstances is of course impossible to her. I ascertained quite to my satisfaction that Mrs. Buchanan had the little deposit, permitting her to mention the sum before I named it. The poor woman seemed not eagerly solicitous about the sovereign, merely saying that it would now be a comfort to her as she could with it purchase little cordials, recommended to her. She is aware of Mr. B's liability to find filthy lucre adhesive to his pocket, and seems to think there may be difficulties in the way of obtaining the sovereign. Thus I have acted the part of your plenipotentiary and await further advices.
I have read the [Life book of a Labourer,] 284 and can recommend it to you as wholesome food. It is a book I should choose to put in the hands of a young or a careless person as likely to benefit without disgusting.
I hope to send to you again before you leave Eathorpe 285 so I can the more easily reconcile myself to this short and slatternly letter. I am in debt to Jessie and Martha 286 at last, and I must be niggardly or become embarassed, to which participle as I am no fashionable I desire not to lay claim. By the bye, an' you talk of exertion, what think you of walking to Mrs. Carter's yesterday, along the Colliery lane, so soft that to describe it I must be reduced to the Warwickshire positive-comparative and say as soft as soft, unless I say as soft as brains -- take the latter either figuratively or literally. This I did and not this alone, but I actually sustained a fall in the sludge which took out the lustre from my lustre frock (how soon tarnished is earthly sheen!) with the coolness of a stoic and the resignation of a St. Agatha 287 or any other in the calendar.
Thinking I have written sillily, I would retrieve the injury done you by such a drainage from the golden sands of your time, but there is something beside a fair woman without discretion that may be typified by a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, 288 so I will not put silk patches on trumpery gauze.
Good bye, dear Veronica. Remember
Your true and affectionate
Clematis.
Signature
Clematis.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 27 January [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/92911