Ferdinand von Mueller

28/8/63.

My dear Miss Euphemia

I am alarmed to learn from your kind letter,

1

Letter not found.

received this day, that your health is so much suffering and trust to God it will only be temporary so; for if I have in addition to the troubles I have already to bear to persuade myself that I had been the cause of the ruin of your health, without which you could never feel happy again, it would be too much for me. As you are clinging so piously to religion, I trust you will enjoy its consoling comfort; it ought also surrect

2

OED (accessed 30 January 2024) reports a single occurrence from 1692, as an adjective meaning 'upright', etymons given are 'Latin surrectus, surgĕre'.

you to be conscious, that you will always carry my esteem with you, and in pure friendship lies such sublimity, that you will not feel so forlorn in future as you in your depressed mind now imagine. Read Byron's poem to his sister Augusta, and say whether the effusion of feelings in that poem are not the sublimest of all his feeling heart ever expressed?

3

Sentence underlined in pencil; Byron's 'Epistle to Augusta' first published posthumously in J. Moore (1830), vol. 2, pp. 38-41, as 'To Augusta'.

I feel myself very poorly, depressed in mind, restless, uncollected, and have a bronchial cough hanging about me. May I hope you will write to me from Mr Russells place and to learn that you again are cheering fond hopes for the happiness of your future life. Before you return to Phillip Island I must see you, so that we may not part as strangers. When at the island I hope you will observe attentively the seaweeds, as so much is yet left to be done for their elucidation and as watching these will afford you much agreable recreation. I feel convinced you will soon be calm & happy again and look in future on the events of life and what you see around you as if you had never seen me otherwise than a friend. Should the next mail bring any intelligence that can possibly interest you, I will communicate it to you, trusting that you will receive what I say with sisterly sympathy. The last mail brought a very interesting letter from Prof Alexander Braun of the Berlin University,

4

Letter not found.

celebrated for his researches into physiology. This savant is now very aged, yet still full of mental elasticity.

As you desire it, I will send for the writing material &c to Mr Mullens. Rest assured, that I have given our position the most conscientious consideration and, though it is painful to both of us now what has recently happened, that it will be the best for our future.