BIB_ID
80515
Accession number
MA 9173.2
Creator
Butler, Josephine Elizabeth Grey, 1828-1906.
Display Date
[1882-1906] September 3.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
Written on mourning stationery from "2 Albany Place." The year of writing is not given however the letter refers to Dora Greenwell after her death which was in 1882. Josephine Butler's husband died March 14, 1890 and it is possible that it was written after that date.
Housed with a letter written three days earlier (MA 9173.1) in which she asks Knight if he has a copy of Dora Greenwell's "The Patience of Hope."
Written on mourning stationery from "2 Albany Place." The year of writing is not given however the letter refers to Dora Greenwell after her death which was in 1882. Josephine Butler's husband died March 14, 1890 and it is possible that it was written after that date.
Housed with a letter written three days earlier (MA 9173.1) in which she asks Knight if he has a copy of Dora Greenwell's "The Patience of Hope."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from William Angus Knight, 1908.
Summary
Thanking him for the "...full collection of dear Dora Greenwell's works. I have been looking thro' them all and find that there are riches of thought w'h I should much like to keep in my memory. If she could have lived till now, I am sure we should have had much deeply interesting interchange of thoughts. Many things & many ideas have made progress since she wrote, but in regard to the highest thought & deepest truth, she was perhaps a little in advance of her times; and the truths she wrote of remain ever the same, the sure foundation, w'h cannot be moved, tho' knowledge may encrease;" adding that she will return the books and telling him not to "make any special effort" to get a copy of "The Patience of Hope" as "I find enough in the books you have sent me to bring me into communion with her in spirit & to remind me of past intercourse;" adding, in a postscript, her thanks "...for the Letters w'h are deeply interesting & precious. I think it best to return them soon."
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