Furze Hill, Brighton, 23d August 1848.
My dear Miss Bessie—An autograph of such affecting interest as that with which you have this morning so kindly favoured me, gives me the privilege of a letter of thanks in reply. And thank you I do very cordially; especially for having so soon and so amiably fulfilled your intention of honouring my verses with your melodious tones. When they are quite ready, I shall look forward with much interest to a manuscript copy; and I am not sure but that, some day or other, I shall run over and pay my respects at the palace, very much with the self-interested object of hearing you do justice to your own music. I am sure you will not refuse me this, especially as here we have no piano; not but that I will go toute suite to ask Miss Wagner or the Fraülein to give me an idea of your "Sea Gull," so as not to be altogether ignorant of the "sweet sounds" which you have married to Mary Howitt's "immortal verse." I have nothing here to offer you in return for your musical authorship, unless you might be pleased to accept "from the author" the enclosed. Pray make my best respects acceptable to your father and mother and sisters, and believe me, my dear Miss Bessie, your obliged and faithful friend,
Martin J. Tupper.
Miss Bessie Gilbert.
In 1849 Bessie, with two sisters and a brother, paid visits in Ireland. One of her chief pleasures was in listening to the echoes at Killarney. Wherever she went the young blind lady called out warm sympathy. On the way from Glengariffe to Cork they stopped at Gougon Barra to see the famous "Healing Well." The guide besought Bessie in the most earnest and pathetic manner to try the water, saying that he was sure it would restore her sight, and entreating her brother and sisters to urge her to make use of it.
This was the first time, since the visit to Liverpool, that she had been far from home, and she enjoyed her journey. She liked staying at hotels; the novelty was refreshing, and she liked the feeling that she also could travel and "see" the world.
The Bishop writes to Bessie on the 11th September 1849 from the "Old Ship private house," Brighton, as follows:—
Now I doubt not that you enjoyed the mountain scheme as well as any of them, and, with the aid of the mountain air, the potatoes too and milk of the cottagers, not omitting, however, I daresay, the more substantial viands which accompanied you from the Hospitable Hall. As for the wetting and all that, of course you treat that as heroines are bound to do—that is as trifles, where it is not convenient to exalt them above their true character.
The "Hospitable Hall" is that of Lismore, Archdeacon Cotton's house, where the travellers stayed for some time. Bessie's eldest brother married Archdeacon Cotton's daughter the following year, so that the visit was one of special interest.
The Bishop had now a house in London, 31 Queen Anne Street, and the family life was divided between London and Chichester. When she was twenty-one Bessie had the command of her own income. One of her first acts was to subscribe to the Philharmonic concerts. The daughter of an old friend of her parents, Mrs. Denison (now Lady Grimthorpe), lived in the same street, and also subscribed; she used to call for and take Bessie with her. The impression which Lady Grimthorpe received at that time was, first of all, "How merry she is:" and next, what an intense appreciation she had of beautiful music, and what a happy, trustful confidence in those about her. One night at the concert the gas suddenly went out, fears of an explosion were whispered about, and many persons left the room. Bessie put her hand in Lady Grimthorpe's and said: "I have no fear whatever, with you. Go or stay as you think best;" and they stayed.
She would return from these concerts so bright and beaming, and give such pleasure to her father by her animated accounts of them, that he learnt to associate her enjoyment with a scarlet cloak she then wore. He said he would have her portrait taken, and in that cloak, for she never looked so well in anything else. Some time later this was done by Sir W. Boxall, and the frontispiece to this volume represents a picture which gives as much of the spiritual beauty and delicacy of Bessie's youthful face as the painter's art can render.