Eliza Gould, the Gurneys, Walworth, to Benjamin Flower, Newgate, undated and incomplete [Sunday, 22 September 1799].

                                                                     Sunday one o clock

My dear Benjamin

   I hope I have hobbled down stairs in time to confirm the morning report of my affectionate friend and truly indefatigable nurse Miss Gurney and to tell you myself that I really am much better and tho still feverish & weak that I gain strength daily to a degree that I could not have expected.

   Mr Saumerez has just call’d & continues to give a favorable account of me—from the present indications of returning health & strength he thinks I might with safety go out in a coach the first fine day—and venture under perm­iss­ion of the weather to journey into Devonshire next week (travelling by easy stages).

   I shall pay my first visit to the friend I love the best—tell him so—you know where he lives.

   I had written thus far when Mrs Bird came—it is now I believe half past six & beginning to be uneasy lest from being disappointed of your messenger you might feel anxious to hear from me.   I had desired the servant to endeavour to find a person to carry a note this even’g—I should I believe have written a long letter but was prevented by a friend calling to sit with me from writing more than a page.  I assure you that my head is at present so weak as to prevent me from fixing my eyes long on anything—or from putting two Ideas together—tho I am surprizingly better.

   Ah! my friend—my very dear friend I cannot now express to you the various emotions of mind I have experienced during my illness.  I bless God for the gift the rich treasure he has given me in you   may it please Him to continue to make us blessings to each other & grant us to enjoy that peace which the world can neither give or deprive us of—what an interesting contrast has your affectionate conduct exhibited to that which on a similar occasion (you know what I allude to) had almost broken my heart   I asked for sympathy—I expected it, but the unfeeling wretch—I won’t waste my time on the subject—the bitterness of the past will I trust enhance the happiness of the future—& our cup will I hope derive additional sweetness from what perhaps we have considered some of the most afflictive events of our life  afflictive indeed—yet mercy chastend  mercy has heal’d—for the ten last years of my life I have been indeed sowing in tears surmounting of one difficulty but to encounter another—& never yet have been enabled to reflect on the past with so fair a prospect of happiness as at present.  Yet I now will hope for happiness the most refined—we will journey together in that most delightful path which leads to a blissful immortality our prayers have mingled together & ascended to the throne of mercy.

   Now let us unite in praise in grateful praise for restoring blessings—God has heard our prayers & answer’d—the length of this letter will convince you how much better I am—tho I must hasten to a close—I feel fatigued—not having made so great an effort since my confinement—were you not whimsical respecting the wafer?  I had no Idea of alarming you as the note was in my own hand writing—it put me in mind (but I mean no reflection on you my Ben) of some of the whimsicalities of Doct Johnson. Miss Gurney tells me that I am writing more than even you or she allows.  She thanks you for your attention & so do I & feel it too but we must with your permission drink our Noyeau by proxy.  I am not allow’d to drink wine—we are I find become the talk of Town.  I hear from all quarters that Homer (from some) & from others Mr Flower is about to provide himself with a Helpmate.  I have many jocular remarks to tell you of but pray tell your friends that our acquaintance was of ancient date or they will think it originated from my sending an advertisement to the Cambridge Intelligencer which you suppress’d, & replied to yourself.  Mr B[annister] Flight told Mr Gurney that we became intimately acquainted on a short knowledge of each other—I should be wary to suffer such an Idea . . .

Text: Flower Correspondence, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. For an annotated edition of this letter and the complete correspondence of Eliza Gould and Benjamin Flower, see Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystywth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 121-24.