GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, Gorey, 2 June 1857
Title
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, Gorey, 2 June 1857
Title
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, Gorey, 2 June 1857
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton
Date(s)
- 1857-06-02
Place
Gorey
Letter Content
GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, Gorey, 2 June 1857
MS: Miss Dorothy Evans. Hitherto unpublished.
Rosa Cottage | Gorey | Jersey | June 2. 57.
Dear Fanny
I wish I could help you with experienced advice as to a suitable place of residence for recruiting Henry's health. The only places I can think of as likely to answer your purpose, which I suppose includes easy transit, cheapness, and a sufficiently bracing air, are Tr'e9port and St. Valery in Normandy, which are easily reached from Brighton. Friends of ours have been to those places and have been contented with them, but I do not know them otherwise than by report. Being on a northern coast they are not likely to be very relaxing, indeed the friend who went to Tr'e9port was especially in pursuit of a bracing air.
Jersey is very warm -- which is just what I want. It is very pretty -- a paradise of green vallies, but disappointingly English in habits and prices. The mild genial air has done me immense good already; but of course one can't tell whether July heat may not prove too much even for me.
Thanks -- a thousand thanks, dear Fanny for your letter. I have just written to Chrissey, being unable to wait another post after hearing that I might write to her, and finding I have yet a few minutes I write to you also. I hope Chrissey will be able to have some change of air for I begged Isaac to pay her £15 from me for that purpose. I do trust the money will not be absolutely wanted for anything else. I wish I could do more, but my poverty, not my will restricts me. 876 Pray do something, if you can to urge that the money should be so applied. I don't mean that you should do it obviously or directly, or that you should appear to know anything about that sum, but simply that you should insist on the importance of leaving that hotbed of fever for a time.
You are wrong about Mr. Liggins 877 or rather your informants are wrong. We too have been struck with the "Clerical Sketches," and I have recognized some figures and traditions connected with our old neighbourhood. But Blackwood informs Mr. Lewes that the author is a Mr. Eliot, a clergyman, I presume. Au reste, he may be a relation of Mr. Liggins's or some other [Mr.] who knows Coton stories.
Have you read Currer Bell's Life by Mrs. Gaskell? Do -- it will deeply interest you.
With kindest regards and best wishes for Henry's recovery, I am ever, dear Fanny
Your affectionate Sister
Marian Lewes alias Polly.
MS: Miss Dorothy Evans. Hitherto unpublished.
Rosa Cottage | Gorey | Jersey | June 2. 57.
Dear Fanny
I wish I could help you with experienced advice as to a suitable place of residence for recruiting Henry's health. The only places I can think of as likely to answer your purpose, which I suppose includes easy transit, cheapness, and a sufficiently bracing air, are Tr'e9port and St. Valery in Normandy, which are easily reached from Brighton. Friends of ours have been to those places and have been contented with them, but I do not know them otherwise than by report. Being on a northern coast they are not likely to be very relaxing, indeed the friend who went to Tr'e9port was especially in pursuit of a bracing air.
Jersey is very warm -- which is just what I want. It is very pretty -- a paradise of green vallies, but disappointingly English in habits and prices. The mild genial air has done me immense good already; but of course one can't tell whether July heat may not prove too much even for me.
Thanks -- a thousand thanks, dear Fanny for your letter. I have just written to Chrissey, being unable to wait another post after hearing that I might write to her, and finding I have yet a few minutes I write to you also. I hope Chrissey will be able to have some change of air for I begged Isaac to pay her £15 from me for that purpose. I do trust the money will not be absolutely wanted for anything else. I wish I could do more, but my poverty, not my will restricts me. 876 Pray do something, if you can to urge that the money should be so applied. I don't mean that you should do it obviously or directly, or that you should appear to know anything about that sum, but simply that you should insist on the importance of leaving that hotbed of fever for a time.
You are wrong about Mr. Liggins 877 or rather your informants are wrong. We too have been struck with the "Clerical Sketches," and I have recognized some figures and traditions connected with our old neighbourhood. But Blackwood informs Mr. Lewes that the author is a Mr. Eliot, a clergyman, I presume. Au reste, he may be a relation of Mr. Liggins's or some other [Mr.] who knows Coton stories.
Have you read Currer Bell's Life by Mrs. Gaskell? Do -- it will deeply interest you.
With kindest regards and best wishes for Henry's recovery, I am ever, dear Fanny
Your affectionate Sister
Marian Lewes alias Polly.
Signature
Marian Lewes alias Polly.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Fanny [Mrs. Henry] Houghton, Gorey, 2 June 1857, 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/93498