Académie Royale des Belles Lettres

Hannah More to Marianne Sykes Thornton, 28 November 1814

How our young friends are marrying away! I wish you could see excellent letter on the marriages in his family. So much wit! – delighted me in hers by an honest and frank confession of her happiness That Match was made in heaven. But in this chequered life all [deletion] are not rejoycing or marrying. Our friend is coming to us to day for a few days, as soon as he deposited the remains of a young creature his adopted daughter aged Nineteen on whom he doated; and over whom he has watched with fond Solicitude for a year and a half in a dropsy – She was an amiable girl and piously inclined, but he had dragged her so much into the great and gay world, that it impeded her progress. I hope this privation will have a good effect on his own mind. He loves religion and religious people, but then he dearly loves the world and after having laboured hard to make both loves agree, I trust this blow will shew him the vanity of that attempt. Miss Roberts s [sic] will be good sympathizing company for him, as they are expecting to night to hear of the death of a Niece past nineteen also, but are of the most matured Christians I have heard of; her sweet and extraordinary piety has made a considerable impression on her own family, and many who knew her.