MANUSCRIPT: BPL (Higg 102). Pencil.

PUBLICATION: L (1931) 321.

Since ED had already thanked Higginson, in the preceding letter, for the sonnet, she here probably means that she has now seen it in the Century and thanks him for having written it. The last sentence means that Mrs. Jackson and she had been brought together by him. Another variant of the beginning of this letter (AC - pencil) was left among ED's papers. Though it is a fair copy, it probably was an earlier draft, discarded. It was published in L (1894) 402, and L (1931) 391, as a letter to a recipient unknown:

Dear friend-

No "Sonnet" had George Eliot. The sweet Acclamation of Death is forever bounded.

There is no Trumpet like the Tomb.

The Immortality she gave,
We borrowed at her Grave-
For just one Plaudit famishing,
The might of Human Love-

Beautiful as it is it's criminal shortness maims it.