GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [7 March 1864]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [7 March 1864]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [7 March 1864]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1864-03-07
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [7 March 1864]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: March 7. 1864. Extracts published: Cross, II, 378-379.
Monday Morning.
Dear Sara
Thanks for thy letter. I felt it long since I had had news from you, but my days go by, each seeming too short for what I must do, and I don't like to molest you with mere questions. I have been spoiled for correspondence by Mr. Lewes's goodness in always writing letters for me where a proxy is admissible. And so it has come to be a great affair with me to write even a note, while people who keep up a large correspondence and set apart their hour for it find it easy to cover reams of paper with talk from the end of the pen. I shall write to Cara, having happily written the Sydenham address in my "Where is it?" 234 -- the only means with me of remembering a London address.
You say nothing of yourself, which is rather unkind. We are enjoying a perfect t'eate 'e0 t'eate, Charlie being gone for this month of March on his holiday journey, of which the goal is to be Munich this year. On Friday 235 we are going to hear the Judas Maccabaeus and try if possible to be stirred to something heroic by "Sound an alarm."
I was more sorry than it is usually possible to be about the death of a person utterly unknown to me, when I read of Maria Martineau's death. 236 She was a person whose office in life seemed so thoroughly defined and so valuable. For an invalid like H[arriet] M[artineau] to be deprived of a beloved nurse and companion is a sorrow that makes one ashamed of one's small grumblings.
I am glad to know that you felt the story of David Gray. Friend "Bob" 237 told us the other evening, that he (Bob) had once for three whole weeks never gone to bed, writing a 2s volume for bread and onion, hardly for bread and meat. He just dozed off in his chair, and then went at his work again.
Mrs. Congreve writes me word that her husband is the better for their travel, though not yet just the thing. I was sorry to know of how Walter Congreve's 238 illness interrupted his apparently prosperous career. O dear O dear when will people leave off their foolish talk about all human lots being equal? as if anybody with a sound stomach ever knew misery comparable to the misery of a dyspeptic.
Farewell, dear Sara. Be generous, and don't always wait an age in silence because I don't write.
Ever your
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: March 7. 1864. Extracts published: Cross, II, 378-379.
Monday Morning.
Dear Sara
Thanks for thy letter. I felt it long since I had had news from you, but my days go by, each seeming too short for what I must do, and I don't like to molest you with mere questions. I have been spoiled for correspondence by Mr. Lewes's goodness in always writing letters for me where a proxy is admissible. And so it has come to be a great affair with me to write even a note, while people who keep up a large correspondence and set apart their hour for it find it easy to cover reams of paper with talk from the end of the pen. I shall write to Cara, having happily written the Sydenham address in my "Where is it?" 234 -- the only means with me of remembering a London address.
You say nothing of yourself, which is rather unkind. We are enjoying a perfect t'eate 'e0 t'eate, Charlie being gone for this month of March on his holiday journey, of which the goal is to be Munich this year. On Friday 235 we are going to hear the Judas Maccabaeus and try if possible to be stirred to something heroic by "Sound an alarm."
I was more sorry than it is usually possible to be about the death of a person utterly unknown to me, when I read of Maria Martineau's death. 236 She was a person whose office in life seemed so thoroughly defined and so valuable. For an invalid like H[arriet] M[artineau] to be deprived of a beloved nurse and companion is a sorrow that makes one ashamed of one's small grumblings.
I am glad to know that you felt the story of David Gray. Friend "Bob" 237 told us the other evening, that he (Bob) had once for three whole weeks never gone to bed, writing a 2s volume for bread and onion, hardly for bread and meat. He just dozed off in his chair, and then went at his work again.
Mrs. Congreve writes me word that her husband is the better for their travel, though not yet just the thing. I was sorry to know of how Walter Congreve's 238 illness interrupted his apparently prosperous career. O dear O dear when will people leave off their foolish talk about all human lots being equal? as if anybody with a sound stomach ever knew misery comparable to the misery of a dyspeptic.
Farewell, dear Sara. Be generous, and don't always wait an age in silence because I don't write.
Ever your
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, [7 March 1864], 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/93972