LETTER: Autograph letter signed to Jessie Mario.
Elizabeth Blackwell to Jesse White Mario on Barbara Bodichon
Blackwell, Elizabeth. Autograph letter signed, “E. Blackwell,” to Jessie White Mario, May 23 [ca. 1877]; one leaf of unprinted stationery, folded to make four pages; all sides covered.
A superb, lengthy letter discussing the health of a friend, Barbara Bodichon.
In four densely written pages, Blackwell writes to the noted author and fierce advocate of Italian unity, Jesse White Mario, friend and ally of Garibaldi, who she was with in the Sicilian campaign of 1860, during which she served as nurse; “she boldly took charge of hospital activities under conditions of great chaos and corruption,” according to the ODNB. In this superb letter to her, Blackwell discusses the health of their mutual friend Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon – artist, philanthropist, suffragette, and advocate of women's rights who was instrumental in founding Girton College for women at Cambridge University. Bodichon had suffered a stroke in May of 1877, and Blackwell reports:
The last week, I have spent in her neighborhood to give Barbara perfectly free chance of communicating with me, and we have taken drives alone, whenever she wished it. My drive of yesterday with her when we got out and walked about Hampstead Heath, has left I can truly say, a more hopeful impression on my mind, than any interview I have had with her since her illness, because for the first time she conversed with me rapidly – in the strong clear spontaneous way with which she used to pour forth her ideas.... I did not notice one hesitation for words, whilst talking with me – although there was such difficulty when she gave the coachman directions – Neither did I observe any exhaustion at the end of the drive. This of course was only a temporary flashing back of the old life – but it was an immense comfort to find that it could so flash.
Blackwell explains that she has been urging Bodichon to go abroad for a change and for rest, and that Bodichon, initially resistant to the idea, now seems to be considering it. Bodichon’s worry over a younger relative has been relieved, removing a great weight from her.
The one inevitable care that presses upon her and from which she cannot possibly be freed until it pleases Providence to withdraw from our world this peculiar being who has so mysteriously been allowed to cross Barbara’s life – is her husband. It is quite certain that any attempt to render her indifferent to his welfare, would be worse than unavailing – for that great crisis was past through years ago, and she elected to hold to him with that tremendous womanly power of sex which seems so unapproachable by men.
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