GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Wandsworth, 2 July 1860
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Wandsworth, 2 July 1860
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Wandsworth, 2 July 1860
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1860-07-02
Place
Wandsworth
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Wandsworth, 2 July 1860
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 256-257.
Holly Lodge, S. Fields | Wandsworth | July 2. 60.
My dear Sara
I opened your letters and parcel 569 a little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, for that was the unseasonable hour of our return from our long, long journey. Yesterday was almost entirely employed in feeling very weary indeed, but this morning we are attacking the heap of small duties that always lie before one after a long absence.
It is pleasant to see your book fairly finished after all delays and anxieties -- but I will say nothing to you about that, until I have read it. I shall read it the first thing, before plunging into a course of study which will take me into a different region of thought.
I was almost surprized to see you date from Ivy Cottage, for by some blundering process of thought (our thoughts about others are always more or less a continuous blundering) I had got it into my head that you would all be settled at Sydenham. 570 I hope the letting of the house is in every way a fulfilment of Mr. Bray's intentions and wishes, which I had wrongly interpreted. I should have liked to hear some more decidedly cheerful news about material affairs -- houses etc. -- but in default of that I throw all my feeling into joy at Cara's satisfaction that she has done a useful piece of work, and gets a kind recognition as the doer. 571
We have had an unspeakably delightful journey -- one of those journies that seem to divide one's life in two by the new ideas they suggest and the new veins of interest they open. The sweep of our travels was wider than we had ventured to plan beforehand: over the Mont Cenis to Genoa, first; then by sea to Rome, where we stayed exactly a month; then by sea to Naples, which, with Paestum, Amalfi and Sorrento, kept us a fortnight; back again by sea to Florence, and, after another fortnight spent there, to Venice by way of Bologna, Ferrara and Padua. After Venice we considered ourselves merely on our way home, but the way has been a slow one, for we set out from Venice on the thirteenth. We took Verona, Milan and Como, on our route over the Splugen to Zurich, where we staid for a physiological day with Professor Moleschott, and went on to Bern and Hofwyl with parental purposes, of course; bringing away our eldest boy Charles, who has a downy lip and chin and a back broader than his father's. From Berne we went to Geneva and spent two days with my old kind friends the D'Alberts -- a real pleasure to me, especially as Mr. Lewes was delighted with "Maman," as I used to call Mde. D'Albert. She is as bright and upright as ever: the ten years have only whitened her hair, a change which makes her face all the softer in colouring.
We have lived in entire innocence of newspapers since we have been away, so that a letter from Mrs. Bodichon telling us of her father's death two months ago is only one of the many changes that we have to learn. We had not even known the state of the weather in England until we met a family at Milan who had just come across the Alps. Until we left Venice we had had unbroken sunshine for six weeks: the clouds and rain that had been almost constant during our stay in Rome kindly said goodby to us at Naples where fine weather is quite indispensable to enjoyment. In Rome there is so much to be seen under roofs, that bad days pass over unregarded.
Mr. Lewes was not at all well when we set out, and continued ailing for many weeks, but he is as well now as people with feeble digestion can expect to be.
I have given you this bare matter-of-fact history, because your imagination will make out a more truthful picture with that skeleton or nude figure once correctly drawn. For the rest of my mind is too full of cares and duties of a serious prosaic kind for me to be very expansive just now.
Unchanging love and sympathy in all good and evil fortune to all three friends, from their sincerely affectionate
Marian.
MS: Yale. Extracts published: Cross, II, 256-257.
Holly Lodge, S. Fields | Wandsworth | July 2. 60.
My dear Sara
I opened your letters and parcel 569 a little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, for that was the unseasonable hour of our return from our long, long journey. Yesterday was almost entirely employed in feeling very weary indeed, but this morning we are attacking the heap of small duties that always lie before one after a long absence.
It is pleasant to see your book fairly finished after all delays and anxieties -- but I will say nothing to you about that, until I have read it. I shall read it the first thing, before plunging into a course of study which will take me into a different region of thought.
I was almost surprized to see you date from Ivy Cottage, for by some blundering process of thought (our thoughts about others are always more or less a continuous blundering) I had got it into my head that you would all be settled at Sydenham. 570 I hope the letting of the house is in every way a fulfilment of Mr. Bray's intentions and wishes, which I had wrongly interpreted. I should have liked to hear some more decidedly cheerful news about material affairs -- houses etc. -- but in default of that I throw all my feeling into joy at Cara's satisfaction that she has done a useful piece of work, and gets a kind recognition as the doer. 571
We have had an unspeakably delightful journey -- one of those journies that seem to divide one's life in two by the new ideas they suggest and the new veins of interest they open. The sweep of our travels was wider than we had ventured to plan beforehand: over the Mont Cenis to Genoa, first; then by sea to Rome, where we stayed exactly a month; then by sea to Naples, which, with Paestum, Amalfi and Sorrento, kept us a fortnight; back again by sea to Florence, and, after another fortnight spent there, to Venice by way of Bologna, Ferrara and Padua. After Venice we considered ourselves merely on our way home, but the way has been a slow one, for we set out from Venice on the thirteenth. We took Verona, Milan and Como, on our route over the Splugen to Zurich, where we staid for a physiological day with Professor Moleschott, and went on to Bern and Hofwyl with parental purposes, of course; bringing away our eldest boy Charles, who has a downy lip and chin and a back broader than his father's. From Berne we went to Geneva and spent two days with my old kind friends the D'Alberts -- a real pleasure to me, especially as Mr. Lewes was delighted with "Maman," as I used to call Mde. D'Albert. She is as bright and upright as ever: the ten years have only whitened her hair, a change which makes her face all the softer in colouring.
We have lived in entire innocence of newspapers since we have been away, so that a letter from Mrs. Bodichon telling us of her father's death two months ago is only one of the many changes that we have to learn. We had not even known the state of the weather in England until we met a family at Milan who had just come across the Alps. Until we left Venice we had had unbroken sunshine for six weeks: the clouds and rain that had been almost constant during our stay in Rome kindly said goodby to us at Naples where fine weather is quite indispensable to enjoyment. In Rome there is so much to be seen under roofs, that bad days pass over unregarded.
Mr. Lewes was not at all well when we set out, and continued ailing for many weeks, but he is as well now as people with feeble digestion can expect to be.
I have given you this bare matter-of-fact history, because your imagination will make out a more truthful picture with that skeleton or nude figure once correctly drawn. For the rest of my mind is too full of cares and duties of a serious prosaic kind for me to be very expansive just now.
Unchanging love and sympathy in all good and evil fortune to all three friends, from their sincerely affectionate
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Wandsworth, 2 July 1860, 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/94131