Handwritten letter, continuation: 'wise purpose & as she knew your love for her'
Book 1, Page 156 ·1874
Transcription
An open-book scan showing two facing leaves of a handwritten letter in brown ink on lined paper. Both columns are full of dense cursive; both begin and end mid-sentence as the page is a middle section of a longer letter. The right leaf bears the page number “2” at the top.
Left column
wise purpose & as she knew your love for her, without the formal assurance of it, I am sure we need not dwell upon certain days, or special failures, on our part — If you had been here with us, you would have the consolation we had in being near her to the end, but you would have felt as I did when I sat still beside her, as if I could spend hours on my knees by her, pouring out the unexpressed love of all my life, & telling her how I had with all my love, never loved her half enough, nor followed her teaching & example, nor made her as happy as I might have done — but the dear frail form, & the tender heart, sensitive through every thing, to the pain of all of us, & passing before us, from our keeping, into God’s Holy Presence, made me feel as if I must say to our Saviour what I had failed to say to her, & let her go, as peacefully as she might — I never said a word
Right column
to her or to any one but you, of all this, & I tell you just as I felt them, not as I think of them now — She sometimes looked sadly & earnestly at me, & would sign for me to kiss her, but I could not bear to let her see me distressed, & you know how hard it must have been not to weep at the slightest tone or look, or motion of her head or hand. She said something once about her leaving us — in no way — thinking of it — but I just felt as if she must be spared every pain, & I got up & went near to her & said “You know Mother, it will not be for always.” she looked round at me & bowed her head with such a look that I felt thankful I had commanded my voice to tell her. You asked in your letter if she had spoken of you — besides what I have told you — one night she said out aloud
AI Notes
An open-book scan showing two columns of a handwritten letter in brown ink on lined paper, the middle of a long section addressed to ‘Sis’. The right leaf is headed ‘2’ (page 2 of a folded sheet). The writer reflects on Mother’s last days, her own feelings of having never loved Mother enough, and answers Sis’s question about whether Mother had spoken of her. Both columns begin and end mid-sentence. Part of the 1874 Barker family ‘Mother’s last illness’ cluster: dying Mother is Ellen Milliken Barker (1807-1874), writer is most likely her daughter Susan Milliken Barker (1827-1900), and addressee ‘Sis’ is Susan’s sister Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher.
Letter continues on next page.