GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 30 January 1875
Title
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 30 January 1875
Title
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 30 January 1875
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby
Date(s)
- 1875-01-30
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 30 January 1875
Text: Cross, III, 253.
I should urge you to consider your early religious experience as a portion of valid knowledge, and to cherish its emotional results in relation to objects and ideas which are either substitutes or metamorphoses of the earlier. And I think we must not take every great physicist -- or other "ist" -- for an apostle, but be ready to suspect him of some crudity concerning relations that lie outside his special studies, if his exposition strands us on results that seem to stultify the most ardent, massive experience of mankind, and hem up the best part of our feelings in stagnation.
Text: Cross, III, 253.
I should urge you to consider your early religious experience as a portion of valid knowledge, and to cherish its emotional results in relation to objects and ideas which are either substitutes or metamorphoses of the earlier. And I think we must not take every great physicist -- or other "ist" -- for an apostle, but be ready to suspect him of some crudity concerning relations that lie outside his special studies, if his exposition strands us on results that seem to stultify the most ardent, massive experience of mankind, and hem up the best part of our feelings in stagnation.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to the Hon. Mrs. Henry Frederick Ponsonby, London, 30 January 1875, 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/94154