Single Letter

HAM/1/10/1/16

Letter from Anna Maria Clarke to John Dickenson

Diplomatic Text


Typed

From A M to Mr Dickenson
her rival in devotion to M H.[1]

Clarges Street Feb 23d 1785


Your agreeable Letter gave your Sister
great pleasure, I sincerely participate
in the happineʃs you enjoy at present,
& that you with my dear Miranda may never
see another cloud overcasting your happineʃs
is one of the first wishes of my heart your
situation was a very delicate one & I was
sensible of it at the time.
      Our Miranda is well: often saucy
always agreeable & plus & plus chere à mon
Coeur. -- shall we ever quarrel -- which of us
loves or will love her best? I hope a great
Deal to pretend, many years acquaint-
-ance
& society & intimacy. -- Ah but you
were acquainted with her first, -- but then
I know of merit that you have not
been witneʃs of. I have seen her ill & well at



Court at home & in the World. & I have
seen how meritoriously she has conducted
herself in every most difficult situation,
I hope however, we never shall take it
into our heads to dispute on this subject,
if we do, we shall both have argument
enough. The expreʃsions in yours respect-
-ing
that important or unimportant
Ar female article Dreʃs -- has occasioned
much debate & conversation. -- I read
Miranda a gentle Lecture upon it
she was a emporté un peu. she would
re read your Letter, she was angry
at that unfortunate word happineʃs
shall I tell you why I believe she
was angry? because she wishes to
please you in every thing -- but she
never would study Dreʃs she knows



aʃsey[2] bien, that she can charm without it,
& she despises it; she thinks it takes too much
time & that it is expensive -- I wish she do not
play you some tricks, -- so be upon your
guard for her saucy s eyes are meditating
something. -- malgré all this. I laugh
at her. & tell her that I am s
certain she will think more of dreʃs
when she finds that you like to see
her well dreʃsed. -- she believes nothing
of it -- ,she suffers me to lecture. Be---
to complain & you to request hope wish
&c. & soars above it all, she has some
pretensions to give herself airs we
are conscious, -- but we will not permit
it. I have just room to tell you that
I am impatient to see you here &
that I am Miranda's & your most sincere friend
                             A M——



One thing Miranda said last night on the
subject of dreʃs I omitted which was
that she thinks it indispensable that a
Woman should be always perfectly
neat in her dreʃs. & she is certain that
you have always seen her so --



I send you a little Note I received from
dear Lady Wake this moment -- pray return
it to me when you see me --

John Dickenʃon Esq: Jun -- [3]

85
Miʃs A M Clarke
[4]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. This annotation appears to the left of the dateline.
 2. Presumably this should be assez ‘quite/rather’.
 3. The address line is written vertically in the middle of the page.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.

Normalised Text




Clarges Street February 23d 1785


Your agreeable Letter gave your Sister
great pleasure, I sincerely participate
in the happiness you enjoy at present,
& that you with my dear Miranda may never
see another cloud overcasting your happiness
is one of the first wishes of my heart your
situation was a very delicate one & I was
sensible of it at the time.
      Our Miranda is well: often saucy
always agreeable & plus & plus chere à mon
Coeur. -- shall we ever quarrel -- which of us
loves or will love her best? I hope a great
Deal to pretend, many years acquaintance
& society & intimacy. -- Ah but you
were acquainted with her first, -- but then
I know of merit that you have not
been witness of. I have seen her ill & well at



Court at home & in the World. & I have
seen how meritoriously she has conducted
herself in every most difficult situation,
I hope however, we never shall take it
into our heads to dispute on this subject,
if we do, we shall both have argument
enough. The expressions in yours respecting
that important or unimportant
female article Dress -- has occasioned
much debate & conversation. -- I read
Miranda a gentle Lecture upon it
she was a emporté un peu. she would
read your Letter, she was angry
at that unfortunate word happiness
shall I tell you why I believe she
was angry? because she wishes to
please you in every thing -- but she
never would study Dress she knows



assey bien, that she can charm without it,
& she despises it; she thinks it takes too much
time & that it is expensive -- I wish she do not
play you some tricks, -- so be upon your
guard for her saucy eyes are meditating
something. -- malgré all this. I laugh
at her. & tell her that I am
certain she will think more of dress
when she finds that you like to see
her well dressed. -- she believes nothing
of it -- ,she suffers me to lecture. Be---
to complain & you to request hope wish
&c. & soars above it all, she has some
pretensions to give herself airs we
are conscious, -- but we will not permit
it. I have just room to tell you that
I am impatient to see you here &
that I am Miranda's & your most sincere friend
                             Anna Maria



One thing Miranda said last night on the
subject of dress I omitted which was
that she thinks it indispensable that a
Woman should be always perfectly
neat in her dress. & she is certain that
you have always seen her so --



I send you a little Note I received from
dear Lady Wake this moment -- pray return
it to me when you see me --

John Dickenson Esq: Jun --



(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. This annotation appears to the left of the dateline.
 2. Presumably this should be assez ‘quite/rather’.
 3. The address line is written vertically in the middle of the page.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Anna Maria Clarke to John Dickenson

Shelfmark: HAM/1/10/1/16

Correspondence Details

Sender: Anna Maria Clarke

Place sent: London

Addressee: John Dickenson

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 23 February 1785

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Anna Maria Clarke to John Dickenson, concerning Mary Hamilton. She describes her as 'often saucy always agreeable' and wonders if they will ever quarrel about who loves her best. Clarke acknowledges that Dickenson knew her first but notes that she knows of her 'merit' that he has not been witness of. She notes that 'I have seen her ill, & well, at Court, at home, she has conducted herself in every most difficult situation'. Dickenson has previously broached the subject of 'Dress' with Hamilton which caused much debate and Clarke notes that she read Hamilton a lecture on it. She notes that Hamilton read his letter and was 'angry at that unfortunate word happiness should I tell you why [...] Because she wishes to please you in every thing – but she never would study Dress She knows [...]that she can charm without it'. Clarke writes that Hamilton 'despises' the art of dress as taking up too much valuable time. Clarke thinks that Hamilton is 'meditating' on something and she laughs at her that she will not think dress is a waste of time 'when she finds that you like to see her well dressed'. Though she does not believe this. Hamilton does believe that a woman should always be neatly dressed and that 'she is certain that you have always seen her so'.
    Dated at Clarges Street [London].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 468 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).

All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.

Acknowledgements: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.

Transliterator: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 21 September 2020)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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