Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Friday, [30 January 1824].

Salisbury Friday Night

My dear Anne,

   Your letter of kind inquiry must be answered to night or I would wait for a better moment than the present in which fatigue and depression are blending their feverish and melancholy influence. I am afraid the blue zone of the good tempered Sylph is more than tight upon my bosom, or rather I am afraid that I am weary and faint in my Mind because I forget to obey the dictates of my heavenly monitor.  There is but one antidote for the Spleen that will do for all occasions, the contemplation of Messiahs gentle character.

   But I have only a moment to specify the truth of the report wh has reached you relative to my husband, who has been confin’d with the gout in both legs.  He has borne it admirably and is I hope likely to improve in his general health by the visitation.  The rest are tolerably excepted and I really am not well an excuse perhaps for what I have so politely hinted at.

   Your Bror is much better to day and I will write again in a few days let us have a line before you go to Frome  Marianne is at your disposal.

   What can I say more, even that I am Your’s with constant and tender Recollections

                                                         Maria Grace Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 392-93 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.3.(23.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm | to be left at the | Red Lion | Warminster.   Postmark: Salisbury, 30 January 1824.