GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 27 March 1852
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 27 March 1852
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 27 March 1852
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor
Date(s)
- 1852-03-27
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 27 March 1852
Text: Cross, 1, 274-275.
I am grieved to find that you have to pay for that fine temperament of yours in attacks of neuralgia. Your silence did not surprise me, after the account you had given me of your domestic circumstances, but I have wished for you on Monday evenings. Your cordial assurance that you shall be glad to see me sometimes is one of those pleasant things -- those life-preservers -- which relenting destiny sends me now and then to buoy me up. For you must know that I am not a little desponding now and then, and think that old friends will die off, while I shall be left without the power to make new ones. You know how sad one feels when a great procession has swept by one, and the last notes of its music have died away, leaving one alone with the fields and sky. I feel so about life sometimes. It is a help to read such a life as Margaret Fuller's. How inexpressibly touching that passage from her journal -- "I shall always reign through the intellect, but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be sweet?" 43 I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was sweet at last. But I am running on about feelings when I ought to tell you facts. I am going on Wednesday to my friends in Warwickshire for about ten days or a fortnight. When I come back I hope you will be quite strong and able to receive visitors without effort -- Mr Taylor too.
I did go to the conversazione; 44 but you have less to regret than you think. Mazzini's speeches are better read than heard. Proofs are come demanding my immediate attention, so I must end this hasty scribble.
Text: Cross, 1, 274-275.
I am grieved to find that you have to pay for that fine temperament of yours in attacks of neuralgia. Your silence did not surprise me, after the account you had given me of your domestic circumstances, but I have wished for you on Monday evenings. Your cordial assurance that you shall be glad to see me sometimes is one of those pleasant things -- those life-preservers -- which relenting destiny sends me now and then to buoy me up. For you must know that I am not a little desponding now and then, and think that old friends will die off, while I shall be left without the power to make new ones. You know how sad one feels when a great procession has swept by one, and the last notes of its music have died away, leaving one alone with the fields and sky. I feel so about life sometimes. It is a help to read such a life as Margaret Fuller's. How inexpressibly touching that passage from her journal -- "I shall always reign through the intellect, but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be sweet?" 43 I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was sweet at last. But I am running on about feelings when I ought to tell you facts. I am going on Wednesday to my friends in Warwickshire for about ten days or a fortnight. When I come back I hope you will be quite strong and able to receive visitors without effort -- Mr Taylor too.
I did go to the conversazione; 44 but you have less to regret than you think. Mazzini's speeches are better read than heard. Proofs are come demanding my immediate attention, so I must end this hasty scribble.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 27 March 1852, 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/93586