Edward FitzGerald.
To Mrs. Charles Allen.
Lowestoft, October 16/59.
My dear Mrs. Allen,
In passing through London a week ago I found a very kind letter from you directed to my London Lodging. This will explain why it has not been sooner answered. As I do not know your Address, I take the Opportunity of enclosing my Reply to John Allen, of whom I have not heard since May.
I have been in these Suffolk and Norfolk Parts ever since I left London in March to see my poor Lad die in Bedford. The Lad I first met in the Tenby Lodging house twenty-seven years ago—not sixteen then—and now broken to pieces and scarce conscious, after two months such suffering as the Doctor told me scarce any one would have borne for a Fortnight. They never told him it was all over with him until [within] ten Days of Death: though every one else seem’d to know it must be so—and he did not wish to die yet.
I won’t write more of a Matter that you can have but little Interest in, and that I am as well not thinking about. I came here partly to see his Widow, and so (as I hope) to avoid having to go to Bedford for the Present. She, though a wretchedly sickly woman, and within two months of her confinement when he died, has somehow weathered it all beyond Expectation. She has her children to attend to, and be her comfort in turn: and though having lost what most she loved yet has something to love still, and to be beloved by. There are worse Conditions than that.
I am not going to be long here: but hope to winter somewhere in Suffolk (London very distasteful now)—But here again:—my good Hostess with whom I have lodged in Suffolk is dead too: and I must wait till that Household settles down a little.
If it ever gives you pleasure to write to me,
it gives me real Pleasure to hear of you: and I am sincerely grateful for your kind Remembrance of me.