Eliza Gould at Dodbrook to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, Monday, 11 Nov­ember 1799.

My dear Love

   I am just returned to Dodbrook in time to confirm the report made in my note of yesterday respecting my health—& to tell you again that I encrease in strength as rapidly as I can expect to do since you have written to Mr Holman.  I hope his accounts will prove satisfactory—if otherwise do not suffer yourself to be weary at any remarks he might make on the state of my health whilst I was under his care—you must hearken to me now, & I promise to make you a faithful & accurate statement & to write you forthwith a long & circumstantial letter answering those of your late letters which I have not yet had the power to notice.  I do not forget how many questions of moment I have to reply to—(you will not expect to hear from me by the next post) I will upon Wednesday.

   According to my usual custom I have first turned to the poetry of your paper—& tho I have all along discovered that when making your weekly selection—Eliza has been uppermost in your thoughts yet my dearest Love I have not read your poetry of this week without discovering—without Feeling more than on any preceeding it.  I not only see the “colour of your mind” but I hear you speak in your own Language the genuine feeling of your heart.  I am tho absent, ever with you in Idea—& quite well I do not, because I shall be untill I know you are in a more tranquil state of mind than for some time passed.   I have reason to think you have been—in truth I believe neither you nor I untill we appear to each other in propria personae—shall experience tranquility which we are so anxious to enjoy no not even in the smallest degree.  I can to a little ascertain in what state of mind I shall continue as long as I remain in Dodbrook & my next shall inform you of my plan of proceeding & the arrangements I have made in order to expedite my return to Walworth as soon as possible—this is only a hasty line lest you should be uneasy   our post goes out at four I am but just return’d in time to save the post   you will not my dear Benjamin measure the strength of my affection by the length of my letters—but why do I give you a caution so unnecessary—it is a remark out of place—for have I not already bared to you my heart without any reserve—& are you not fully convinced that I am in truth your affectionate & faithful

                                             Eliza Gould

Dodbrook   11 Novr 1799

My Father & Mother send their affectionate remembrance—mine to Miss Jennings—I shall write Miss Hawes in a day or two.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 190-91.