ailments


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 23 June [1819]

Mr. Daniel Wilson spent a day with us last week and was delightful. Our present guests are Mr. Inglis and the 4 elder Thorntons. Our comfort in their company is lessened by poor Isabella’s being seized with the Measles.* She has already been in bed two days, and very ill; but things look more favourably to day. The night was very bad.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, November 30 1812

My Sister Martha who joins the others [in] [tear]dest respects, is laid up with a severe cold and hoarseness – So you see you took us at our best moment.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, December 1812

I can no longer resist the inclination I have to know how you go on, how the Waters agree with you, and whether you have escaped colds so as to be able to follow them up? I assure you I am not the only person here who has said every day ‘I wonder how Lady Olivia is’! You have been so much the burden of the Song, that I overheard the little brat the other day singing in a plaintive Note to her doll –


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, January 7 1813

When you indulge me with a letter there is one subject you always neglect to say a word about, – I mean your health. I beg you not to overlook it next time, for tho I agree with the Apostle that it is of more importance that ' your soul should [deletion] prosper and be in health ';* yet health of body is so valuable a possession not only for personal comfort but is such an instrument for doing good, & such a material for active exertion that it is to be reckoned among our valuable possessions and tho I bless God you are not unhealthy, yet there is a delicacy about you which requires care, especially in the article of catching cold.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, March 18 1813

A young divine, a great friend of mine the Revd.. Henry Leeves , being lately brought to a very serious sense of religion has just entered the Church, and having preached only 4 Sermons of truly serious piety caught cold and is supposed to be consumptive – The Physicians immediately sent him abroad He is now at Gibraltar, is going to Malta, Sicily &c – He has letters to Lord W. Bentinck, should he chance to see him, but it just occurs to me that you would perhaps have the goodness to name him to Lady Wm.. – He is a very elegant young Man modest, well manner'd, &c –


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, August 1814

Such a nice, long and truly interesting letter as you sent me had a claim to earlier notice. But even now I must rather be contented to thank you for it than to answer it. I have had a severe attack of illness. To others it would have been but a cold, to me it has been a bad-ish fever. I am so far on the recovery as to sit up. But I am so thankful to quit my bed that I am satisfied to keep my room which I however hope to leave in a few days


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, August 1814

If I can get rid of my cough P. and I are engaged to go to our dear Dean of Wells about the 29th., being there we must also acquit ourselves of a long promise to stay a little with the Bishop. there will be a little difference in these Visits!! Mr. Way I trust will not be likely to come just at that time as it is the only time I shall be from home. Indeed the Dean I believe will be of the Jew party at Bristol .


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, January 16 1815

I long to know how your health /is/ and whether you have gained strength by living quietly at home. I have had an Ophthalmia* most suffering. If all the dispensations of God were not just and right, I should have said it came unseasonably when I had so much [tear] for my eyes. I bless God they are [tear] to me, after being consigned for some time to darkness and idleness.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 23 April [1816]

We have lately had a visit from Mr. Wm. Parnell ,* a most sensible and I believe pious Man ; he seems to have taken a deep interests in the improvement of Ireland, and to be thoroughly acquainted with the existing state of things. I am expecting him again before he returns. He speaks most highly, that is more justly, of our friend Daly. I hope e’re this you have made your visit to Dublin and the Environs. I want you much to see my very interesting friends in that district. Pray my kindest remembrances to Mr. Dunn when you encounter him either by pen or person. My poor Sister Sarah we fear is far gone in a dropsy! the others poor invalids. I think I am rather the best of a bad bunch. Love to dear Millicent. I commend you to God and the word of his grace the Apostolic benediction. *


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 27 August [1817]

I was much grieved to hear that dear Miss Sparrow had had an Attack. I cannot forbear of asking you (because I promised I would do so) whether you have heard of a Mr. Stewart a Scotch Clergyman who is said to have done wonders in consumption cases,* and to whom patients are flocking from all quarters. I am told he quite restored a daughter of the late Duke of Northumberland* who was supposed to be past cure. His Mode of treatment is quite new, and as it should seem, quite rash. Instead of starving he feeds his patients, allows them meat and all nourishing things. The reason he assigns for this is, that whatever increase of fever it promotes, is counterbalanced by food giving strength to resist the fever. Pray remember that I should be the last person to advise your going to Scotland to consult this Clerical Empyric, but a promise was extorted from me by some Scotch Women of fashion, that I woud mention it. Every one feels so much for you that if prayers and cordial good wishes could restore your dear invalid, his sufferings would be removed. But I am well aware that there is an Almighty, All merciful Being, who loves him better than any friends, or even than his fond Mother and who never willingly afflicts his children, but who sometimes manifests more love in afflicting them than in a dispensation which to our short sighted views woud seem more grievous. He can make sickness a blessing both to the sufferer and to his friends.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 2 Nov 1827

Nothing should have caused me to /delay/ thanking you for your very interesting and kind letter but a painful disorder in my eyes, not the sight but lids. For these 8 Weeks I have not read as many pages, and I ought not to write. When my eyes are better I hope to say more, and express my /interest in/ all your concerns, as nothing that relates to you can be indifferent to me.


To Lady Olivia Sparrow from Mary Roberts on behalf of Hannah More, 01 May [1830]

When your Ladyships letter arrived this dear & revered friend was confined to her bed by a pretty severe attack upon her Chest, which detained her there nearly Six Weeks; but she is now restored to nearly her usual strength, & has entirely left her chamber , she is perfectly reconciled to her change of Residence* indeed that was the case very soon after the agitating event took place, & she enjoys the sight of the beautiful Rocks & Woods* from her Window, at least as fully as she did the rural scenery of Barley Wood. She enters enough into public concerns to lament the Religious apathy on the one hand, & the Religious differences on the other, which mark these portentous times, but above all, is her mind distracted & grieved at the Spreading & Systematic desecration of the [tear]th so deplorable in a country which calls [tear]. She was able also to afford her full tribut[e of] [tear] praise to the righteous & truly patriotic courage which abolished Sutticism:* Oh would to God she might yet before her departure have to rejoice also over the abolition of the AntiXtian flagitious System of Colonial Slavery or at least could have the comfort of seeing every Bishop in this land maintaining a public & stedfast opposition to this violation of every Xtian precept, in his legislative capacity – Dear Mrs. H More desires me to convey her most affectionate regards & acknowledgements, & with my Sister’s cordial respects I have the honour to remain with much esteem