Page:New Yorker Obituary.pdf/9

 To the Editor of the London Times:

—As I find there are some painful surmises in reference to the melancholy death of Mrs. Maclean, I presume to request your insertion of the accompanying letter. It is probably one of the two she wrote the night before her decease; for, though without date, it came to me as a ‘ship letter,’ and not by private hand, and I did not receive it until I had read the mournful intelligence in your paper. It is unnecessary to direct attention to its cheerful and healthy tone; to me it is evidence that for the first time during a life of labor, anxiety, and pain, for such hers undoubtedly was, her hopes of ease and happiness were strong and well grounded. A mysterious dispensation of Providence has deprived literature and society of one of its brightest ornaments. She will be lamented by millions, to whose enjoyments she so largely contributed; but to her private friends the loss is one to which language can give no adequate expression.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obliged servant, . The Rosery, 12, Gloucester-road, Old Brompton.