Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner: letter of 23rd March 1811
Transcription of the original held in the Wren Library, Trinity College Cambridge and given here by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.
March 23d 1811
Your letters are still missent to Bantry, how provoking!
My dear Sir
Since I recd. your last letter I had not one spare half hour to write you a line. My Mother has been very ill, but is now thank God better, though in a very weak state. Her illness deprived me of a leisure hour even at night, & indeed my mind was so disturbed that had I some time I should have been badly able to write. You will now, I hope, excuse my apparent neglect. My feelings were never more felt to sympathize in the domestic sorrows of my friends. In yours I feel deeply interested & wished to have been able to answer your letter while the tears it brought forth were yet in my eyes. I heartily regret that so fond a parent should suffer the loss of his child, but I own that I think more of Mrs. Turner’s suffering in her present situation than of yours. Your innocent little babe is happy in a better world. May those that remain live long to make you both happy here. Heaven grant you & yours the best blessings this world affords. May I beg you will let me know as soon as possible how Mrs. Turner is? I never wished more to get a line from you. I am particularly anxious to hear that she is better. My dear Sir, I take it as the strongest mark of your regard that you mention your family to me. It satisfies my mind that you think me as much interested in all that concerns you as I really am, & much, very much as I have to thank you for, I do not for any mark of your friendship thank you so much as for your last letter. In this way it gratified me highly, though it pained me to think you had suffered any loss so afflicting to good feelings as that of your little infant. I am pleased to think that it was any relief to your mind to open your thoughts to me. I wish I could give you any pleasure by my letters. I have not vanity enough to think that I have the power of affording you much amusement. All the merit I can justly claim is feeling grateful for your kind attention to me & having for you sincere regard. But living in the extreme of retirement, remote from society, from books, from all that cultivates the mind, my time mostly occupied with domestic cares, what can I have for such a mind as yours? Surely very little. I feel that it must be so. Whenever I can find any thing in the least degree likely to interest I shall not fail to write, as you wish for my letters, but I sometimes think what can I have in me to interest you. You certainly think better of me than I deserve & remember that if I ever I am so happy as to see you, you will be disappointed, but whither am I wandering, I have got near the end of my sheet without thanking you for the beautiful engraving of Jungermannia pusilla. Do you not think it admirable? I should be greatly delighted to see all the British species so finely represented, & think it a great pity they could not all be done, though there are probably very good reasons why they should not. I hope you will soon get a large parcel of Lichens that I sent Mr. Mackay for you, & that you will like the drawings particularly Fucus loreus which I ought to have sent you long ago, but though I often think of you & what I ought to do, I have not been this winter able either to write to you or draw for you as I wished. I am ever hoping for more time to spare. The melancholy state of health of those most near & dear to me, depress my spirits & occupy my time. I now feel relieved summer is coming & will bring long days & I trust better health. I am highly pleased that my thoughts of the arrangement of Fuci at all approach yours. I hardly hoped they would & felt afraid & ashamed to send you my opinion of which I had myself so little value for, or confidence in, but I felt that you would treat my want of knowledge kindly & that if I by chance saw any thing as you did it would perhaps strengthen your opinion that a person without prejudice on the subject, & merely from observation had fallen into the same way of thinking. I do not forget shells. I have many for you & am collecting still. They shall soon be sent you. Pray write soon to tell me how Mrs. T. is, & believe me with every kind wish for you & her, sincerely yours E. Hutchins.