GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, [Foleshill, 4? February 1849]
Title
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, [Foleshill, 4? February 1849]
Title
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, [Foleshill, 4? February 1849]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton
Date(s)
- 1849-02-04
Place
Foleshill
Letter Content
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, [Foleshill, 4? February 1849]
Text: Cross, I, 195-196, dated Sunday evening, 1849.
I have been holding a court of conscience, and I cannot enjoy my Sunday's music without restoring harmony, without entering a protest against that superficial soul of mine which is perpetually contradicting and belying the true inner soul. I am in that mood which, in another age of the world, would have led me to put on sackcloth and pour ashes on my head, when I call to mind the sins of my tongue -- my animadversions on the faults of others, as if I thought myself to be something when I am nothing. When shall I attain to the true spirit of love which Paul has taught for all the ages? I want no one to excuse me, dear Fanny, -- I only want to remove the shadow of my miserable words and deeds from before the divine image of truth and goodness, which I would have all beings worship. I need the Jesuits' discipline of silence, and though my "evil speaking" issues from the intellectual point of view rather than the moral, -- though there may be gall in the thought while there is honey in the feeling, yet the evil speaking is wrong. We may satirise character and qualities in the abstract without injury to our moral nature, but persons hardly ever. Poor hints and sketches of souls as we are -- with some slight transient vision of the perfect and the true -- we had need help each other to gaze at the blessed heavens instead of peering into each other's eyes to find out the motes there.
Text: Cross, I, 195-196, dated Sunday evening, 1849.
I have been holding a court of conscience, and I cannot enjoy my Sunday's music without restoring harmony, without entering a protest against that superficial soul of mine which is perpetually contradicting and belying the true inner soul. I am in that mood which, in another age of the world, would have led me to put on sackcloth and pour ashes on my head, when I call to mind the sins of my tongue -- my animadversions on the faults of others, as if I thought myself to be something when I am nothing. When shall I attain to the true spirit of love which Paul has taught for all the ages? I want no one to excuse me, dear Fanny, -- I only want to remove the shadow of my miserable words and deeds from before the divine image of truth and goodness, which I would have all beings worship. I need the Jesuits' discipline of silence, and though my "evil speaking" issues from the intellectual point of view rather than the moral, -- though there may be gall in the thought while there is honey in the feeling, yet the evil speaking is wrong. We may satirise character and qualities in the abstract without injury to our moral nature, but persons hardly ever. Poor hints and sketches of souls as we are -- with some slight transient vision of the perfect and the true -- we had need help each other to gaze at the blessed heavens instead of peering into each other's eyes to find out the motes there.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, [Foleshill, 4? February 1849], 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/93473