To Daniel Bunce   6 August 1869

6/8/69.

 

Let me express to you, dear Mr Bunce, my deep sympathy with you and your Lady in the sad and distressing losses, which you sustained in the death of your poor children.1 It is mournful enough to parents to loose a single child, but when the life of several in rapid succession is extinguished, such dreadful fate must be sorrowful beyond all description.

We elder people, whose earthy career is expected early to cease, must not expect too much from life, but if the poor youthful beings, before whom the life with all its hopes seems yet to expand, are called so suddenly away, one day playful and the other day passed into eternity, we have nothing left but to think with christian resignation, that the ruler above us ordains all to the best.

With deep sympathy your

Ferd. von Mueller.

Four of Bunce's children had died within three days in a diphtheria epidemic (ADB).

Please cite as “FVM-69-08-06,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/69-08-06