GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, Ilfracombe, 8 June 1856
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, Ilfracombe, 8 June 1856
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, Ilfracombe, 8 June 1856
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor
Date(s)
- 1856-06-08
Place
Ilfracombe
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, Ilfracombe, 8 June 1856
Text: Cross, I, 407-408.
I received your kind letter only yesterday, but I write a few words in answer at once, lest, as it so often happens, delay should beget delay.
It is never too late to write generous words, and although circumstances are not likely to allow of our acquiring a more intimate knowledge of each other from personal intercourse, it will always be a pleasant thought to me that you have remembered me kindly, and interpreted me nobly. You are one of the minority who know how to "use their imagination in the service of charity."
I have suffered so much from misunderstanding created by letters, even to old friends, that I never write on private personal matters, unless it be a rigorous duty or necessity to do so. Some little phrase or allusion is misinterpreted, and on this false basis a great fabric of misconception is reared, which even explanatory conversations will not remove. Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly on under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.
Text: Cross, I, 407-408.
I received your kind letter only yesterday, but I write a few words in answer at once, lest, as it so often happens, delay should beget delay.
It is never too late to write generous words, and although circumstances are not likely to allow of our acquiring a more intimate knowledge of each other from personal intercourse, it will always be a pleasant thought to me that you have remembered me kindly, and interpreted me nobly. You are one of the minority who know how to "use their imagination in the service of charity."
I have suffered so much from misunderstanding created by letters, even to old friends, that I never write on private personal matters, unless it be a rigorous duty or necessity to do so. Some little phrase or allusion is misinterpreted, and on this false basis a great fabric of misconception is reared, which even explanatory conversations will not remove. Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly on under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, Ilfracombe, 8 June 1856, 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/93571