December 24, 2007

George Eliot fogged in throat and head

In keeping with my curiosity for all things literary and meteorological here is George Eliot or Pollian as she signs the letter beleaguered by fog  on 13 November 1852..

“O this hideous fog!  Let me grumble for I have had headache the last three days and there seems little prospect of anything else in such an atmosphere. I am ready to vow that I will not live in the Strand again after Christmas. If I were not choked by the fog, the time would trot pleasantly withal, but of what use are brains and friends when one lives in a light such as might be got in the chimney?…”

 From a letter to The Brays. (Selections from George Eliot’s Letters edited by Gordon S  Haight published by Yale Univ Press).

Meteorological-chondria perhaps. I had no idea fog could give a headache and choke you. All Dickensian induced romance on fog is henceforth abruptly dumped. Though Pollian might these days have benefitted from the lack of light according to the new thinking on the dangers of light pollution.