Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Wednesday, [24 September 1823].

Wednesday Eveng

My dear Anne,

   I am afraid my letter of Saturday was mistaken or that it has not reached you. I adverted indeed to difficulties in leaving home but I did not intend to be governed by these in a moment when your sorrows were pressing on my Sympathy.  I asked you to tell me by the first post if I could alleviate your distress – by putting myself into the circle of Mourners at Bratton Farm. Perhaps I should not have waited for this intimation.  I am distressed by the conjecture therefore let somebody write at once and tell me the “simple verity.”  I think of Alfred with anxieties – and contemplations you may estimate from your own beating heart and then alas! I think of his Mother too  your old quotation from Dr Young occurs almost perpetually –  “Bliss Sublunary bliss proud words and vain.” I am thankful however that we may turn from the melancholy Poet to Him who says, Let not your heart be troubled. “I am the resurrection & the life.”  May the pity of that infinite Friend whose tear was balm at Bethany comfort you all.  Your’s tenderly & faithfully

                     M. G. Saffery

Your little boy visits me every day hoping for living from home to not delay.  Yr reply to this beyond the next post believe in the general & particular sympathies of his whole family I have no time for detailing the expressions.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 391 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.3.(21.), Angus Library. Address: To | Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm | near Westbury | Wiltshire.   Postmark: Salisbury, 24 September 1823. References above include lines from Young’s Night Thoughts, ‘Night the First’, p. 11; John 11:25; 14:1; and to Martha of Bethany, sister to Mary and Lazarus and friend to Jesus.