Pray impute to anything but a want of due sympathy with you in your affliction my not having earlier given an answer to your letter.  In truth, I was so much moved by it, that I had not, at first, sufficient resolution to bring my thoughts so very close to your trouble, as must have been done had I taken up the pen immediately.  I have been myself distressed in the same way, though my two children were taken from me at an earlier age, one in her fifth, the other in his seventh year, and within half a year of each other.  I can, therefore, enter into your sorrows more feelingly than for others is possible, who have not suffered like losses.

Your departed daughter struck me as having one of the most intelligent and impressive countenances I ever looked upon, and I spoke of her as such to Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Fenwick, and to others.  The indications which I saw in her of a somewhat alarming state of health, I could not but mention to you, when you accompanied me a little way from your own door.  You spoke something encouraging; but they continued to haunt me; so that your kind letter was something less of a shock than it would otherwise have been, though not less of a sorrow.

[166] Memoirs, ii. 360-1.

[167] Ellen Parry (daughter of Dr. Parry), who died April 28, 1840.  Wordsworth saw her April 28, 1839.  He was again at Summer Hill, Bath, in April 1840.

How pathetic is your account of the piety with which the dear creature supported herself under those severe trials of mind and body with which it pleased God to prepare her for a happier world!  The consolation which children and very young persons, who have been religiously brought up, draw from the Holy Scriptures, ought to be habitually on the minds of adults of all ages, for the benefit of their own souls, and requires to be treated in a loftier and more comprehensive train of thought and feeling than by writers has been usually bestowed upon it.  It does not, therefore, surprise me that you hinted at my own pen being employed upon the subject, as brought before the mind in your lamented daughter’s own most touching case.  I wish I were equal to anything so holy, but I feel that I am not.  It is remarkable, however, that within the last few days the subject has been presented to my mind by two several persons, both unknown to me; which is something of a proof how widely its importance is felt, and also that there is a feeling that I am not wholly unworthy of treating it.

Your letter, my dear Sir, I value exceedingly, and shall take the liberty, as I have done more than once, with fit reverence, of reading it in quarters where it is likely to do good, or rather, where I know it must do good.

Wishing and praying that the Almighty may bestow upon yourself, the partner in your bereavement, and all the fellow-sufferers in your household, that consolation and support which can proceed only from His grace,