BIB_ID
364049
Accession number
MA 52.29
Creator
Lovelace, Ada King, Countess of, 1815-1852.
Display Date
"Friday" [1844?] Nov. 8.
Credit line
Acquired before, 1923.
Description
1 item (7 p.) ; 19.6 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of autograph letters written by Lord Byron, Lady Byron, Catherine Gordon Byron, Contessa Guiccioli, Ada King Lovelace and others from 1788 to 1855. Items in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
The year of writing is not provided but it is possible the year was 1844, as November 8th fell on a Friday in that year.
The year of writing is not provided but it is possible the year was 1844, as November 8th fell on a Friday in that year.
Summary
Thanking him for his note and discussing logistics for a visit and a reciprocal visit by her to Bromfield. Discussing, at length and in detail, her passion for Science; saying "...I am more than ever now the Bride of Science. Religion to me is Science, & Science is Religion. In that deeply felt truth, lies the secret of my intense devotion to the reading of God's natural works. It is reading Him, His Will, His Intelligence: & [illegible] again is learning to obey & to follow (to the best of our power) that Will! For he who reads, who interprets the Divinity with a true & simple heart then obeys & submits in acts & feelings as by an impulse & instructs. He can't help doing so. At least so it appears to me;" And when I behold the scientific, & so-called philosophers, full of selfish feelings & of the tendency to war against circumstances & Providence, I say to myself: They are not true priests. They are but half-prophets, if not absolutely false ones. They have read the great page simply with the physical eye, & with none of the spirit within. The intellectual, the moral, the religious, seem to me all naturally bound up & inter-linked together in one great & harmonious whole; and I hope to live to demonstrate this to mankind more forcibly than I think it is as yet felt in the world;" continuing, at length and in detail, to discuss the relationship between religion and science; concluding with a lengthy discussion of her "dreadful physical sufferings" that relate "chiefly with the digestive functions, of no common degree & kind. This has nothing to do with a weakly constitution, & in fact it appears to me to be the result of the fine-ness & intensity & power of my nervous system. So that in truth, my illness -- my weakness - is the result of my strength;" describing what her physical sufferings have taught her; thanking him for his understanding and telling him "How pleasant is it always to communicate with one who like you can understand what one says & feels, whether he agrees with it or not!"
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