Eliza Gould at Wellington to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, Tuesday, 22 October 1799.

                                                                 Wellington 22 Octr 1799

My dear Benjamin

   Because the character of my letters has hitherto been of the same description & a short or hasty line or two has in effect told you that my “strength would not allow me [to] write any more”—I almost for your sake & my own regret that I am not now at Dodbrook to give you a more convincing proof how well I am & how very little I find even the exertion of writing fatigue me.  I do not mean my dear Ben to tantalize you by meerly stating without proving the surprizing amendment in my health (for I hear you say why not pay your debts now you are able) but the truth is I have suffered you tho unwillingly to be cheated out of a long letter which I fully intended to have written this morning.

   Now to the old subject—my very consequential self—(strange metamorphosis) a forlorn & forsaken being who had resigned her title to happiness of a certain description & but a short time since had yielded so far to the influence of misanthropy or some sentiment of a kindred quality, as to guard every avenue of her heart lest the character of Feltham might have been personified in another now feels herself of importance—now feels her heart exposed to the benign sensations of sympathy friendship & affection.

   I feel myself to day quite well—to morrow I fully intend going to Exeter where I shall stay one day only & endeavour to go on in the Totness coach from thence to Dodbrook—I am much disappointed that I can hear nothing of you untill my arrival thither—but pray write to me as often as you can—you shall if but a line hear from me according to your request.

   Betsey Gurney wrote to me on Saturday leaving Bath so abruptly prevented me from complying with your request respecting the Newspaper (Clintons snuff & oyl).  Miss Jones had sent for the paper & it was waiting my return—I have written almost the whole of this scrap standing—you will not forget to present my kind love to Miss Jennings—& believe me my dearest friend your faithful

                                             Your affectionate

                                                         Eliza Gould

P.S.  [Did] you receive my [last] sent to Cambridge.

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. 165-66.