Lacock
Jany 17th
My dear Constance
When I read in the Times of Friday in the list of deaths that of the Revd Mr Stainforth <1> lost at sea on his return from the Azores, I felt a sad presentiment that it was Mrs Stainforth’s son for it appeared to me likely that he might have spent a winter in the Azores as he did formerly at the Cape. I imagine that he was sailing in a small ship, for I believe there are no large Steamers to the Azores and that as he was walking on the deck a sudden lurch of the vessel threw him into the waves. It is one of the saddest accidents in my recollection. Have you seen his poor mother? has she any other children?
Here the weather is warmer but very damp. I have been reading the review of Newman’s answer <2> to Gladstone <3> in yesterdays Times p. 4 it is very able, but so long <4> that people in general will not read it, from want of Time! It is evident that Newman was strongly opposed to the Declaration of infallibility but now he submits, like all the rest, as a good and submissive Catholic. He now labours to reduce the result of the Council to a minimum, of very trifling change; – But if so, to what end were <good?> bishops summoned, some of them from the ends of the earth?
Your affte
Henry
Notes:
1. According to the The Times (London) of Friday, 15th January, p. 1, ‘The Rev Frederick Baring Stainforth (1845–1875) had fallen overboard the s.s. Oceana returning from the Azores’.
2. A review of, A letter Addressed to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, on occassion of Mr. Gladstone’s recent Expostulation (London: Pickering, 1875), by John Henry Newman (1801–1890), Cardinal-Deacon of St George in Velabro, divine philosopher and leader of the Tractarian Movement. See The Times (London), Saturday, 16 January, p. 4.
3. William Henry Gladstone (1840–1891), politician & author.
4. The review occupies over five columns, or almost a page.