GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Limpsfield, 12 August 1870
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Limpsfield, 12 August 1870
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Limpsfield, 12 August 1870
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1870-08-12
Place
Limpsfield
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Limpsfield, 12 August 1870
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 118-119.
Park Farm | Limpsfield | Surrey | August 12. 70.
Dear Sara
Thanks for letting me have some share in your enjoyment of the waves and the sunsets. It is really something added to the cheerfulness of the sunshine over our Surrey fields, to know that you are at your old beloved Penmaenmaur, and in company which I know you like -- better, perhaps, than any other.
We too, you see, have come back to a well-tried refuge 209 -- the same place that soothed us in our troubles last October -- and we especially delight in this deep country, after the fuss which belongs even to quiet watering-places such as Cromer, Harrogate and Whitby, which are, after all, "alleys where the gentle folks live." We went to all three of these places in succession, and when we were at Harrogate I was constantly on the verge of writing to you, to remind you how we were originally indebted to you for a description, nay, a little plan of the place. 210 But I abstained, doubting whether it did not teaze you rather than please you to have notes which might hang about your mind as things to be answered. Harrogate, like all places which keep in fashion, is much increased by house-building, but it has the charm of being a place where the company is too mixed, in consequence of the serious need to get health from the air and waters, for the arrangements to be of the detestably luxurious, exclusive sort. Mr. Lewes found great benefit there, his pulse rising from its thread-like t[r]ickle of 58, to a good 70.
Whitby was a rather unfortunate sequel, the weather being first sultry, then cold, then misty. We paused a week in London on our way here, where we have been since Monday, and all the good effects of
Harrogate seem to be reappearing after a temporary check. Mr. Lewes is able to vary his mornings now by revising his History. His ailing, which caused our second flight from home, was a relapse -- surprizingly rapid -- into the state of nervous weakness, which hindered him from all interesting work before we went to Germany in March. It is always attended with obstinate dyspeptic headaches. But I am in good hope now that he may have a fair time of freedom from these trials.
And you too, dear Sara -- for, believe me, I represented to myself very vividly what you told me in your former letter of that weariness which all our poor bodies get, when they have stayed a long while in this world, and of the impossibility that solitary travelling was to you. But now I read your letter this morning, I feel that there is a good chance of your going back to Coventry with refreshed strength and courage. It seems just the sweetest way in which you could have got the change, to have it come unexpectedly through the affectionate effort of a friend.
We are excited even among the still woods and fields by the vicissitudes of the War, and chiefly concerned because we cannot succeed in getting the day's "Times." We have entered into the period which will be marked in future historical charts as "The period of German ascendency." 211 But how saddening to think of the iniquities that the great harvest moon is looking down on! I am less grieved for the bloodshed than for the hateful trust in lies which is continually disclosed. Meanwhile Jowett's Translation of Plato is being prepared for publication, 212 and he has kindly sent us the sheets of one volume. So I pass from discussions of French lying and the Nemesis that awaits it, to discussions about rhetorical lying at Athens in the fourth century before Christ. The translations, and Introductions to the Dialogues, seem to be charmingly done.
Also, we are reading Froude's picture of England under the Tudors, 213 which he rather timidly insinuates than maintains to have been a time when Englishmen were far nobler and more unselfish than now. So, you perceive, we get plenty of contrast with that agitated Now, which is the main interest even in this far-away village. I don't quite know when we shall return to Town -- probably in September.
Perhaps you have not heard of the death of Miss Mary Gillies, a most gentle-minded, refined woman -- the elder of the two sisters whom
Gertrude has cherished, and been cherished by, with devoted affection. She was aged 70, and had been ailing for a long while. Always, dear Sara,
Your affectionate
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, III, 118-119.
Park Farm | Limpsfield | Surrey | August 12. 70.
Dear Sara
Thanks for letting me have some share in your enjoyment of the waves and the sunsets. It is really something added to the cheerfulness of the sunshine over our Surrey fields, to know that you are at your old beloved Penmaenmaur, and in company which I know you like -- better, perhaps, than any other.
We too, you see, have come back to a well-tried refuge 209 -- the same place that soothed us in our troubles last October -- and we especially delight in this deep country, after the fuss which belongs even to quiet watering-places such as Cromer, Harrogate and Whitby, which are, after all, "alleys where the gentle folks live." We went to all three of these places in succession, and when we were at Harrogate I was constantly on the verge of writing to you, to remind you how we were originally indebted to you for a description, nay, a little plan of the place. 210 But I abstained, doubting whether it did not teaze you rather than please you to have notes which might hang about your mind as things to be answered. Harrogate, like all places which keep in fashion, is much increased by house-building, but it has the charm of being a place where the company is too mixed, in consequence of the serious need to get health from the air and waters, for the arrangements to be of the detestably luxurious, exclusive sort. Mr. Lewes found great benefit there, his pulse rising from its thread-like t[r]ickle of 58, to a good 70.
Whitby was a rather unfortunate sequel, the weather being first sultry, then cold, then misty. We paused a week in London on our way here, where we have been since Monday, and all the good effects of
Harrogate seem to be reappearing after a temporary check. Mr. Lewes is able to vary his mornings now by revising his History. His ailing, which caused our second flight from home, was a relapse -- surprizingly rapid -- into the state of nervous weakness, which hindered him from all interesting work before we went to Germany in March. It is always attended with obstinate dyspeptic headaches. But I am in good hope now that he may have a fair time of freedom from these trials.
And you too, dear Sara -- for, believe me, I represented to myself very vividly what you told me in your former letter of that weariness which all our poor bodies get, when they have stayed a long while in this world, and of the impossibility that solitary travelling was to you. But now I read your letter this morning, I feel that there is a good chance of your going back to Coventry with refreshed strength and courage. It seems just the sweetest way in which you could have got the change, to have it come unexpectedly through the affectionate effort of a friend.
We are excited even among the still woods and fields by the vicissitudes of the War, and chiefly concerned because we cannot succeed in getting the day's "Times." We have entered into the period which will be marked in future historical charts as "The period of German ascendency." 211 But how saddening to think of the iniquities that the great harvest moon is looking down on! I am less grieved for the bloodshed than for the hateful trust in lies which is continually disclosed. Meanwhile Jowett's Translation of Plato is being prepared for publication, 212 and he has kindly sent us the sheets of one volume. So I pass from discussions of French lying and the Nemesis that awaits it, to discussions about rhetorical lying at Athens in the fourth century before Christ. The translations, and Introductions to the Dialogues, seem to be charmingly done.
Also, we are reading Froude's picture of England under the Tudors, 213 which he rather timidly insinuates than maintains to have been a time when Englishmen were far nobler and more unselfish than now. So, you perceive, we get plenty of contrast with that agitated Now, which is the main interest even in this far-away village. I don't quite know when we shall return to Town -- probably in September.
Perhaps you have not heard of the death of Miss Mary Gillies, a most gentle-minded, refined woman -- the elder of the two sisters whom
Gertrude has cherished, and been cherished by, with devoted affection. She was aged 70, and had been ailing for a long while. Always, dear Sara,
Your affectionate
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Limpsfield, 12 August 1870, 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/93930