GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 2 July 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 2 July 1861
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 2 July 1861
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1861-07-02
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 2 July 1861
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
July 2. 61.
Dear Sara
That was a pretty bit of human fellowship -- to send us word about the comet. 800 But alas, our London sky was murky last night, and though we sat up till near midnight and looked out the last thing, there were no lamps in heaven -- only terrestrial lamps, particularly a red one at a distant gin-shop. However, we will hope for better luck this evening, and I am grateful to you for giving us notice.
I was meditating a letter to you before there came this more immediate reason for writing: partly to tell you that the words "studied civility" however they may have stood in my letter, had not in my mind the remotest application to you, and I can't conceive what I can have said that would bear such an interpretation. I had nothing in my thoughts beyond the vaguest allusion to the lip-friendship which is one of the semi-vices (it is not altogether a vice) of human intercourse.
It was a comfort to me to see Cara looking well and bright, 801 and I should like to have such a vision of you, too. You said very little about yourself in your last letter: everything you told me was very interesting and graphic, and made me want more of the same sort, strictly about yourself -- how the days pass with you, and what is the complexion of your thoughts. Remember, it is only discussion, not statement, that I shrink from in letter writing. You see how easily misunderstandings can arise even about innocent commonplaces.
You will be amused with what befel me and Charley last Sunday morning. Intending to go to James Martineau's chapel, 802 we turned by mistake into an Episcopalian Proprietary chapel, where there was a broad-chested young Irish preacher fresh from lessons in elocution, who gave us a polite sermon on "iniquity" and prayer in the approved stage tones with an occasional climax after Macready's manner! Fancy me shut up in a very narrow pew under these circumstances with the sense of a healthy youth beside me who had no room to stretch his limbs, and is "quite sure" that "nobody" was ever moved by the Church Service! I can endure any amount of sitting in churches and chapels when I am not fidgetty about my companions, for I can dream and think without risk of interruption, and I should go to all sorts of places of worship if I could go alone.
Give my best love to Cara and Mr. Bray, and let me know whenever anything pleasant happens to any one of you. I won't expect anything that is not pleasant.
Ever yours
Pollian.
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Blandford Square, | N.W.
July 2. 61.
Dear Sara
That was a pretty bit of human fellowship -- to send us word about the comet. 800 But alas, our London sky was murky last night, and though we sat up till near midnight and looked out the last thing, there were no lamps in heaven -- only terrestrial lamps, particularly a red one at a distant gin-shop. However, we will hope for better luck this evening, and I am grateful to you for giving us notice.
I was meditating a letter to you before there came this more immediate reason for writing: partly to tell you that the words "studied civility" however they may have stood in my letter, had not in my mind the remotest application to you, and I can't conceive what I can have said that would bear such an interpretation. I had nothing in my thoughts beyond the vaguest allusion to the lip-friendship which is one of the semi-vices (it is not altogether a vice) of human intercourse.
It was a comfort to me to see Cara looking well and bright, 801 and I should like to have such a vision of you, too. You said very little about yourself in your last letter: everything you told me was very interesting and graphic, and made me want more of the same sort, strictly about yourself -- how the days pass with you, and what is the complexion of your thoughts. Remember, it is only discussion, not statement, that I shrink from in letter writing. You see how easily misunderstandings can arise even about innocent commonplaces.
You will be amused with what befel me and Charley last Sunday morning. Intending to go to James Martineau's chapel, 802 we turned by mistake into an Episcopalian Proprietary chapel, where there was a broad-chested young Irish preacher fresh from lessons in elocution, who gave us a polite sermon on "iniquity" and prayer in the approved stage tones with an occasional climax after Macready's manner! Fancy me shut up in a very narrow pew under these circumstances with the sense of a healthy youth beside me who had no room to stretch his limbs, and is "quite sure" that "nobody" was ever moved by the Church Service! I can endure any amount of sitting in churches and chapels when I am not fidgetty about my companions, for I can dream and think without risk of interruption, and I should go to all sorts of places of worship if I could go alone.
Give my best love to Cara and Mr. Bray, and let me know whenever anything pleasant happens to any one of you. I won't expect anything that is not pleasant.
Ever yours
Pollian.
Signature
Pollian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, London, 2 July 1861, 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/94011