Record

D8760 - Gell family of Hopton Hall, Wirksworth - 1714-1994
- F - Family records of the extended Franklin family and the Gell family of Hopton Hall - 1714-1994
  - FSJ - Records of Sir John Franklin - 1810-[early 20th cent]
    - 1 - Correspondence of Sir John Franklin - 1810-[early 20th cent]
      - 1 - Letters from Eleanor Anne Porden, later Franklin, to John Franklin, later her husband - 1821-1824

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Archive Reference / Library Class No.	D8760/F/FSJ/1/1/9
Former Reference	D3311/8/3/4
Title	Letter from Eleanor Anne Porden to John Franklin, playfully chastising him for not writing to her
Date	[early 1823]
Description	Addresses the recipient as 'Most faithless Saxon'. Wonders on his absence and settles that she has been forsaken. Muses over methods of suicide. Signs off 'The disconsolate Monimia'.
Extent	1 sheet
Level	Item
Repository	Derbyshire Record Office
Full Catalogue List	Click here to view a full list for this collection
Sender	Eleanor Anne Porden (Monimia)
Recipient	John Franklin
Archive Creator	Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)
Archive Creator	Gell family of Hopton Hall, Wirksworth
Transcript or Index	Most faithless Saxon After sitting whole days with my arms folded, my legs crossed and my feet on the fender, devising excuses for your absence; after building castles in the air, and discovering them to be but frost work, drawing your portrait in the fire, and demolishing it with the poker, or cutting it out in paper, and blowing it away with my sighs I arrive but at one conclusion – that I am utterly forsaken. Think not that I expect to melt you, for had you not been <already> hardened by three polar winters, you must be now <like my tears, &> like everything else in this great town, completely frozen. No – every spark of hope is extinguished in my bosom; therefore, as willows are out of season, and my garters withal rather the worse for wear, as the Serpentine is frozen over and even the Thames at Waterloo <Bridge> nearly inaccessible from icebergs, as Daggers and poison are too melodramatic and opening a vein too surgical and unsentimental; and as razors and pistols are somewhat masculine resources <and moreover commonplace,> I beg to know your pleasure as to the disposal of myself. The Disconsolate Monimia Nota Bene – I would bury myself in the snow, but fear to be turned into spermaceti before you would hear of my fate. What think you of swallowing fire? It has but one prototype and would be a comfortable death this weather.

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