Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner: letter of 8th 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.
My dear Sir,
I cannot tell you how delighted I was to get a letter from you or how eagerly I tore it open, anxious to see if you & all your family are well. I had been very uneasy about you all, perhaps the extreme depression of my spirits and the ill health of my own family increased my fears beyond what they would have been at an other time, but at all times I feel so interested that I fear the worst when I am much time passes without my hearing from you. Anxious as I must ever feel, I am far from being dissatisfied at your silence when I consider how much you have to occupy your time. I feel most thankful for the long & kind letters you write me & should be very sorry you thought it necessary to apologize for not answering mine regularly. I hope we are now such old friends as to make apologies unnecessary. I thank you most kindly for your wish to see me, but I must not even allow the thoughts of gratifying myself so highly enter my mind. My dear Mother’s health & age confines me almost entirely to the house. I can very seldom spare a few hours to ramble about. She has a severe complaint in her head & has very much lost her hearing. She can enjoy no other society than mine. Nor is she likely to get much better. Never can she be able to do without me for more than a day or two. She was at times so alarmingly ill this winter that I feel happy at having her even so much better as she is, & while she is able to move about the house & help go down stairs I am almost contented & thankful that it pleases the Almighty to spare her to me. My poor brother too, who has lost the use of his limbs, who with the feelings of a young person & a xxxxx warm temper is helpless as a child requires to have me always near to write for him & attend him in all the little matters that make him comfortable & that no person who has not nursed the sick can imagine. Thus circumstanced my dear Sir you see how impossible it is for me to think of having the pleasure of visiting you & Mrs. Turner, highly as I should enjoy it if my mind was easy & that I was not bound to home by very peculiar circumstances. I should be more delighted than I can express to see you both. I am truly glad to find Mrs. T. had health to permit her to accompany you to London, where you ^ were so well amused. My health, concerning which you ^ are always kindly interested in, is considerably better. I am quite strong & out before 7 o’Clock in the morning with the workmen. I some times think you would be amused to see me among a dozen mountaineers, some of them wild enough like goats. I envy their spirits & activity, poor & ragged as they are. I am very busy planting & gardening & making alterations outside, which I delight in. I have fill’d my paper with I know not what, nothing xxxxx entertaining I am sure. Let me again & again thank you for all your kind letter contains of information & amusement. I must trouble you to send Mr. Hooker’s Icelandic journal when you can to Dublin & thank you for it. I am very glad to hear he will so soon publish the Jungermanniae, which I have long felt anxious about, being very fond of them. I remember with great pleasure how delighted I was with the first I found in fruit. I sent Mr. Mackay a few days ago a very large parcell of Lichens which I have good hopes will interest you much. It contains many more species than I have hitherto sent you. The Opegraphæ are very puzzling. I think many of my Nos. are, I am sure, only varieties, but I grope in the dark, & can only distinguish by my own observations without descriptions to guide me. However I find this very amusing, but it makes me more troublesome to you than I should otherwise be. I sent in the parcell drawings of the Rivulariae that I did not send you before, & that one of Fucus loreus that you ought to have had long since. I hope you will them all & that they will soon reach you. When the days lengthen & that I am able to sit quietly at drawing I intend to do some more Confervæ for you. I enclose a sketch of the fruit of Fucus flagelliformis. It is surely a Rivularia, is it not? It agrees in its structure & fruit & very much in habit with this beautiful family. Vauchers Conferves d’eau douce I have not seen & can only judge of by Dillwyn’s quotations, which are very interesting & various. I have not found any more new Confervæ lately, indeed the little leisure I have had has been given to Lichens. This has been a sad winter. I have not read a book, or done any thing. I must only hope for easier days & nights & bear up as well as I can. I have been so frequently interrupted in writing this letter, that I began to think it would never be finished. I have not half answered yours, but must conclude being called to see a friend who has just arrived. She must wait until I beg you & Mrs. T. to accept the kind wishes of my friends & myself for your health & happiness –
Yours ever truly
E Hutchins
Ballylickey
March 8th 1811