GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 5 November 1846]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 5 November 1846]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 5 November 1846]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1846-11-05
Place
[FOLESHILL]
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 5 November 1846]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1846. Extracts published: Cross, I, 148-149.
Just been to Rosehill, dearest Sara, and read your letter of this morning. Thank Mr. Chapman for his kind offer and assure him that I shall have much pleasure in accepting it. Do you think it worth my while to buy the Prospective for the sake of Wicksted's Review? 639 Is there anything new in it? Do you know if Mr. Chapman has any unusual facilities for obtaining cheap classics? Such things are to be got handsome and secondhand in London if one knew but the way. I want to complete Xenophon's works. I have the Anabasis -- and I might perhaps get a nice edition of the Memorabilia and Cyropaedia in a cheaper way than by ordering them directly from our own bookseller. But all this is very selfish and troublesome, and do not teaze yourself with it except when you want something to do or say.
I begin to be of your and Cara's opinion anent Dr. B. 640 You are my own best plainspoken friend and generally judge better for me than I can judge for myself. I hope Rufa knows the contents of my letter to you. Pray convince her and every one concerned in the matter that I am too inflatedly conceited to think it worth my while to run after Dr. Brabant or his correspondence. If I ever offered incense to him it was because there was no other deity at hand and because I wanted some kind of worship pour passer le temps. I always knew that I could belabour my fetisch if I chose, and laughed at him in my sleeve. Even that degree of inclination towards mock reverence has long since passed away and ridiculous as it may seem to every one else, I looked on my renewal of a correspondence with him as a favour conferred by me rather than received. I shall certainly take an opportunity of certifying him on which leg the boot was. You see I am getting horridly vulgar as well as proud.
Do not judge too harshly of the L.L. 641 on a first interview. I am quite glad to hear of prettiness associated with learning and heresy. Is there genius too? If so, the gods are getting kinder to mortals.
I have been reading the [Fawn of Sertorius.] 642 I think you would like it, though the many would not. It is pure, chaste, and classic beyond any attempt at fiction I ever read. If it be Bulwer's he has been undergoing a gradual transfiguration, and is now ready to be exalted into the assembly of the saints.
You must write to me, do -- there's a dear soul. Keep a bit of paper lying ready to scribble on for me. The Professor's letter 643 transmitted through you, gave me infinite consolation -- more especially the apt and pregnant quotation from Berosus. Precious those little hidden lakelets of knowledge in the high mountains, far removed from the vulgar eye, only visited by the soaring birds of love.
Thine entirely
Pollian.
Thursday.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1846. Extracts published: Cross, I, 148-149.
Just been to Rosehill, dearest Sara, and read your letter of this morning. Thank Mr. Chapman for his kind offer and assure him that I shall have much pleasure in accepting it. Do you think it worth my while to buy the Prospective for the sake of Wicksted's Review? 639 Is there anything new in it? Do you know if Mr. Chapman has any unusual facilities for obtaining cheap classics? Such things are to be got handsome and secondhand in London if one knew but the way. I want to complete Xenophon's works. I have the Anabasis -- and I might perhaps get a nice edition of the Memorabilia and Cyropaedia in a cheaper way than by ordering them directly from our own bookseller. But all this is very selfish and troublesome, and do not teaze yourself with it except when you want something to do or say.
I begin to be of your and Cara's opinion anent Dr. B. 640 You are my own best plainspoken friend and generally judge better for me than I can judge for myself. I hope Rufa knows the contents of my letter to you. Pray convince her and every one concerned in the matter that I am too inflatedly conceited to think it worth my while to run after Dr. Brabant or his correspondence. If I ever offered incense to him it was because there was no other deity at hand and because I wanted some kind of worship pour passer le temps. I always knew that I could belabour my fetisch if I chose, and laughed at him in my sleeve. Even that degree of inclination towards mock reverence has long since passed away and ridiculous as it may seem to every one else, I looked on my renewal of a correspondence with him as a favour conferred by me rather than received. I shall certainly take an opportunity of certifying him on which leg the boot was. You see I am getting horridly vulgar as well as proud.
Do not judge too harshly of the L.L. 641 on a first interview. I am quite glad to hear of prettiness associated with learning and heresy. Is there genius too? If so, the gods are getting kinder to mortals.
I have been reading the [Fawn of Sertorius.] 642 I think you would like it, though the many would not. It is pure, chaste, and classic beyond any attempt at fiction I ever read. If it be Bulwer's he has been undergoing a gradual transfiguration, and is now ready to be exalted into the assembly of the saints.
You must write to me, do -- there's a dear soul. Keep a bit of paper lying ready to scribble on for me. The Professor's letter 643 transmitted through you, gave me infinite consolation -- more especially the apt and pregnant quotation from Berosus. Precious those little hidden lakelets of knowledge in the high mountains, far removed from the vulgar eye, only visited by the soaring birds of love.
Thine entirely
Pollian.
Thursday.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, [Foleshill, 5 November 1846], 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/93824