Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Friday and Monday, 22 and 25 March 1811.

Friday Eveng  22nd

   I have just put a hurried, and I fear unsatisfactory answer to our dear Brothers letter, into your Messenger’s hand. I have confessed in it what alas! I cannot deny, that I have been silenced of late not merely by the languor of the body, but the sadness of the heart.  That I have suffered a species of distress, which I think seldom communicative and from which I would gladly withold fm the too ready sympathies of my dearest Anna.  You inquire if any unusual violence has been offered to my feelings if any audio shock has occurred in the vicissitudes of my busy anxious life – and I am ready to put the same question, but the investigation fails of success and I am forced to attribute my depression to the continuity of mental effort, rather than to any one instance more singular or more severe.  In the parent state of my nervous system, the history of daily cares, and hourly vexations wd be a very disadvantageous employment.  Be satisfied that no treacherous concealment endangers your future peace and that I have been silenced alike from selfish and generous considerations, convinced that the more dangerous excesses of our Sensibility are indulged by that specious eloquence with which we sometimes deplore them.  When I feel myself less inclined to ye enthusiasm of sadness I may venture perhaps to detail the various exercises by which I have been so unusually subdued –

Monday Eveng –

   This letter was intended for Friday’s post, but I was called from it to attend on dear little John, whose breathing somewhat alarmed Anne, and without inspiring me with any specific dread, especially of Croop, unfitted me for writing – there was I bless God no actual ground of alarm as the event has fully proved, a heavy cold & some derangement of the Stomach produced that sudden & formidable exhibition of illness wh is peculiar to children of his class. He is pretty well to day.  Carey is so recovered now, that I have thought him in no want of Bratton air besides wh he promised to make a most unamiable guest.  The latter objection would I fear be in full force against my dear little Sam but the fever has so wasted him & his pale face & languid eyes so frequently awaken my regret, that I confess myself very solicitous that he should enjoy such an advantage  –

   Lucy begs her love she is certainly much better and is wanting you here.  Ryland is quite tolerably well. Salter and Mason in usual health.  The most interesting personage to me is also looking as they term it in a perfect state.  I think nevertheless he has suffered much for me.  My spirits were greatly supported at the thought of his return from Birmingham when, (wh my too ardent anticipations overlooked) there was still something in the burthens of every day, to be endured, beyond the sympathies of created strength.  I yielded to the pressure with the faithless despondency of those who forget!  “The Lord the Creator of all the ends of the Earth, fainteth not neither is weary.”  My religious exercises indeed, if such an appellation can belong to such an experience, have been gloomy & tumultuous so that it was not merely midnight with my Soul, but stormy darkness.  But I am losing sight of my previous determination by entering on a Subject where alas I have still great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart. 

   I shall hope for [a] line or rather for a letter in immediate answer to this.  I am interrupted again but I will not delay this to add more than that I am in

                     very tender I trust too indisputable bonds

                                 Yours most faithfully,

                                             Maria Grace Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 310-11 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(8.), Angus Library. Address: Salisbury March 25th 1811 | Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | near Westbury | Wilts. Postmark: Salisbury, 25 March 1811.