GE to Martha Jackson, 77 Griff, [4] September 1838
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, 77 Griff, [4] September 1838
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, 77 Griff, [4] September 1838
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Martha Jackson
Date(s)
- 1838-09-04
Place
77 GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Martha Jackson, 77 Griff, [4] September 1838
Text: Bookman, 3 (October 1892), 19. The date is given as 9th, but Tuesday was the 4th. The MS was once in the possession of Mr. W. A. White of New York. See Leslie Stephen, George Eliot, 1902, p. 13.
Griff, Tuesday evening, September 9th, 1838.
My dear Friend
I pursue the same plan with my letter as I used when a little child with my pudding, that of dispatching the part for which I had the least relish first, and therefore I will dispose of such dry crust-like subjects as my reasons for not responding sooner to your welcome and undeservedly kind proof of your remembrance of me, and of my inability now to do so in a way that would satisfy my gratitude, as speedily as possible, that we may discuss without interruption the little sweetmeat my ill-furnished store-room may afford. I am at all times, as you conjecture, an important personage at home, but especially now, from a cause you are probably not able to guess, as I fancy the custom of changing servants at Michaelmas is confined to Warwickshire. This one circumstance, added to your charity, which makes you look through green spectacles at the glaring defects of others, will serve to account for and excuse both my silence and my worthless mode of breaking it.
Many thanks for your warm and, I am certain, sincere invitations to G --. I hope it may not always be impossible to me to avail myself of them; at present my apparently harsh but doubtless well-meaning mistress Duty says, Stay at home. But you are under no such restriction, and therefore I may hope that you will have a little interval before spring summons you and the birds to migrate where you may have a permanent nest, in which you will be so denuded of allurements and obligations as to expend your ability of giving pleasure on me. I spent nearly three days with my Coventry friends last week, and I had the Miss Franklins successively at Griff to fill up a very short parenthesis in their half-year's engagements. . . .
On the last day I went with Miss Rebecca to an Oratorio at St. Michael's Church, where we heard Braham, Phillips, Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Knyvett, 78 and where, I think, I said farewell to all such expenditures of time and money. I think nothing can justify the using of an intensely interesting and solemn passage of Scripture, as a rope-dancer uses her rope, or as a sculptor the pedestal on which he places the statue, that is alone intended to elicit admiration. I think, too, that it is the duty of Christians individually to throw their weight, however dust-like, into that scale which as Christians they must profess to wish to preponderate; not to take the low ground of considering things merely with relation to existing circumstances, and graduating their scale of holiness to the temperature of the world; but to aim as perseveringly at perfection as if they believed it to be soon attainable. And if so, I ask myself can it be desirable, and would it be consistent with millenial holiness for a human being to devote the time and energies that are barely sufficient for real exigencies on acquiring expertness in trills, cadences, etc.? The only argument that seems to me to have any speciousness in favour of such exhibitions of skill is, that without them we should never have an opportunity of appreciating the beautiful powers of the human voice when carried to their highest point of improveability. But by once admitting such reasoning we disarm ourselves of every weapon against opera dancing, horse racing, nay, even against intemperance, which I have heard justified on the plea that since Providence has sent luxuries we are contemning them by abstinence.
But I am running on very selfishly with my own thoughts, without regarding the trouble I am giving you in expecting you to read what I dare say neither your theory nor your practice needs. I do know full well the variableness of mind and affection of which you speak; it is suited to humble and distress us, but may also quicken us to an increased ardour of exertion during our wakeful hours when eternity is realised by us in its awful nearness and importance; if such be the effect we shall have the joy of finding that as persons of riper years gradually lose that soundness and excess of sleep observable in growing children, so our intervals of spiritual drowsiness will decrease in duration and frequency. . . .
Text: Bookman, 3 (October 1892), 19. The date is given as 9th, but Tuesday was the 4th. The MS was once in the possession of Mr. W. A. White of New York. See Leslie Stephen, George Eliot, 1902, p. 13.
Griff, Tuesday evening, September 9th, 1838.
My dear Friend
I pursue the same plan with my letter as I used when a little child with my pudding, that of dispatching the part for which I had the least relish first, and therefore I will dispose of such dry crust-like subjects as my reasons for not responding sooner to your welcome and undeservedly kind proof of your remembrance of me, and of my inability now to do so in a way that would satisfy my gratitude, as speedily as possible, that we may discuss without interruption the little sweetmeat my ill-furnished store-room may afford. I am at all times, as you conjecture, an important personage at home, but especially now, from a cause you are probably not able to guess, as I fancy the custom of changing servants at Michaelmas is confined to Warwickshire. This one circumstance, added to your charity, which makes you look through green spectacles at the glaring defects of others, will serve to account for and excuse both my silence and my worthless mode of breaking it.
Many thanks for your warm and, I am certain, sincere invitations to G --. I hope it may not always be impossible to me to avail myself of them; at present my apparently harsh but doubtless well-meaning mistress Duty says, Stay at home. But you are under no such restriction, and therefore I may hope that you will have a little interval before spring summons you and the birds to migrate where you may have a permanent nest, in which you will be so denuded of allurements and obligations as to expend your ability of giving pleasure on me. I spent nearly three days with my Coventry friends last week, and I had the Miss Franklins successively at Griff to fill up a very short parenthesis in their half-year's engagements. . . .
On the last day I went with Miss Rebecca to an Oratorio at St. Michael's Church, where we heard Braham, Phillips, Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Knyvett, 78 and where, I think, I said farewell to all such expenditures of time and money. I think nothing can justify the using of an intensely interesting and solemn passage of Scripture, as a rope-dancer uses her rope, or as a sculptor the pedestal on which he places the statue, that is alone intended to elicit admiration. I think, too, that it is the duty of Christians individually to throw their weight, however dust-like, into that scale which as Christians they must profess to wish to preponderate; not to take the low ground of considering things merely with relation to existing circumstances, and graduating their scale of holiness to the temperature of the world; but to aim as perseveringly at perfection as if they believed it to be soon attainable. And if so, I ask myself can it be desirable, and would it be consistent with millenial holiness for a human being to devote the time and energies that are barely sufficient for real exigencies on acquiring expertness in trills, cadences, etc.? The only argument that seems to me to have any speciousness in favour of such exhibitions of skill is, that without them we should never have an opportunity of appreciating the beautiful powers of the human voice when carried to their highest point of improveability. But by once admitting such reasoning we disarm ourselves of every weapon against opera dancing, horse racing, nay, even against intemperance, which I have heard justified on the plea that since Providence has sent luxuries we are contemning them by abstinence.
But I am running on very selfishly with my own thoughts, without regarding the trouble I am giving you in expecting you to read what I dare say neither your theory nor your practice needs. I do know full well the variableness of mind and affection of which you speak; it is suited to humble and distress us, but may also quicken us to an increased ardour of exertion during our wakeful hours when eternity is realised by us in its awful nearness and importance; if such be the effect we shall have the joy of finding that as persons of riper years gradually lose that soundness and excess of sleep observable in growing children, so our intervals of spiritual drowsiness will decrease in duration and frequency. . . .
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Martha Jackson, 77 Griff, [4] September 1838, 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/92921