| Recipient Location | 2 Suffolk Place, Trafalgar Square, London |
| Transcript or Index | My dear Eleanor,
I cannot allow a day to pass without telling you how grieved, I might say alarmed I am, at the extraordinary expression you have used in the letter here before me – that you are striving to think your Mother-in-law “Slightly deranged for the last 3 months” – on what grounds? I never saw her in possession of more calm good sense; quiet, subdued, forbearing – is it because she was strongly excited, for a few weeks hysterical, perhaps reproachful when all her hopes were suddenly torn from her by the friends she had called to her aid? Suppose she had acted somewhat unreasonably at that moment, is that a sufficient cause for so strong a surmise as her insanity for three months? Besides you do not say that you grieve to think so, but that you strive to think so, which seems to imply that her conduct has been so atrocious, so mischievous as well as so unreasonable that you wish to adopt this as the best of two dreadful alternatives. It is no small or unimportant thing to designate a person as insane, & if you venture to use such an expression to me, her Sister, I fear you must be saying it much more unreservedly to younger people with whom you are more on terms of confidence.
This is a very dangerous line of conduct; if you really think my Sister deranged, we must call a council of friends to examine into the causes of your beliefs; such things must not be said lightly – but when I observe, that you do not exactly say you think her deranged but that you strive to think so, & that the immediate cause of your saying so, is the removal of a picture which does not belong to you, I am inclined to think that this is only a very violent and incautious expression of anger & dislike - & if so, think it my duty as your senior to entreat you to endeavour at your entrance into life to be more cautious, more meek, more gentle in your expression. I wd fain go further & speak of the heart out of the fulness of which the mouth speaketh, but you wd ill brook religious exhortations from her; however I must say such disrespectful expressions towds my near relations may not again be addressed to her. I feel them as an offence to myself. You are angry at the removal of a picture which my Sister begged you not to take at all, because she foresaw you would be displeased at its subsequent removal; the disappointment is of your own causing.
You have a very much better likeness of your father, such as he has been for many years; you can have no recollection of him as resembling that picture which cannot therefore be the subject of your private contemplation & the picture was purchased by your Mother-in-law a few months since. I think if you consult your best friends they wd tell you you have no just cause In this matter for anger or complaints.
You enclosed a note. I have therefore been obliged to acknowledge I have heard from you but most faithfully will I conceal from her what you have said – if however I hear of a repetition of such expressions I shall be obliged to take the measures I sh’d think best for their restraint or proof.
Affect[ionate]ly y[our]s F Majendie |