Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Monday, 26 January [1818].

Monday Morning,  Jany 26th downstairs

My dear Anne,       

   I “keep on” getting better the pain indeed is not only abated, but withdrawn; and I am left to wonder much at the case of my head, but more at the hardness of my heart.  Alas! I am sadly a stranger to the tender and eloquent devotion which inspired the Son of Jesse, when he acknowledged the Mercy that “forgave his Sins and healed his diseases” –

   I had a few lines from my dear S–  this Morning in which I am directed to address a faithful Bulletin to you which injunction, I have I think scrupulously obeyed.  As a proof, of my Sincerity I am about to confess even a greater degree of lassitude than I had imagined would succeed on this torturing malady.  I cannot think long without fatigue and was completely tired at the close of my Solitary Sabbath. 

   When I came down stairs on Saturday I found dear little John in bitterness for the departure of his Brother.  On this impressible Child, I can scarcely ever look without thinking on Young’s Florello so soon.

“The blush of morning in his cheek turns pale

Its pearly dew-drop trembles in his Eye &c &c”

I soothed my own tender sympathy for the boy by thinking of the evanescent Sorrow of Childhood, described by Walter Scott.  But no gale that has “shaken the bush” has not yet “dried the flower.”

   Adieu, I am beging I mean my head is beginning to tire, and I can take no liberty with this sublime part of myself. I thought of writing a few lines separately to dear S–  but he may as well read “my love to him” in your letter, so please to let him see it –

   Again Adieu, my love to your children and mine to both the Spouses –

                     Your’s faithfully & kindly as ever

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

What have you done, or rather what will you do with my father and the Ravenscrofts &c? pray don’t be apprehensive about the result. I feel satisfied that my communication could not have been conscientiously avoided and let us leave the consequences to him

“Who ever rules all mortal things –

And manages our mean affairs.”

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 371 (annotated version);Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(3.), Angus Library. Address: To, | Mrs Philip Whitaker, | Bratton.  No postmark. References above include Luke 4:40;  Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, ‘Night the Eighth’, pp. 214-15; and Isaac Watts's ‘God’s Condescension in Human Affairs’, from Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II, hymn XLVI, p. 170.