Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sydney Owenson to Thomas Charles Morgan, December 1811
December, 1811.
Great God! is there to be no end
of this? is every idle, every mischievous person to change your sentiments
towards me, and to destroy your confidence? what have I done, what have I said?
to bring down this tirade of abuse and reproach? Your letter has distracted me.
I thought myself so assured of your esteem, your confidence! I cannot write on
the subject. If it is Miss Butler who has
done this, I will never speak to her again.
Never mind what I said about the bond, no matter about
that, or anything else. Your answer shall determine the moment of my departure.
I will throw myself into the mail the night of the day I receive it, ![]()
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if you command it—by all that is
sacred—at the expense of health and life, I will do as you desire. Livy goes to a
certainty, except some misfortune happens, and means to leave this on
the morning of the 2nd, so that she will, of course, be at Baron’s Court
on the night of the 3rd. If I have, indeed, been the cause of much pain to you,
what remains of my life shall be devoted to your happiness. How different do we
feel towards each other! I am all confidence, all esteem, all admiration, you are in love and nothing else. Any woman may inspire
all that I have inspired—passion accompanied by distrust and
suspicion—still I embrace you, my beloved, as tenderly as ever.
I am far from well. I have a most painful sore throat
and oppression on my chest, with some remains of my cough; this is owing to my
having gone into a bath at 105 degrees, when there was a hard frost; but the
country will soon, I trust, put to flight every symptom of delicacy. God bless
you! may your next bring me some comfort.
S. O.
Lady Olivia Clarke [née Owenson] (1785 c.-1845)
The younger sister of Lady Morgan who married Dublin physician Sir Arthur Clarke
(1778-1857) in 1808. She wrote songs and a play, and published in the
Metropolitan Magazine and
Athenaeum.
Lady Jane Manners- Sutton [née Butler] (1779-1846)
The daughter of James Butler, ninth Baron Cahir; in 1815 she married Thomas Manners
Sutton at Baron's Court, the residence of the Marquis of Abercorn in County Tyrone.
