Mary Steele [Dunscombe], Broughton, to her niece, Mary Steele Tomkins, London, October 1808.

My Dear Mary

   Your pleasing Letter from Abingdon is not thrown aside & forgotten though I have thank’d you for it when I saw you – were I to write to you as often as I think of you I should be a perpetual interruption of all your pursuits – pursuits in the account of which much interest & gratify me – I seem by sympathy to enjoy your pleasure whilst acquiring knowledge & extending the bounds of mental enjoyments.  I find you have lately been visiting the Stars.  I do not expect to hear you have discovered any of their Inhabitants – but I doubt not but you have felt an expansion of Mind a sublime delight mingled with that astonishment which the discoveries of Philosophy on those Subjects cannot fail to produce.  Nor does My Dear Girl I hope stop here but

                   “Soars in thought

Beyond them all to Worlds of brighter Glory

Which God enthroned in Majesty supreme

Smiles happiness unspeakable around”

Amidst other Analogies between the Works of Nature & Revelation there is this remarkable one that they both unite in the highest degree Simplicity & Sublimity – the Daisy blooms & delights the Infant, but the profound Naturalist cannot explain the process of its production – the wayfaring Man though a fool shall not eer in the path to Heaven if he humbly & diligently endeavors to find it – but the Glories of that Heaven it has not entered into the heart of Man to conceive of.

   You are now I doubt not enjoying much pleasure in your Cousins family – a pleasure mingled with improvement – Tell my Dear Emma I am pleased to find she has begun Drawing & that she obtains (as I doubted not but she would) so much Commendation tell her too I anticipated a picture for my Parlour when it is new done which I shall view with more pleasure than I should one of Sir Joshua or of any other Painter Antient or Modern – I wish I could hear some of your Sweet Tones too, tho your former ones were sufficiently humourous to charm my Ear – Alas the poor Harpsichord I look at it often with regret but I hope I shall yet again hear it warble with plaintive sweetness

                     “And Princes sat where nettles grow”

   I was delighted to see Your Papa last night & to find that our favorite Scheme is not relinquished & that I may hope for a Ride to Birch Wood – Uncle D desires his Love & says he never sits down to the Greek Testament but he wishes he had you by him – I hope when Birch Wood is inhabited this may be the case. – but alas at present poor Uncle D is a prisoner & still under medical government but Mr T will tell you how we are &c.  I must not forget poor Betty Sheppard who I am glad to say continues to recover & is extremely grateful to all her Friends she says she has nothing to do but to be thankful & she cannot be thankful enough, both she & Nancy Reeves were pleased with your kind remembrance of them – & even poor Martha Kelsy’s pallid face brighten’d with pleasure when I told [her] you were all coming to live in this neighbourhood. – Your Papa will tell you of the death of Mr Hemming – poor Mrs H is indeed a singular fate – Happy is it that she possesses that Piety which is the only support under such severe Trials – poor Miss Black was rather worse the last account I had they were to return home yesterday but I suppose the weather prevented.

   My kindest Love to Mamma Aunt Emma Anne & Jane.  I am glad to find Aunt is better tell her Mr & Mrs Harries are both better at present but Mr H has a wound now in his other heel – I hope I shall hear soon from Mamma & whenever My Dr Mary you have leisure & inclination to write---it will give much pleasure to your affectionate Aunt

                                                                                 M D

Our kind regards to Miss Tomkins’s

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 375-76 (annotated version); Steele Collection, STE 5/13/vii, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  No postmark. Address: Miss Mary Steele Tomkins, with date ‘Oct.r 1808’ written to the side.

References above include Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), the most famous portrait painter in England during the eighteenth century and one of the founders of the Royal Academy in London; a line from the poem, ‘Rosline Castle’, found in Charles Snart’s A Selection of Poems, 2 vols (London, 1808), vol. 1, p. 140; and Mary Wakeford Harries [Harris] (1760-1824), the daughter of Mary Steele Wakeford and the cousin of Mary Steele and her two half-sisters. She married James Lloyd Harries of Andover on 24 February 1789. Elizabeth Coltman met her on a visit to Mary Steele at Broughton c. 1790, and dedicated a poem to her, ‘To Mrs. Harries, on receiving a Beautiful Vase for Flowers ornamented with a Picture of Abra’, which can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 4, p. 231.