Mary Moulton-Barrett to Henrietta Moulton-Barrett, 11 April 1826: 'Mrs. Campbell & her lovely children quite well. They all have the poem. Mrs. D[effell] says it has been her amusement & study & however incapable she may be of judging of a literary work, nature & the feelings of the heart she can appreciate as well as the learned, therefore she is delighted with the Essay [on Mind], tho' the subject be dry and deep -- "it exhibits in its pages the purity, the piety of the Author's mind. Extensive reading & the power of carefully separating, as she proceeds in the study of dangerous writers, the tares from the wheat, it seems to me a wonderful production." [quotation apparently from letter by Mrs Deffell]'