BIB_ID
421544
Accession number
MA 1352.638
Creator
Cooper, Louisa, active 19th century.
Display Date
Tillington, England, 1854 October 21.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 18 x 11.2 cm
Notes
Written from "Tillington / nr. Petworth."
Cooper lists the date of writing as "Octr 21." The year of writing has been identified based on the contents. Cooper was one of the residents at Urania Cottage and she wrote this letter just before she emigrated to the Cape of Good Hope. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Dickens appears to have enclosed this letter in one of his own to Angela Burdett-Coutts dated October 26, 1854 (cataloged as MA 1352.383).
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Cooper lists the date of writing as "Octr 21." The year of writing has been identified based on the contents. Cooper was one of the residents at Urania Cottage and she wrote this letter just before she emigrated to the Cape of Good Hope. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Dickens appears to have enclosed this letter in one of his own to Angela Burdett-Coutts dated October 26, 1854 (cataloged as MA 1352.383).
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Provenance
The letters formed part of the Burdett-Coutts sale (Sotheby, 17 May 1922); they were purchased for Oliver W. Barrett in whose collection they remained until it was sold by his son (Parke-Bernet, 31 October 1951).
Summary
Thanking her for her assistance: "As I am about to leave England I am most anxious that one of my last acts should be to thank you my kind Benefactress for all your goodness to me;" writing "I cannot find words to express my gratitude but with the help of that kind Providence who will never leave me nor forsake me if I pray to him I will by my future life try to prove it;" saying that she often thinks of Miss Burdett-Coutts's "kind and gentle words" and that they have been a comfort to her in the past and will be in the future "when I am in a far distant land;" writing of Urania Cottage: "may all the young people at the Home prove deserving your bounty it is a comfort to know there is one placed over them who cares so much about them;" recalling "how much I dreaded her [i.e., Miss Burdett-Coutts] coming [and] how soon I learned to love and respect her;" saying that she has taken the liberty to write to Mr. Tennant to thank him for his kindness, and will write again on her arrival at the Cape.
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