Eliza Gould at Wellington to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, Sunday, 20 Oct­ober 1799.

                                             Wellington Sunday Octr 20 1799

My dear Benjamin

   You are prepared to receive a short letter by this post from the information contained in my last.  Holman[1] has blistered me in the strict sense of the word—& benefited me into the bargain.  I am not (from the relief I have experienced)      either disposed to quarrel with or grumble at him.  I am very sorry my dear Ben that at so advanced a period of my peregrinations that my letters in point of brevity & indeed every thing else (except the statement of my health) should so much resemble our “Walworth official Bulletin.”  I am now prevented (only) from writing a long letter by the very acute pain occasioned by the inflammation of the blister applied to my chest—which has obliged me to sit in a bending posture the whole of yesterday & to day the smarting is excessive at this moment & my whole frame in so irritable a state that I fear I shall not be able even to get thro this very short sheet of paper—therefore I will inform you my Benjn in as few words as possible of the true state of my health.    

   From the plan which Mr Holman has pursued I have already experienced the most beneficial effects & my complaints so far removed that the only inconvenience I now feel is debility.  I breathe now with the most perfect ease & but very seldom feel any return of that soreness on my lungs which used so frequently to attack me—my appetite is tolerably good—better & better every day—I take medicine every eight hours—can you read this scrawl   I will not apologize—indeed I have only one apology to offer & this has been already stated.

   I fear I am too often tempted to regret with a degree of impatience which I cannot justify—that we are not only seperated by the distance of so many miles but that conversation by letter at least on my side is also out of my power to enjoy—much as I wish for your opinion & advice on many subjects I am for the present entirely prevented from making a remark or asking you a question.  I have often to check those feelings which indulged too much would lead me to repine—my mind is as it were imprisoned—my heart is full—well I will patiently hope tho I cannot fail anxiously to anticipate that in a few days more I shall be able to impart to you my sentiments & my feelings.  I will my dearest friend soon return to you & if my health will allow me subtract my weeks visit at Wellington from the month I purposed staying at Dodbrook.   I now know not what pain is except what is produced by my blister—weak I was it is true but the weather proves fine & the inflammation subsides—intend taking an airing on Horseback.  I at present intend to go to Exeter on Tuesday or Wednesday at the furthest & from thence proceed to Dodbrook direct to me there—write me fully & particularly of yourself—& believe my dearest Benjamin

                                             your affectionate Eliza

I have read too that excellent publication of Mr Fellowes’s—& never did I peruse a Book with more satisfaction & delight.  I mark’d some passages with a pencil but the whole is so completely stored with fine remarks & the truth arrayed throughout in so beautiful a dress—that if I had continued to write every thing which interested me I should have filld every page with his lines.

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. 158-59. James Holman of Wellington was Eliza’s doctor and previous acquaintance.