GE to The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton, Shottermill, 25 July 1871
Title
GE to The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton, Shottermill, 25 July 1871
Title
GE to The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton, Shottermill, 25 July 1871
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lyt
Date(s)
- 1871-07-25
Place
Shottermill
Letter Content
GE to The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton, Shottermill, 25 July 1871
Text: Cross, III, 138-139.
This morning your husband's letter 338 came to us, but if I did not know that it would be nearly a week before any words of mine could reach you, I should abstain from writing just yet, feeling that in the first days of sorrowing it is better to keep silence. For a long while after a great bereavement our only companionship is with the lost one. Yet I hope it will not be without good to you to have signs of love from your friends, and to be reminded that you have a home in their affections, which is made larger for you by your trouble. For weeks my thought has been continually going out to you, and the absence of news has made me so fearful that I have mourned beforehand. I have been feeling that probably you were undergoing the bitterest grief you had ever known. But under the heart-stroke, is there anything better than to grieve? -- Strength will come back for the duty and the fellowship which gradually bring new contentments, but at first there is no joy to be desired that would displace sorrow.
What is better than to love and live with the loved? -- But that must sometimes bring us to live with the dead; and this too turns at last into a very tranquil and sweet tie, safe from change and injury.
You see, I make myself a warrant out of my regard for you, to write as if we had long been near each other. And I cannot help wishing that we were physically nearer -- that you were not on the other side of Europe. We shall trust in Mr Lytton's kindness to let us hear of you by-and-by. But you must never write except to satisfy your own longing. May all true help surround you, dear Mrs Lytton, and whenever you can think of me, believe in me as yours with sincere affection.
Text: Cross, III, 138-139.
This morning your husband's letter 338 came to us, but if I did not know that it would be nearly a week before any words of mine could reach you, I should abstain from writing just yet, feeling that in the first days of sorrowing it is better to keep silence. For a long while after a great bereavement our only companionship is with the lost one. Yet I hope it will not be without good to you to have signs of love from your friends, and to be reminded that you have a home in their affections, which is made larger for you by your trouble. For weeks my thought has been continually going out to you, and the absence of news has made me so fearful that I have mourned beforehand. I have been feeling that probably you were undergoing the bitterest grief you had ever known. But under the heart-stroke, is there anything better than to grieve? -- Strength will come back for the duty and the fellowship which gradually bring new contentments, but at first there is no joy to be desired that would displace sorrow.
What is better than to love and live with the loved? -- But that must sometimes bring us to live with the dead; and this too turns at last into a very tranquil and sweet tie, safe from change and injury.
You see, I make myself a warrant out of my regard for you, to write as if we had long been near each other. And I cannot help wishing that we were physically nearer -- that you were not on the other side of Europe. We shall trust in Mr Lytton's kindness to let us hear of you by-and-by. But you must never write except to satisfy your own longing. May all true help surround you, dear Mrs Lytton, and whenever you can think of me, believe in me as yours with sincere affection.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to The Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton, Shottermill, 25 July 1871, 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/94159