Thornton, Henry
Hannah More to Patty More, 4 August 1794 [copy, presented to EM Forster by his great aunt, Marianne Thornton
I suppose by this time you expect I should give you some account of my adventures I am not yet at the place of my destination I got to Hertford Street in time to drink tea with the & & the Master Henry who very gallantly appeared soon after me. carriage came for me after breakfast & carried me to Battersea Rise to dinner where were both the Masters & & . carriage took me after dinner the next stage where to my great surprise Henrys was waiting to carry me to my journeys end Theres politeness for you! Dont you think that the Masters improve! At Bitchworth the fine who fought the duel the other day, was stopping with his . He says the breakfasted with him the day before & told him that all was over between him & . I asked him if he thought they were ever married – he thinks not but is not sure
Hannah More to Patty More, 4 August 1794 [copy, presented to EM Forster by his great aunt, Marianne Thornton
After dinner Henry & I go to at hamstad [sic]. We, that is, your masters hope that you have put an end to sitting up, or you will get laid up. is gone off to Teeston [unclear] to study, where he lives in pompous solitude
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, April 5th 1809
I write a few lines to thank you for your kind solicitude about me, when you yourself were probably suffering so much more. confirms the account of your very oppressive cold, Which I hope /will be removd by/ the blessing of God on this fine change in the weather, for it is now raining green pease and goosebery Tarts: and our grass, which on Sunday was as brown as a Mat is now as green as an Emerald. I thank God my fever has given way and I am again much better, tho I had an ague fit the night before last, as I generally have on every change of weather. I heartily rejoyce at the improvd account of Mr. T. who spent a long day here Yesterday (which prevented my writing) thinks he looks tolerably. In addition to her heavy sorrows,2 she is now involv’d in two or three /law/ suits which are this moment trying at Our Assizes, and in which, as her Antagonist (her late Steward) a friend of a deep designing Man has made a party against her, I fear she will be cast. Every thing however which relates to money is a trifle compared with her other causes of sorrow.4
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, April 5th 1809
and &c tell me they never see or hear of – I am disgusted at her want of decency, to say the least, in not concealing her satisfaction at quitting a place, so pleasant so advantageous /so congenial/ to .7 The change must be an immense expence. and I have had a good deal of intercourse a few weeks ago about Mr. T.’s health – We agreed in thinking, that more relaxaxation [sic] from business without travelling about, and renouncing the comforts and accommodations of his pleasant home, was the best thing for him at this time of year. I hope he does relax and that you will soon if the Spring shoud ever begin, get to Battersea for your sake especially. – Shoud You see will you tell tell her that I will write to her on her kind proposal soon, and that we are soon looking out for the Barrister the Circuit being nearly over.8 I agree with you in wondering that your coud overlook that agreeable girl and chuse one so inferior both in mind and person.9 How can you read by way of learning to do good? An avow’d Atheist? An acquaintance of mine, woud have married him she said had he been only an Infidel, but he denied a first course.10 To me his writings are the blackness of darkness. Hume by his elegance, and Voltaire by his wit and the charms of his style are seducing. But tell Mr. T. if he reads it, not to let others read it, for I remember at Xt Church and were frightened at his reading Hume’s Essays to them11 They were not then so strong in Religion as they are since become. Seriously I think Plays and Novels safe reading compared with books of subtel sophistry and promiscuous reasoning – I dont mean that you may not pack /up/ up good things in them. I have not yet read the C. O.12 but have run over Ingram13 which is very good, the second part I thought leaned a little more to Calvinism than I do, that is I thought it woud give the C. O. a rather more Calvinistic Air than it has lately assumed I am glad the C. O. takes up the Plan14 – I have been in constant correspondence (when able) [wi]th [tear] this good Bp on the Subject ever [s]ince [tear] he planned it. It is to raise the character morals, learning & piety of the Welch Clergy. I hardly know so pressing a cause. There will unavoidably, to save his credit be mixd with it a little too much High Church but we must be glad to do something if we cannot do all that is wanted. I subscribe and propose leaving a legacy to the St. David’s Plan. The building a sort of Welch College was partly my Suggestion. –
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, 28 November 1814
Most heartily have I sympathized, and still do sympathize with you, under this tedious and trying attack of Mr. T. We talk of it almost continually, and having heard nothing for some time, I was willing to flatter myself that he was getting on, but a letter from yesterday does not give so favourable a report of his progress as we had hoped. This induces me to write rather in a hurry to ask you to let one of the young ones, send a line now and then till he is better.
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, 28 November 1814
If I sent you all the good wishes I am desired to send, my paper would not hold them I am very anxious about your own health which I fear must suffer. I fear too that mind has had a good deal to do with Mr. T. illness, or rather that previous feeling had disposed his body to receive any illness more severely than might otherwise have been the case – I am so hurried I know not what I write –
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, October 26 1813
Our poor dear Thorntons have suffered intensely on account of . Henry never was so deeply afflicted at any event. I am glad they change the Scene a little by going to Brighton. has been totally absorbed by Abolition business the whole Summer. He had projected a Visit to Barley Wood. The disappointment to me was great. I have a letter from which says their hopes are revived respecting the Slaves, but he is not sanguine nor am I.
