GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, 440 Foleshill, 30 August 1842
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, 440 Foleshill, 30 August 1842
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, 440 Foleshill, 30 August 1842
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1842-08-30
Place
440 FOLESHILL
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, 440 Foleshill, 30 August 1842
MS: Yale. Endorsed: I first saw her July 1842. Brief extract published: Cross, I, 115.
Foleshill August 30th 1842.
My dear Sarah,
Next to the pleasure of seeing your dark eyes beaming on me was the very unexpected one of having a note from you. I will not tell you how often that little note has been read, and how I have delighted in the thought that there are beings who are better than their promises beyond the regions of waking and sleeping dreams. According to your own theory you ought to love me the more for letting a week pass without thanking you instead of following the impulse that would have led me to write on the very evening that your kind words [I do not forget you] reached me. But I begin to think that cold dignity is only becoming to wise people and suits me about as ill as would the Lord Chancellor's wig; so I shall go on being sentimental and Liebsehnende 441 in defiance of the march of reason and propriety. And by the bye there ought to be a few straggling animals of the old formation in the early strata of the new, a few spectral clingers to the memory of the old régime in the era of political regeneration, so I shall do for a specimen of an almost extinct species and in that character manage to secure a place in the cabinet of people that can like a thing for its curiosity.
And now, O most unreasonable Sarah mine, you ask me to tell you all about myself, when you send me not a word of yourself. Do I not live with myself and tire of myself until I have no need of metaphysics to make me believe that there is nothing certain but that self exists? And you after all your philosophical lectures to me, would keep me on a spot where I have already pirouetted until I am giddy, until I am one of the most egotistical speakers and writers in this world of egotists.
Thank you a thousand times my friend of the dark eye, as the Indians would call you, for destining your Autumn picture for me. Are you not beginning to enjoy the mists and calm, slow decay? I have a world more to say, but I am too modest to send a note more than twice the size of yours, and you have had quite enough copper coins for once. All good angels attend you, my Sarah, love peace and hope, and now and then a thought of your affectionate
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: I first saw her July 1842. Brief extract published: Cross, I, 115.
Foleshill August 30th 1842.
My dear Sarah,
Next to the pleasure of seeing your dark eyes beaming on me was the very unexpected one of having a note from you. I will not tell you how often that little note has been read, and how I have delighted in the thought that there are beings who are better than their promises beyond the regions of waking and sleeping dreams. According to your own theory you ought to love me the more for letting a week pass without thanking you instead of following the impulse that would have led me to write on the very evening that your kind words [I do not forget you] reached me. But I begin to think that cold dignity is only becoming to wise people and suits me about as ill as would the Lord Chancellor's wig; so I shall go on being sentimental and Liebsehnende 441 in defiance of the march of reason and propriety. And by the bye there ought to be a few straggling animals of the old formation in the early strata of the new, a few spectral clingers to the memory of the old régime in the era of political regeneration, so I shall do for a specimen of an almost extinct species and in that character manage to secure a place in the cabinet of people that can like a thing for its curiosity.
And now, O most unreasonable Sarah mine, you ask me to tell you all about myself, when you send me not a word of yourself. Do I not live with myself and tire of myself until I have no need of metaphysics to make me believe that there is nothing certain but that self exists? And you after all your philosophical lectures to me, would keep me on a spot where I have already pirouetted until I am giddy, until I am one of the most egotistical speakers and writers in this world of egotists.
Thank you a thousand times my friend of the dark eye, as the Indians would call you, for destining your Autumn picture for me. Are you not beginning to enjoy the mists and calm, slow decay? I have a world more to say, but I am too modest to send a note more than twice the size of yours, and you have had quite enough copper coins for once. All good angels attend you, my Sarah, love peace and hope, and now and then a thought of your affectionate
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, 440 Foleshill, 30 August 1842, 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/93880