GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 6 April 1861
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 6 April 1861
Title
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 6 April 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor
Date(s)
- 1861-04-06
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 6 April 1861
Text: Cross, II, 296-297.
I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr Lewes felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the wish to see us at your house 734 -- namely, that I have found it a necessity of my London life to make the rule of never paying visits. Without a carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use of my days; and I am obliged to give up the few visits which would be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the many visits which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind -- only by renouncing all social intercourse but such as come to our own fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of life.
I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid -- all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at all beyond our own homes, and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting my stay-at-home rule into churlishness.
Text: Cross, II, 296-297.
I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr Lewes felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the wish to see us at your house 734 -- namely, that I have found it a necessity of my London life to make the rule of never paying visits. Without a carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use of my days; and I am obliged to give up the few visits which would be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the many visits which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind -- only by renouncing all social intercourse but such as come to our own fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of life.
I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid -- all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at all beyond our own homes, and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting my stay-at-home rule into churlishness.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Peter Alfred Taylor, London, 6 April 1861, 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/93594