Never at any time, my dear Madam, since I have enjoyed the happiness of your correspondence, which I really place among the greatest comforts of my life, do I recollect sitting down to write to you with so heavy a heart. I cannot bear myself for the neglect I have shown you at a period when my letters might possibly have afforded you some sort of amusement, if not of consolation, under the pressure of your sorrows, & yet with this impression as strong as possible upon my mind & feeling the extreme of vexation for my neglect, I have nevertheless persevered in it & were I a superstitious man & was the smallest of sufficient consequences I should say that some mightier power has withheld my hand. Can you, my dear madam, pardon me; & can believe you, that, thus acting, I have really felt the interest that I have always pretended to do ?& in all that concerns you? Both the one & the other I hope at your hands, & trust I shall find in you a less severe judge than in my own conscience. I really could scarcely believe such a thing of myself, had I not continually in my mind the beautiful speech of Araspes to Cyrus, when brought before him for attempting violence to the wife of Abradatas, who had been placed as a prisoner in his hands, with a warning of the danger he was exposing himself to. – He begins by saying “Now, Cyrus, I plainly perceived that I have two souls” - & throughout the whole of his speech his contrition is as strong as his former confidence had been overweening. Now, without going by any means the same length as this poor Pagan, so contradicting an animal is man & so unlike are we all to ourselves at different times that the doctrine of a plurality of souls is by no means an unnatural scheme for cutting a knot which only a superior intelligence could unravel. For my own part, I differ so far from people in general, that I believe very little in the existence of hypocrisy as a common vice, & what is usually so called I am always inclined to ascribe to the difference of situations in which a man is placed. As my great favourite, Pope, says
“Must then at once, his character to save,
The plain blunt hero turn to crafty knave?
Alas, in truth the man but changed his mind:
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.”
All this, however, my dear madam, can be if but little interest to you; &, in truth, is of itself but a poor subterfuge; for, while I am pretending to give an opinion & upon a general subject, I am only warding off from myself a charge of hypocrisy, the which I know that I should be liable in the eyes of the world, tho I call heaven & earth to witness that I do not deserve it. I would rather say with the Royal Psalmist “if I have forgotten thee, let my right hand forget her cunning!” — Most truly am I concerned at all you tell me of your sorrows: should it please God to remove from you your mother, you really must no longer refuse to comply with the wishes of my wife & myself by coming over to see us. Change of scene & change of life will be necessary for you & you will find both the one & the other here.
“If solitude succeed to grief
Release from pain is small relief
The heart once left thus desolate
Must fly at last for ease to hate —
x x x x x
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.”
I wish I could get to you the exquisite little poem from which I make these quotations: it is just published by Lord Byron, under the title of ‘The Giaour, “a fragment” — if you like these, you shall have more extracts from it by & by. Is it then possible that I should not once have written to you since my wife’s confinement? — This event took place on the 13th May, when she was brought to bed of a boy, whom after my partner in the Bank, to whose connection my family owe everything, I have named Gurney. About 10 days afterwards I went to London, when I spent a fortnight, as usual, among botanists & artists, & was called back unexpectedly by a severe illness of my wife & child. On my way home I escaped unhurt & unscratched from a dreadful accident by the breaking down of a phaeton [carriage] which has rendered my friend who was sitting by my side a cripple & confined him still to his bed with his life in danger, but when I got home I found my poor babe very ill with a fever, which has even yet scarcely left him & he & all my family except my 4th & 5th girls, one of age 6 the other 5 years old, are now with their mother trying the benefits of country air, 24 miles off. This & the illness of another most intimate friend, the father of your Irish Peeress Lady Gosford, has taken up my thoughts & my time very much since my return from Town; but had I been told that I had not written to you during all the time, I really should not have believed it. You have never once mentioned receiving the books which I sent you an age ago, or the No.s of Mr Hooker’s Jungermanniae, but I trust they have reached you safe, or pray let your Cork bookseller inquire of Longman about them. Mr Hooker is now with me, quite well & again busy about his Jung. — He would be particularly thankful for J Lyellii when you have leisure enough to send it. May God almighty, my dear Madam, preserve you & bless you. You shall not again have to complain of my silence. Pardon what has passed & be assured of the regard of your affectionate friend D Turner.
[As a side note]
Mr Dillwyn is better, & likely, I trust, to live.
[Note in another hand (Postmaster at Bantry, I think)]
Postage on this 2,,11
J Clarke
Postage stamp
29 July 1813
Please cite as “EHT103,” in Ɛpsilon: Ellen Hutchins Collection accessed on