GE to the Brays and Hennells, St. Leonard's, 8 June [1848]
Title
GE to the Brays and Hennells, St. Leonard's, 8 June [1848]
Title
GE to the Brays and Hennells, St. Leonard's, 8 June [1848]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
The Brays and Hennells
Date(s)
- 1848-06-08
Place
ST. LEONARD'S
Letter Content
GE to the Brays and Hennells, St. Leonard's, 8 June [1848]
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 189-190.
Marina | St. Leonard's | June 8th.
Dear Quartett of Friends --
I may still say so, though I fear your primo basso has departed, for I suppose your basso secondo 742 will have arrived before my letter. It has been quite enough of joy to me to think of you receiving the pleasures of your fourth in that delightful way and of Mrs. Hennell looking on. Mr. Hennell's toothache made me groan a deep groan partly of contrition and partly of sympathy -- but the letter had a galvanic effect on my muscles and lungs -- I laughed a real laugh and my lungs did crow like Chanticleer 743 so as to startle Father with the unwonted sound. Tell Mr. Hennell he could not have procured me a greater luxury, and I have felt younger ever since -- indeed I think the convulsion has checked the progress of some wrinkles that have begun to form of late.
I have not half time to write what I wish -- I want to send some consolation to my poor Professor, 744 for I have some that will be right welcome to him -- but alas! our life here is [slow] not in the sense of the time seeming too long, but in the fact of very trivial doings being spread over a large space, so that I can say little more at the end of every day than "the evening and the morning were the eighth or ninth day." 745
Father is no better at all, indeed I think his cough is more trouble-some than when we came. This is dispiriting for him and so he is doubly dragged backwards. The weather is so cruelly cold, that one can expect no good influence from the sea-breezes.
Dear Cara, your husband desired me to send you the newspaper paragraph about George Sand, and I obey -- but if you disapprove, utter none of your blasphemies to me.
Poor Louis Blanc! 746 The newspapers make me melancholy -- but shame upon me that I say [poor.] The day will come when there will be a temple of white marble where sweet incense and anthems shall rise to the memory of every man and woman who has had a deep [ahnung,] a presentiment, a yearning, or a clear vision of the time when this miserable reign of Mammon shall end -- when men shall be no longer "like the fishes of the sea" 747 society no more like a face one half of which -- the side of profession, of lip-faith -- is fair and god-like, the other half -- the side of deeds and institutions -- with a hard old wrinkled skin puckered into the sneer of a Mephistopheles. I worship the man who has written as the climax of his appeal against society, "L'inégalité des talents doit aboutir non 'e0 l'inégalité des retributions, mais 'e0 l'inégalité des devoirs." 748 You will wonder what has wrought me up into this fury -- it is the loathsome fawning, the transparent hypocrisy, the systematic giving as little as possible for as much as possible that one meets with here at every turn. I feel that society is training men and women for hell.
You are going to Teignmouth, I hope? do not give up that charming plan, I beg. The sun is beginning to shine and I go to my bath. Seen anything of Emerson? Love to all
Your
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Extract published: Cross, I, 189-190.
Marina | St. Leonard's | June 8th.
Dear Quartett of Friends --
I may still say so, though I fear your primo basso has departed, for I suppose your basso secondo 742 will have arrived before my letter. It has been quite enough of joy to me to think of you receiving the pleasures of your fourth in that delightful way and of Mrs. Hennell looking on. Mr. Hennell's toothache made me groan a deep groan partly of contrition and partly of sympathy -- but the letter had a galvanic effect on my muscles and lungs -- I laughed a real laugh and my lungs did crow like Chanticleer 743 so as to startle Father with the unwonted sound. Tell Mr. Hennell he could not have procured me a greater luxury, and I have felt younger ever since -- indeed I think the convulsion has checked the progress of some wrinkles that have begun to form of late.
I have not half time to write what I wish -- I want to send some consolation to my poor Professor, 744 for I have some that will be right welcome to him -- but alas! our life here is [slow] not in the sense of the time seeming too long, but in the fact of very trivial doings being spread over a large space, so that I can say little more at the end of every day than "the evening and the morning were the eighth or ninth day." 745
Father is no better at all, indeed I think his cough is more trouble-some than when we came. This is dispiriting for him and so he is doubly dragged backwards. The weather is so cruelly cold, that one can expect no good influence from the sea-breezes.
Dear Cara, your husband desired me to send you the newspaper paragraph about George Sand, and I obey -- but if you disapprove, utter none of your blasphemies to me.
Poor Louis Blanc! 746 The newspapers make me melancholy -- but shame upon me that I say [poor.] The day will come when there will be a temple of white marble where sweet incense and anthems shall rise to the memory of every man and woman who has had a deep [ahnung,] a presentiment, a yearning, or a clear vision of the time when this miserable reign of Mammon shall end -- when men shall be no longer "like the fishes of the sea" 747 society no more like a face one half of which -- the side of profession, of lip-faith -- is fair and god-like, the other half -- the side of deeds and institutions -- with a hard old wrinkled skin puckered into the sneer of a Mephistopheles. I worship the man who has written as the climax of his appeal against society, "L'inégalité des talents doit aboutir non 'e0 l'inégalité des retributions, mais 'e0 l'inégalité des devoirs." 748 You will wonder what has wrought me up into this fury -- it is the loathsome fawning, the transparent hypocrisy, the systematic giving as little as possible for as much as possible that one meets with here at every turn. I feel that society is training men and women for hell.
You are going to Teignmouth, I hope? do not give up that charming plan, I beg. The sun is beginning to shine and I go to my bath. Seen anything of Emerson? Love to all
Your
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to the Brays and Hennells, St. Leonard's, 8 June [1848], 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/94145