Epigraph
Where wert thou mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness?
Note
There is good reason to think that the lady to whom the following letters were addressed did not, towards the end of her life, regard their ultimate publication as unlikely; and it is by her family that they have been entrusted to the editor, to be arranged and prepared for the press.
The owners of these letters reserve to themselves all rights of reproduction and translation.