GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 4 September 1839
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 4 September 1839
Title
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 4 September 1839
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Maria Lewis
Date(s)
- 1839-09-04
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 4 September 1839
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | The Revd L. Harper's | Burton Latimer | near Kettering. Postmark: COVENTRY [date illegible]. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 59-60.
Griff September 4th 1839.
My dear Friend,
I certainly do not come under the same class with Boz's "matter of fact young lady" or I should seize yesterday's wedding 140 and my disappointment of an opportunity of sending your book (which will soon be mine by prescriptive right) as welcome subjects with which to fill my sheet; as it is I can only tell you that the very staid, fatherly and dignified Mr. Isaac Evans gave the bride away, and that should my memory for once serve me 'e0 point nommé I will prevail on some charitable visitor at Burton to convey your property thither. It would be convenient for me if there were an epistolary Muse that I might lay the onus of my dulness on her neglect, for my wits are so irretrievably scattered to-night that it must be a burning glass equal to the lens of Herschel's fabled telescope 141 which would collect them in a focus. I have lately led so unsettled a life and have been so desultory in my employments, that my mind, never of the most highly organized genus, is more than usually chaotic, or rather it is like a stratum of conglomerated fragments that shews here a jaw and rib of some ponderous quadruped, there a delicate alto-relievo of some fernlike plant, tiny shells, and mysterious nondescripts, encrusted and united with some unvaried and uninteresting but useful stone. 142 My mind presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern, scraps of poetry picked up from Shakspeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton, newspaper topics, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry entomology and chemistry, reviews and metaphysics, all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast thickening every day accession of actual events, relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations. May I hope that some pure metallic veins have been interjected, that some spiritual desires have been sent up, and spiritual experience gained? I hope it may be so found, but I am giving no proof of it by spending my own time and stealing yours for the sake of writing nonsense. How deplorably and unaccountably evanescent are our frames of mind, as various as the forms and hues of the summer clouds. A single word is sometimes enough to give an entirely new mould to our thoughts; at least I find myself so constituted, and therefore to me it is pre-eminently important to be anchored within the veil, so that outward things may only act as winds to agitating sails, and be unable to send me adrift.
It was very kind of you to remember my requests about Phrenology and the Commemoration. I have not at this moment any Phrenological thoughts but when I have I will endeavor to tell you fully all I have been able to opine on the matter. To prevent myself from saying anything still more discreditable to my head and heart I will send you a something between poetry and prose expressive of an idea that has often been before my mind's eye. For want of an humbler title I will call it a
Sonnet Oft, when a child, while wand'ring far alone, That none might rouse me from my waking dream, And visions with which fancy still would teem Scare by a disenchanting earthly tone; If, haply, conscious of the present scene, I've marked before me some untraversed spot The setting sunbeams had forsaken not, Whose turf appeared more velvet-like and green Than that I walked and fitter for repose: But ever, at the wished-for place arrived, I've found it of those seeming charms deprived Which from the mellowing power of distance rose: To my poor thought, an apt though simple trope Of life's dull path and earth's deceitful hope.
Why did you think I did any other than envy your vivacity; instead of ironically blaming it I only desire to catch a portion of your mercury to render my character more malleable. I cannot interpret your hints about certain persons. Very glad I am to hear that your health is tolerably good; mine about which you so kindly enquire is nearly in statu quo.
Do indulge yourself with the Pocket edition of the Eng[lis]h Version of Bagster's Polyglott Bible. 143 You will find it invaluable. Do not quite discard me for this silly letter, and write to me as soon as you can. Remember Michaelmas is coming and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseating to me 144 that it will be a charity to console me; to reprove and advise me no less.
Flaws of the least evil that disfigure my letter are those of ink, but they need a pardon.
Your affectionate
Mary Ann Evans.
MS: Yale. Address: Miss Lewis | The Revd L. Harper's | Burton Latimer | near Kettering. Postmark: COVENTRY [date illegible]. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 59-60.
Griff September 4th 1839.
My dear Friend,
I certainly do not come under the same class with Boz's "matter of fact young lady" or I should seize yesterday's wedding 140 and my disappointment of an opportunity of sending your book (which will soon be mine by prescriptive right) as welcome subjects with which to fill my sheet; as it is I can only tell you that the very staid, fatherly and dignified Mr. Isaac Evans gave the bride away, and that should my memory for once serve me 'e0 point nommé I will prevail on some charitable visitor at Burton to convey your property thither. It would be convenient for me if there were an epistolary Muse that I might lay the onus of my dulness on her neglect, for my wits are so irretrievably scattered to-night that it must be a burning glass equal to the lens of Herschel's fabled telescope 141 which would collect them in a focus. I have lately led so unsettled a life and have been so desultory in my employments, that my mind, never of the most highly organized genus, is more than usually chaotic, or rather it is like a stratum of conglomerated fragments that shews here a jaw and rib of some ponderous quadruped, there a delicate alto-relievo of some fernlike plant, tiny shells, and mysterious nondescripts, encrusted and united with some unvaried and uninteresting but useful stone. 142 My mind presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern, scraps of poetry picked up from Shakspeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton, newspaper topics, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry entomology and chemistry, reviews and metaphysics, all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast thickening every day accession of actual events, relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations. May I hope that some pure metallic veins have been interjected, that some spiritual desires have been sent up, and spiritual experience gained? I hope it may be so found, but I am giving no proof of it by spending my own time and stealing yours for the sake of writing nonsense. How deplorably and unaccountably evanescent are our frames of mind, as various as the forms and hues of the summer clouds. A single word is sometimes enough to give an entirely new mould to our thoughts; at least I find myself so constituted, and therefore to me it is pre-eminently important to be anchored within the veil, so that outward things may only act as winds to agitating sails, and be unable to send me adrift.
It was very kind of you to remember my requests about Phrenology and the Commemoration. I have not at this moment any Phrenological thoughts but when I have I will endeavor to tell you fully all I have been able to opine on the matter. To prevent myself from saying anything still more discreditable to my head and heart I will send you a something between poetry and prose expressive of an idea that has often been before my mind's eye. For want of an humbler title I will call it a
Sonnet Oft, when a child, while wand'ring far alone, That none might rouse me from my waking dream, And visions with which fancy still would teem Scare by a disenchanting earthly tone; If, haply, conscious of the present scene, I've marked before me some untraversed spot The setting sunbeams had forsaken not, Whose turf appeared more velvet-like and green Than that I walked and fitter for repose: But ever, at the wished-for place arrived, I've found it of those seeming charms deprived Which from the mellowing power of distance rose: To my poor thought, an apt though simple trope Of life's dull path and earth's deceitful hope.
Why did you think I did any other than envy your vivacity; instead of ironically blaming it I only desire to catch a portion of your mercury to render my character more malleable. I cannot interpret your hints about certain persons. Very glad I am to hear that your health is tolerably good; mine about which you so kindly enquire is nearly in statu quo.
Do indulge yourself with the Pocket edition of the Eng[lis]h Version of Bagster's Polyglott Bible. 143 You will find it invaluable. Do not quite discard me for this silly letter, and write to me as soon as you can. Remember Michaelmas is coming and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseating to me 144 that it will be a charity to console me; to reprove and advise me no less.
Flaws of the least evil that disfigure my letter are those of ink, but they need a pardon.
Your affectionate
Mary Ann Evans.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Maria Lewis, Griff, 4 September 1839, 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/92914