GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, 16 December 1840
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, 16 December 1840
Title
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, 16 December 1840
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Martha Jackson
Date(s)
- 1840-12-16
Place
Griff
Letter Content
GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, 16 December 1840
MS: Mr. Gordon N. Ray. Address: Miss Martha Jackson | Gobions | near Hertford | Free. Postmark: COVENTRY | DE 17 | 1840.
Griff | December 16th 1840.
My dear little cherished sprig of Ivy,
If in the rapid progression of society, women among other attained natural and equal rights should get a seat on the judicial bench and you should be among the recipients of that honourable distinction, bear in mind this instance in your experience of the deceptiveness of circumstantial evidence. I mean the fact that I have allowed week after week to slip away without sending you any indication of my existence, as though I had either become defunct or my affection for you had had a like fate, or, a still blacker inference, that it was never more than a vox et preterea nihil; 2 while spite of all this logical, mathematical and moral proof that your memory if registered by me at all rested on an unturned leaf, I have, I say, written of you, talked of you, eulogized you, scolded you, laughed at you, meditated on you, and a still rarer thing let me tell you, loved, veritably loved you! This very eloquent exordium I hope will establish my innocence as to the main charge you have been inclined to prefer against me, that of faithlessness; but lest you should still harbour a suspicion that I have been too idle even to gratify my feelings (a case not uncommon) I must claim the liberty of self-vindication on that head. Jessie can bear me witness that hands head and heart have been fully occupied for the last fortnight, and I must trust to my reputation for veracity to convince you that such has been my case since I received your letter. Our dear Jessie has been making a short and I fear dull s'e9jour with me but I hope to have her again before her return to London if my fitful prospects are not by that time of such a character as to render me unvisitable. But I forget my resolution to send you my castigatory animadversions on certain conduct of yours which has outlawed you forever from the community (by no means a happy one I confess) of the susceptible. Would that I knew by what part Mother Nature held you when she plunged you in the insensibility-bestowing stream! I would quickly apprize Cupid and Mr. Field, that they might unitedly lay siege to the pregnable quarter. Seriously, as people say when they bethink themselves that they are talking folly,
I cannot help regretting in the language of an acquaintance 3 of ours "That that has not been carried on congruously which was so well begun." I am so strongly biassed to the opinion that the [rose distilled] is not only earthlier happier than that which withers on the virgin thorn, 4 but that it has higher or rather more humanly available aids to the prelibations 5 and the enjoyment of heavenly bliss, that my trust in the provision of the most suitable conditions for you is not adequate to the making me resigned under the fear that you are not to be united to one who wins opinions so golden as does Mr. Field. After all I am no judge about the matter, an avowal which you will think an abortive attempt at humility after a page full of my dicta concerning it.
I have today, my dear Patty, gone through a little episode in my epic life which when I tell you that it has utterly disqualified me for the enjoyment of a book, notwithstanding the charming security which the snow gives for the continuance of my beloved solitude, you will believe to be a sufficient if not an exonerating reason for my writing extra profitlessly. I have most of the day been bending my gaze on vacancy 6 in a way that a student of the fine arts might give something to witness, and I give you its last stage only because I expect full occupation to-morrow. I believe I half pledged myself to send you some lines on a quartette of words uttered by you in one of our strolls. I have not fulfilled that pledge but until I do or in case I never should will you accept those I send as a substitute? Not to be copied, on the supposition that some of the many wishers for worthless things in this world of wishers should desire to possess the lines. My head is aching as well as silly to-night, so for my credit and conscience sake I will resort to that cheap mode of appearing wise -- keeping silence -- just as some people have lived on the fame of being rich, never paying a debt because their creditors trusted to their imagined strongboxes. I venture to send my kind remembrances to your happy family though I know them not -- [se non come per fama uom s'innammora.] 7 And to you dear Patty I send nothing save the assurance that you already have my warm affection.
Clematis.
MS: Mr. Gordon N. Ray. Address: Miss Martha Jackson | Gobions | near Hertford | Free. Postmark: COVENTRY | DE 17 | 1840.
Griff | December 16th 1840.
My dear little cherished sprig of Ivy,
If in the rapid progression of society, women among other attained natural and equal rights should get a seat on the judicial bench and you should be among the recipients of that honourable distinction, bear in mind this instance in your experience of the deceptiveness of circumstantial evidence. I mean the fact that I have allowed week after week to slip away without sending you any indication of my existence, as though I had either become defunct or my affection for you had had a like fate, or, a still blacker inference, that it was never more than a vox et preterea nihil; 2 while spite of all this logical, mathematical and moral proof that your memory if registered by me at all rested on an unturned leaf, I have, I say, written of you, talked of you, eulogized you, scolded you, laughed at you, meditated on you, and a still rarer thing let me tell you, loved, veritably loved you! This very eloquent exordium I hope will establish my innocence as to the main charge you have been inclined to prefer against me, that of faithlessness; but lest you should still harbour a suspicion that I have been too idle even to gratify my feelings (a case not uncommon) I must claim the liberty of self-vindication on that head. Jessie can bear me witness that hands head and heart have been fully occupied for the last fortnight, and I must trust to my reputation for veracity to convince you that such has been my case since I received your letter. Our dear Jessie has been making a short and I fear dull s'e9jour with me but I hope to have her again before her return to London if my fitful prospects are not by that time of such a character as to render me unvisitable. But I forget my resolution to send you my castigatory animadversions on certain conduct of yours which has outlawed you forever from the community (by no means a happy one I confess) of the susceptible. Would that I knew by what part Mother Nature held you when she plunged you in the insensibility-bestowing stream! I would quickly apprize Cupid and Mr. Field, that they might unitedly lay siege to the pregnable quarter. Seriously, as people say when they bethink themselves that they are talking folly,
I cannot help regretting in the language of an acquaintance 3 of ours "That that has not been carried on congruously which was so well begun." I am so strongly biassed to the opinion that the [rose distilled] is not only earthlier happier than that which withers on the virgin thorn, 4 but that it has higher or rather more humanly available aids to the prelibations 5 and the enjoyment of heavenly bliss, that my trust in the provision of the most suitable conditions for you is not adequate to the making me resigned under the fear that you are not to be united to one who wins opinions so golden as does Mr. Field. After all I am no judge about the matter, an avowal which you will think an abortive attempt at humility after a page full of my dicta concerning it.
I have today, my dear Patty, gone through a little episode in my epic life which when I tell you that it has utterly disqualified me for the enjoyment of a book, notwithstanding the charming security which the snow gives for the continuance of my beloved solitude, you will believe to be a sufficient if not an exonerating reason for my writing extra profitlessly. I have most of the day been bending my gaze on vacancy 6 in a way that a student of the fine arts might give something to witness, and I give you its last stage only because I expect full occupation to-morrow. I believe I half pledged myself to send you some lines on a quartette of words uttered by you in one of our strolls. I have not fulfilled that pledge but until I do or in case I never should will you accept those I send as a substitute? Not to be copied, on the supposition that some of the many wishers for worthless things in this world of wishers should desire to possess the lines. My head is aching as well as silly to-night, so for my credit and conscience sake I will resort to that cheap mode of appearing wise -- keeping silence -- just as some people have lived on the fame of being rich, never paying a debt because their creditors trusted to their imagined strongboxes. I venture to send my kind remembrances to your happy family though I know them not -- [se non come per fama uom s'innammora.] 7 And to you dear Patty I send nothing save the assurance that you already have my warm affection.
Clematis.
Signature
Clematis.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Martha Jackson, Griff, 16 December 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/92934