Anna Beddoes to Davies Giddy, December 1808
Sunday night [1]
I have been silent for a long, too long a time, but you know how I have been employed and cannot blame me [2] – the cause is now in some measure happily removed, and I have time to follow my inclination to make you a sharer in what has passed, – but Dr B has written himself and I fancy has given a pretty accurate account of his sufferings and feelings [3] – your kind proposal of coming from so great a distance, was you may be sure felt by both of us, as it ought to be – Dr Craufuird, [4] Mr King, & Baynton [5] have been very kind and attentive to the poor Dr who will by degrees return to the state of health from whence he fell so rapidly. In illness Dr B appears to advantage in many respects, his mind by being weakened dwells more upon individual than general objects, of course he expresses much more feeling, and has less appearance of selfishness than when his mind is occupied upon larger objects – I have written a dissertation you must not be angry with me —
Mrs G. is very fortunate in all the consequences of matrimony hitherto, and I hope she will proceed as happily till the completion of your wishes — I have no doubt but you now consider me in the light of an old and trusty Friend if so I may take the privilege of one, and ask questions that must be answered candidly, and ask favours with the certainty of their being refused if not perfectly approved of, otherwise what I am going to propose should never pass my lips — your child perhaps is already provided with Godmothers if not, and you think me a fit person it would give me great pleasure to be thus related to her – but do not hesitate to say no if you have the slightest reason for the contrary — most probably Mrs G’s relations are the persons who would be chosen upon this occasion. ———— Mr King has received your letter today, and desires me to tell you that every thing has been put to rights but he will I fancy write to you himself and explain matters at large — I hear that you enter into every thing with ardour, this is as it should be, what a happy, I might say what a perfect <creature> being you would have been if you had married early in life — Dr B accuses me of never writing to you — most people call me fickle, are you among the number — My feelings, and understanding are sometimes are so mussled that I cannot express myself, indeed I have nothing left to express but stupor — better not torment my absent friends with this, it is quite enough that my present ones can bear with me. —
I like extremely to sit down to write to you, yet Heavens knows why, for I am conscious that amongst the variety of your admirers and friends I am but a small speck, but the Kite soars aloft, and sees from afar the [the letter ends here]
Endorsement: Anna / 1808 / Decr
Notes
[1] Sundays in December were 4th, 11th , 18th and 25th. Thomas Beddoes died on 24 December; this letter precedes his death by some time, so must have been written on the 4th or 11th.
[2] She had been tending to her sick husband.
[3] Beddoes had written, in a letter endorsed by Giddy as of 18 December, ‘Is not it very singular my complaints have terminated in the most complete indigestion conceivable no substance whatever undergoes any natural change in the stomach, fibres of meat shall lie thickly & come up entire milk only coagulated – stomach in the strangest languid state a few days ago we were a good deal puzzled & alarmed as the liver gave out scarcely visible bile did that want mercury? However we are now very tranquil, feeling sure that all depends upon the weakness of the digestive organ and I have got much better, & weaker these two or three days & nights’ (Cornish Archives DG 43.66).
[4] Walter Kennedy Craufuird (d. 1817), a Scottish-trained Bristol-based doctor who was Beddoes’s friend. He was present when Beddoes died on 24 December.
[5] Thomas Baynton (1761–1820), a Bristol surgeon.