Bakkehussamlingen

21 Upper Bedford Place
London W C [Donaldsons stempel påtrykt] 13 May 1878
My dear M^me. Jerichau
       I am deeply affected by the receipt of your touching letter! So much of suffering & woe seems almost beyond the extent of human endurance! but evidently you have had a tender Father’s love to support you & a [f…?] reliance on Him, who suffered for us, & was in all things like as we are, but with out sin! a pure sympathising Savior and Brother. You have been supported under your crushing trials! and they have been bitter ones indeed! but will bear their fruit to your gain. // The artists have been thrown into great consternation by the doings of the selection Committee, who have not accepted your pictures amongst many hundreds, which I may say thousands, have been rejected. My nephew andrew’s to the number of 4 have been returned to him, and although I do not sympathise with his taste, yet I think there was one of greatment. I send you a catalogue & was distressed to find, that your name was not among the Exhibitors. I have marked 2 of the most striking numbers in the Exhibition, but as a whole it is pronounce[d] to be a sad display of English art!
I have ventured to send you by post a paper, read by me before the R Institute of British architects a obelis[k?] – it is I fear too architecturally & technically treated to interest general readers, but I send it to you as a [mark?] of personal regard. // My son Olinthus has been touched by your kind reference to the death of his beloved child and feels deeply for you as do my sisters also & the Rev^d M^r Lingham[,] Brother of my late dear wife, who remembers you. The photograph of yr. dear son’s picture shows the mortaly con-ception of the painter & the beauty of the details. It must be a very fine work, for the photograph is very striking. When I was at Smyrna, 58 years ago I did not go to Sardes, it was so far off & the remains so few, that I did not concider the expence would correspond with the result. But I know it architecturally from books, as one of the [best?] examples of our art, and also its biblical & archoelogical claims upon one’s attention.
My dear son James poor […?] aims much the same as to his health & his […?] – he is very well & happy; […?] alas there are no […?] of the recovery of his mental faculties. He repudiates me as his father alas! & considers himself a Rothechild & [pepeped?] of […?] [weath?] // and that the very place, where he recide, in his own, a happy delusion. If I mistake not your dear son Harold was married & had 2 children. Is that the fact? We heard of Harold & his great talents from a Miss Forster a friend of ours, who was at Rome. I am not going to Paris this year. On such an occasion it is xxx overpoweringly [butting?] and wearing & expensive with al. We shall be delighted to see you & your Daughter next april in London. I have some idea of spending every year December January Febr & March in a more genial climate abroad on [a…?] of my chest. the writer […?] me so much. But now, thank God! I am in perfect helath.
I am pleased to see you speak so well of young Deane. I trust he will be steady & hard working & do pi[..?] to his natural talents.
Adieu, my dear Friend, pray present my kind remembrance to your Husband, who, I hope, still pursues his art with his usual energy & power of anception. When will he publish his fine series of designs? My sisters send their love. I have given my son y^r exquisite portrait of his Mariette. It is a great consolation to him. Believe me, dear M^me Jerichau, your ever attached old friend Tho. L: Donaldson