Anna Beddoes and Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 6 May 1802
[Beddoes writes a postscript to Anna Beddoes’s letter inviting Giddy to come to Clifton again, to ameliorate his gloomy frame of mind – she will laugh him out of it – and so that Beddoes might treat him. She commends him for his dutiful care of his sister and mother but suggests he still might find time to leave Cornwall and come to Clifton. She mentions Miss Thompson, who has determined to turn her back on her ‘weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (caused by her parents’ unsympathetic treatment of her and by unhappy romantic relationships)]
You must probably either have some pulmonary affection from the cold weather or indigestion. In one case you know digitalis will answer – in the second red sulfate of iron –
Shd my Essays ever see a 2nd edition I shall suppress much of the two first – but I do not see why it should be the thought a hardship for one generation to take care of another – I do not consider anything like ‘devotion’ to be necessary – I think it wd be only change of amusement – And in truth there are parents enough who give time enough to their children – only they do not go to work the best way for their <children’s> pleasure –
MS: Cornish Archives DG 89 (1)