GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, [6? April 1840]
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, [6? April 1840]
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, [6? April 1840]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Martha Jackson
Date(s)
- 1840-04-06
Place
GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, [6? April 1840]
Text: Composite from Bookman, 3 (December 1892), 83, and Poet-Lore, 6 (January 1894), 4-5.
Griff, Monday evening.
My dear Patty . . .
Pity the sorrows of a poor young housekeeper, and determine to make the very best use of your present freedom therefrom. I do you to wit that you are to expect nothing very solid, still less anything brilliant, from one of my calibre. My very studies have a tendency to make me non-impartitive. I must coin a word, and plead the possibility of my becoming important enough to do so, though obliged to confess undue assumption now. I take too much mental food to digest without more of the exercise of conversation. This reminds me that I think you are quite right in questioning the wisdom of spending your time in learning what your time and resources would enable you to acquire of
Latin. We need leisure for contemplation . . . and though God is best served by diligence in occupations that His providence points out or permits, still the first of His requirements, and that which gives value to what would otherwise be a series of ciphers, is the giving up of the heart to him, not at one particular epoch, but daily, hourly, as a living sacrifice and oblation. I am conscious of having straitened myself by the adoption of a too varied and laborious set of studies, having so many social duties; otherwise circumstanced I might easily compass them all.
I dilate on this mistake of mine, not out of a desire to meditate on anything belonging to myself, for I am very glad to take my congé of that importunate companion, but because I think it possible that a knowledge of my experience on this head may be of some use to you. I am delighted with the little compact chronological table, the more so that it trenches not on my ground. Who is its author or authoress? and whose is the scheme of prophetic interpretation? 196 I have read some portions of [The Doctor,] 197 and have long intended to read the work thoroughly, but I am waiting for a season that I can conscientiously devote to a light work, which is a sort of effervescent medicine that my torpid constitution occasionally needs. You will polish and sharpen me, will you not? Alas! I need melting and remoulding.
I am going to make a proposition, dear Patty, that would, I think, if carried out, make our correspondence more effective. Tell me if it would be agreeable to you. It is that we should have an assigned subject for our correspondence, not, of course, restricted to any particular number of letters. I should like you always to choose and start the bone we are to pick together without contention. Suppose you begin this plan in your next letter -- any subject that may appear above your horizon I will trail [treat?] with pleasure on your pointing it out to me, whether it be planet or meteor, substantial or gaseous. Do you know Keble's [Christian Year]? A little volume of poems adapted to the Sundays and Holy Days according to our Prayer Book arrangement. . . .
I should like, as you conjecture, to know the sweet girl who, though deaf to our gross earthly sounds, yet "hears the Muses in a ring, aye round about Jove's altar sing." 198 Tell her from me that Cupid listens to no entreaties, that we must deal with him as an enemy, either boldly parry his shafts or flee.
I have had four lessons in German, and I like the language extremely. . . .
Your sincerely affectionate
Mary Ann Evans.
Text: Composite from Bookman, 3 (December 1892), 83, and Poet-Lore, 6 (January 1894), 4-5.
Griff, Monday evening.
My dear Patty . . .
Pity the sorrows of a poor young housekeeper, and determine to make the very best use of your present freedom therefrom. I do you to wit that you are to expect nothing very solid, still less anything brilliant, from one of my calibre. My very studies have a tendency to make me non-impartitive. I must coin a word, and plead the possibility of my becoming important enough to do so, though obliged to confess undue assumption now. I take too much mental food to digest without more of the exercise of conversation. This reminds me that I think you are quite right in questioning the wisdom of spending your time in learning what your time and resources would enable you to acquire of
Latin. We need leisure for contemplation . . . and though God is best served by diligence in occupations that His providence points out or permits, still the first of His requirements, and that which gives value to what would otherwise be a series of ciphers, is the giving up of the heart to him, not at one particular epoch, but daily, hourly, as a living sacrifice and oblation. I am conscious of having straitened myself by the adoption of a too varied and laborious set of studies, having so many social duties; otherwise circumstanced I might easily compass them all.
I dilate on this mistake of mine, not out of a desire to meditate on anything belonging to myself, for I am very glad to take my congé of that importunate companion, but because I think it possible that a knowledge of my experience on this head may be of some use to you. I am delighted with the little compact chronological table, the more so that it trenches not on my ground. Who is its author or authoress? and whose is the scheme of prophetic interpretation? 196 I have read some portions of [The Doctor,] 197 and have long intended to read the work thoroughly, but I am waiting for a season that I can conscientiously devote to a light work, which is a sort of effervescent medicine that my torpid constitution occasionally needs. You will polish and sharpen me, will you not? Alas! I need melting and remoulding.
I am going to make a proposition, dear Patty, that would, I think, if carried out, make our correspondence more effective. Tell me if it would be agreeable to you. It is that we should have an assigned subject for our correspondence, not, of course, restricted to any particular number of letters. I should like you always to choose and start the bone we are to pick together without contention. Suppose you begin this plan in your next letter -- any subject that may appear above your horizon I will trail [treat?] with pleasure on your pointing it out to me, whether it be planet or meteor, substantial or gaseous. Do you know Keble's [Christian Year]? A little volume of poems adapted to the Sundays and Holy Days according to our Prayer Book arrangement. . . .
I should like, as you conjecture, to know the sweet girl who, though deaf to our gross earthly sounds, yet "hears the Muses in a ring, aye round about Jove's altar sing." 198 Tell her from me that Cupid listens to no entreaties, that we must deal with him as an enemy, either boldly parry his shafts or flee.
I have had four lessons in German, and I like the language extremely. . . .
Your sincerely affectionate
Mary Ann Evans.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, [6? April 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/92930