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, 1814 [copy, presented to EM Forster by his great aunt, Marianne Thornton]
Your last joint kind & interesting letter was so full of encouragement that we lived contentedly for a week on the good hopes it held forth. But we have just heard with the deepest concern that things are not so promising. I cannot bear to tieze you or who has her hands full as well as yourself – but let one of the younger children write constantly I would not let any one write but myself tho’ my eyes are nearly gone, but my own cannot tell you how tenderly I feel for you, & how very very deeply we are interested in the cause of your anxious cares God grant that your dear excellent husband may be speedily restored to your prayers, to my prayers to the prayers of the poor & of the Church
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, January 16 1815
Tho I have nothing /to say,/ and am not well enough to say it if I had, I cannot forbear writing a line to unite in sympathy with you, on the, I fear hopeless, state of our dear invaluable Henry Thornton*, a letter from * and another from the last night, leaves us little or nothing to hope. Oh! what a chasm will his death make in the world! It will not only be irreparable to , and poor children*, but to multitudes of the poor and the pious. May God comfort us all, especially his own family, and sanctify to us this heavy loss, by quickening us in our preparation for our own great change! For my own part, my hopes have been long very faint, tho in opposition to the declaration of his eminent Medical Attendants* I shall always think /entre nous/ that corroding grief for preyed on his vitals, and laid his weak constitution open to any disease which might attack it: I dread that every post may bring us the final issue of this long disease!
To Lady Olivia Sparrow, 25 March [1815]
I feel a little ashamed of my own impetuosity and selfishness, that in the first burst of sorrow for our lamented friend H. Thornton* I should /mix/ any regret for my petty concerns, as they regarded my poor, with the sorrow of heart which I shared with hundreds. It has however given occasion to the exercise of your generous and Christian liberality, and I thank you most cordially in the name of hundreds for your kind and seasonable bounty.
Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, February 1815 [copy, presented to EM Forster by his great aunt, Marianne Thornton]
But Gods Ways are not as our Ways. Poor dear * may He comfort her – no one else can What an effort my dear friend did you make to write me those few kind lines. – Whom I take to be a son of *, finished the letter in a way that has made him Stand high in my opinion. It was written in a fine spirit, & will you thank him for me It would give you a sort of sad consolation to see how every one who writes to me expresses themselves on the Subject of your beloved Husband. Sorrow makes even eloquent. who has been staying with us is always sublime. From men like these who could judge & feel his Merit one expected it but I was pleased with an expression of the General feelings in more ordinary Men living in the turmoil of trade which is apt to blunt the feelings, but whose Shop is crowded with the first sort of Men. I mean my bookseller, , who writes thus ‘The death of your distinguished friend has excited a sensation of grief, more general & distressing than we remember to have witnessed’ This was said of the feelings of the world at large – my other letters being from religious men. Said no more than was expected of them. I am truly anxious about your health. Grace may enable you to subdue your mind but I fear Your body will not be so submissive. Every time you look on your sweet children, this duty will be pressed homeward to you – in a way you will not be able or willing to resist. I know not yet whether you have returned to Clapham. The events of these last three Weeks form the Chief Subject of our conversation. I think much of you – at a time when I hope you are not thinking of yourself – in the dead of night – for my nights are in general bad. We have paid to our departed friend the tribute of wearing mourning – it is nothing to the dead, but may testify to the living who are about us, our reverence for exalted piety & virtue. Though our friends have been very kind, they are naturally so full of their own sorrows that it is some time since I have heard especially of you.
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, 9 October 1815
I do not address you my dearest Marianne as a feeble girl, shrinking from sorrow and from duty, and yielding up yourself to disqualifying lamentation. It has pleased your heavenly father to call you very early to service and repeated trials; your feelings have been, and are, still tried most tenderly, most acutely. In the lap of prosperity, in the height of happiness, in the gay season of youth, and health, and spirits, you have been called to make sacrifices the most costly to a dutiful and affectionate heart. Your conduct under these visitations has done honour to your Christian education. The examples of your excellent parents illustrated their precepts. The world will look to their children for more than ordinary virtue, and I persuade myself that they will not look in vain. Your Sainted father is probably beholding with delight the effects of God’s blessing on his pious labours, and your is personally feeling those effects in your Christian tenderness and filial piety. Do not neglect your own health
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, October 16th 1815
My dearest Marianne what an honour, what a privilege, to have had two such parents! What a joy unspeakable in the midst of heart-breaking sorrow to see them bear their dying testimony to the faithfulness and truth of God, and /enabled/ to give such incontestable proofs of the reality of the Christian religion. – is now reunited to him whom she so tenderly loved on earth, she now makes one of the glorious Society in heaven, of the Spirits of the just made perfect.
Hannah More to Marianne Thornton, December 4th 1819
Thanks for your very kind and interesting letter. We were all deeply affected with and all the circumstances which accompanied his introduction into his sacred Office.* May he, in living and preaching be the exact representative of his excellent . Such fathers as his and yours have left a high Standard to which I trust it will be the study and the delight of the children of both families to act up. It is a great thing even where we cannot say we have altogether attained to be always pressing forward. I doubt not I shall admire Sermon* as I do every thing that comes from his pen, his head, and his heart. I should be sorry if they had diluted it. I do not approve of that prudence which is apt to put ‘trop d’eau dans le vins de peres.’* In my poor judgment it is not easy to be too strong on the delinquencies of the present times – When we adopt excessive moderation to the few we are guilty of cruelty to the many – I should prefer the Sermon glowing and animated as you heard it, to the more lowered cautious production, after it had passed thro the hands of the nibbling and lapping critics.