Without envelope.
Written from "Moore Place, Esher".
Dated "Thursday night".
Forms part of a collection of letters written by Anna Mary Howitt to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-1891); see MA 14350.
Reassuring Barbara that she is alright, but feeling weak as the result of a recent illness; asking after Barbara's studies for "The Bottle"; discussing marriage, women's lives, and struggles with beauty and aging; yearning for all women to feel that the mind is more important than the body; describing her time spent painting in the woods; discussing her Sensitive Plant illustrations, and reflecting on "the dark mysteries of vegetable life and vegetable poisons, blending science in mystery, poetry and religion discourse in a way vastly to captivate my imagination"; describing how she believes in a future for all women if the "dark, troublous depths of their dormant, stagnant souls can be but roused by the Angel of Knowledge and Light descebding into them with heaing on his wings"; writing that she is anxious about an article in the Westminster.