GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 23 November 1848]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 23 November 1848]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 23 November 1848]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1848-11-23
Place
[FOLESHILL]
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 23 November 1848]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Nov. 23, 1848. Hitherto unpublished.
Mother Nature -- who by the bye is an old lady with some bad habits of her own -- like other great names does her work by deputy and so gets both credit and discredit that don't properly belong to her. The vulgar may not know it, but she in fact leaves the creation of her plants her animals and her homunculi to a whole herd of sprites and genii some of whom make but laughing work of it. Now over a quarter of a century ago 762 there was a very young sprite who forsooth having turned out some respectable toads and a few indifferent lemurs and marmosets must fain try his hand on a human article and one 22d of November he presented to Dame Nature at her evening levee a rough though unmistakeable sketch of a human baby. The Old Mother had been rollicking all the autumn in the vintage and wanted no less than a winter's sleep to sober her. Being rather cross-grained in her cups she was in no humour to make the best of a bad business so she said, What have we here? in such a snappish tone, flourishing a bunch of nettles all the while, that the poor little Prometheus of a sprite began to look very snubbed. "A pretty piece of work I should have to patch up this thing into a human soul and body that would hang together! Here," she called to one of her Vishnu-sprites, "smother it at once to save further harm." Thereupon the poor spriteling fell a crying that his first Homunculus was to be sent to limbo without having one chance given it. So some of his brother genii who were bringing in their day's work were touched with pity, and began to intercede for him and his Homunculus. "See mother," said they, "we have brought you many gentle maidens and high-browed, 763 brave men. We will make them to be friends to this poor bratling if you will only spare it, and they shall love and cherish and guard its poor rickety soul." "And see," said one hard-working sprite, "some Novembers ago 764 I brought you a dark-haired maiden and she shall be to this little one as a sister and her dark eye shall beam on the wandering one with love to soothe and grave warning to reclaim." And so Dame Nature heard the intercession and the brother-sprites kept their word. For the poor sketch of a soul was found by the dark eyed maiden and those other bright and good mortals and they pitied and helped it, so that at last it grew to think and to love.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Nov. 23, 1848. Hitherto unpublished.
Mother Nature -- who by the bye is an old lady with some bad habits of her own -- like other great names does her work by deputy and so gets both credit and discredit that don't properly belong to her. The vulgar may not know it, but she in fact leaves the creation of her plants her animals and her homunculi to a whole herd of sprites and genii some of whom make but laughing work of it. Now over a quarter of a century ago 762 there was a very young sprite who forsooth having turned out some respectable toads and a few indifferent lemurs and marmosets must fain try his hand on a human article and one 22d of November he presented to Dame Nature at her evening levee a rough though unmistakeable sketch of a human baby. The Old Mother had been rollicking all the autumn in the vintage and wanted no less than a winter's sleep to sober her. Being rather cross-grained in her cups she was in no humour to make the best of a bad business so she said, What have we here? in such a snappish tone, flourishing a bunch of nettles all the while, that the poor little Prometheus of a sprite began to look very snubbed. "A pretty piece of work I should have to patch up this thing into a human soul and body that would hang together! Here," she called to one of her Vishnu-sprites, "smother it at once to save further harm." Thereupon the poor spriteling fell a crying that his first Homunculus was to be sent to limbo without having one chance given it. So some of his brother genii who were bringing in their day's work were touched with pity, and began to intercede for him and his Homunculus. "See mother," said they, "we have brought you many gentle maidens and high-browed, 763 brave men. We will make them to be friends to this poor bratling if you will only spare it, and they shall love and cherish and guard its poor rickety soul." "And see," said one hard-working sprite, "some Novembers ago 764 I brought you a dark-haired maiden and she shall be to this little one as a sister and her dark eye shall beam on the wandering one with love to soothe and grave warning to reclaim." And so Dame Nature heard the intercession and the brother-sprites kept their word. For the poor sketch of a soul was found by the dark eyed maiden and those other bright and good mortals and they pitied and helped it, so that at last it grew to think and to love.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 23 November 1848], 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/93815