GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, St. Leonard's, [18 August 1853]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, St. Leonard's, [18 August 1853]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, St. Leonard's, [18 August 1853]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1853-08-18
Place
St. Leonard's
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, St. Leonard's, [18 August 1853]
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Aug. 18. 1853. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 310-311.
Spa Cottage | St. Leonard's.
Dear Sara
For the first time in my experience I am positively revelling in the Prospective! I have been dying with laughter over one passage in the article on Shakspeare which was made for Herbert Spencer and which I long to quote to him. "No doubt there is some reason why negroes have woolly hair (and if you look into a philosophical treatise, no doubt you will find that the author could have made out that it would be so, if he had not, by a mysterious misfortune, known from infancy that it was a fact) -- still one could not have supposed it oneself." 362 James
Martineau transcends himself in beauty of imagery in the article on Sir W. Hamilton, 363 but I have not finished him yet.
Yesterday it rained sans intermission, and of course I said cui bono? and found my troubles almost more than I could bear -- but today the sun shines 364 and there is blue above and blue below -- consequently I find life very glorious and myself a particularly fortunate diabolessa.
Lady Boothby (Mrs. Nisbett) 365 is here -- is building a house on a hill and shews her fine form and very withered but still suggestive-of-prettiness face (highly rouged) on the parade every day. (There is a bit of news to interest Mr. Bray.) Mr. Brooks, 366 a member of Parliament, is her friend and supplies her with £800 a year whereby she lives at ease. The landlord of my lodgings is a German -- comes from Saxe-Weimar, knows well the Duchess of Orleans, and talked to me this morning of Mr. Schiller and Mr. Goethe. A propos of Goethe, there is a most true, discriminating passage about him in the said article on Shakespeare. 367 Mr. Goethe is one of my companions here, and I had felt some days before reading the passage the truth which it expresses. Love to all.
Thy affectionate
Marian.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: Aug. 18. 1853. Extracts published: Cross, 1, 310-311.
Spa Cottage | St. Leonard's.
Dear Sara
For the first time in my experience I am positively revelling in the Prospective! I have been dying with laughter over one passage in the article on Shakspeare which was made for Herbert Spencer and which I long to quote to him. "No doubt there is some reason why negroes have woolly hair (and if you look into a philosophical treatise, no doubt you will find that the author could have made out that it would be so, if he had not, by a mysterious misfortune, known from infancy that it was a fact) -- still one could not have supposed it oneself." 362 James
Martineau transcends himself in beauty of imagery in the article on Sir W. Hamilton, 363 but I have not finished him yet.
Yesterday it rained sans intermission, and of course I said cui bono? and found my troubles almost more than I could bear -- but today the sun shines 364 and there is blue above and blue below -- consequently I find life very glorious and myself a particularly fortunate diabolessa.
Lady Boothby (Mrs. Nisbett) 365 is here -- is building a house on a hill and shews her fine form and very withered but still suggestive-of-prettiness face (highly rouged) on the parade every day. (There is a bit of news to interest Mr. Bray.) Mr. Brooks, 366 a member of Parliament, is her friend and supplies her with £800 a year whereby she lives at ease. The landlord of my lodgings is a German -- comes from Saxe-Weimar, knows well the Duchess of Orleans, and talked to me this morning of Mr. Schiller and Mr. Goethe. A propos of Goethe, there is a most true, discriminating passage about him in the said article on Shakespeare. 367 Mr. Goethe is one of my companions here, and I had felt some days before reading the passage the truth which it expresses. Love to all.
Thy affectionate
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, St. Leonard's, [18 August 1853], 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/94112