[ John Thomas Bellows, Quaker printer and lexicographer.] Autograph Draft Letter Signed ('John Bellows') to 'Honoured Count Worontzoff Dashkoff', sending condolences and devout sentiments on the death of his child.

Author: 
John Bellows [ John Thomas Bellows ] (1831-1902) of Upton Knoll, Gloucester, Quaker printer and lexicographer, author of first pocket French/English dictionary [ Count Worontzoff Dashkoff ]
Publication details: 
Upton Knoll, Gloucester. 4 April 1894.
£45.00
SKU: 16906

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. A long letter, closely and neatly written, with a number of emendations suggesting that it is a draft. After a short reference to the Count's kindness to him and his friend Joseph Neave, he devotes the rest of the letter to 'the heavy trial thou has had to pass through', discussing the nature of loss with 'knowledge from my own experience, that the loss of a child is a grief into whose full depths no stranger can enter, and that words, even well-meant, when uttered at an unfit moment, pain instead of helping'. His expressions of sympathy are supported by scriptural examples, and the letter concludes: 'Everlasting kindness includes eternal reunion.'