Mary Steele [Dunscombe], [Broughton,] to Anne Steele Tomkins, [Abingdon], undated (c. August 1810).

My Dear Sister

   It is long very long since I addressed you & many kind Letters am ^I^ in your debt – ^but I^ am unable to discharge my obligations in this respect as well as others but I cannot content myself without sending a line.  Mr T will give you but a poor account of me – I feel like a poor drowning Wretch who the moment his head rises above water a fresh billow rolls over him & he sinks again – if I am better for a day I dont some little agitation or other overcomes me & I become as ^bad as^ ever – I want more Strength more fortitude – but the infinitely wise & good Being who ordereth all things according to the Counsels of his wisdom knows what situation is most solitary for us &

Tis but to wait with patience

A few sad hours a few more painful steps

And Lifes fatiguing pilgrimage is o’er,

Oh could I with unshaken hope declare

Then shall my nobler powers awake to Life

To Life & Joy in &c &c

Mr T will tell you of Mr Ds difficulties &c – for myself the mere acquisition or demonstration of wealth would little effect me but circumstances connected with it render it painful – I fear Mr D will wear himself out – it has already affected his health nor will ^it^ I fear produce any favorable change in any respect yet his mind ^is^ in a religious point ^of view^ in a most enviable state & while he has pain’d me about triffles he has conversed with a calmness & devotion of Spirit that has delighted & astonished me. – I did not intend this when I began but I say it to you only – I meant when I began only to express my ardent wishes that your change of Abode may be accompanied with every blessing – Oh may we meet in Peace & Comfort!  I expect Miss Coltman about the time of your removal – with this I send a couple of little Books for Anne & Jane if you should approve of them if not put them by – I wish I had somewhat to send my Dear Emma but my love is not the less for my poverty and 

If Puss were conscious of the honors

Which Painting has bestowed conferrd upon her

She too would scratch her thanks, & send

A message to her artist Friend

But Puss can neither write nor spell

Nor I translate her language well.

So silent both we must remain

Till we shall see her here our friend again.

   My Love to my Sister M with thanks for her kind Letter & still kinder visit – She will I hope excuse my not having answer’d the former as she knows the state I am in – Once more with Love to you all. I remain my Dr Sister

                                 Faithfully Yours

                                                         M D

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 378-79 (annotated version); STE 5/11/viii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  No postage page.  This letter should be read in conjunction with the following two letters: Maria Grace Saffery to Anne Whitaker, 28 September 1810; and Jane Attwater Blatch to Mary Steele Dunscombe, 28 November 1810.  

Anne Steele Tomkins (1769-1859) and her family had previously lived in Abingdon, Wales, and Bath, but were preparing at this time to move once again, this time to Bevis Hill, near Southampton. They would live in three homes during their stay at Southampton, before eventually returning to Broughton after the death of Mary Steele in 1813. It appears they visited Steele before leaving Bath, for her poem, "Written in a blank leaf of the “Associate Minstrels,” presented to my Niece, M. S. Tomkins, 1810," implies such a visit. Mary Steele Tomkins (1793-1861) was the eldest daughter of Anne Steele Tomkins and Mary Steele’s namesake and favorite niece, as their correspondence reveals. That poem was followed in Mary Steele's manuscript volume of poems by "To Miss Coltman, on her leaving Broughton, 1810," a poem that commemorated Coltman's visit to Broughton mentioned in the above letter (she apparently arrived in September and left for Leicester in November 1810). Mary Steele Tomkins would eventually marry Charles Carpenter Bompas (1791-1844); she played a role in securing portions of the Steele Collection before passing the manuscripts and printed materials on to her daughter, Selina Bompas (1830-1921). The Associate Minstrels (London: T. Conder, 1810) was a volume of poems written primarily by Josiah Conder (1789-1855), Jane Taylor (1783-1824), and Ann Taylor (1782-1866). Conder would serve many years as editor of The Eclectic Review; the Taylors were the daughters of Isaac Taylor (1759-1829), engraver and Independent minister at Colchester and Ongar. Ann Taylor became known to the Whitakers of Bratton; for her letter to Anne Whitaker, dated 17 June 1812, click here. 

Lines beginning "Tis but to wait with patience" are from Anne Steele’s poem, "The Pilgrim," in Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional (1780), vol. 2, p. 58. Reference at the end is to Steele's sister, Martha Steele, who lived with her sister, Anne Tomkins. The letters that passed between Mary Steele and Anne Steele Tomkins, Martha Steele, and Mary Steele Tomkins, can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 3; Mary Steele Tomkin's sole surviving poem (composed when she was 13), "The Noises of Bath," can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 4, pp. 235-37.