MS Bodleian Library, Oxford: Autogr. c.25 ff 266-7
Dear Mr Moore,
Miss Finlaison told me that you thought there was a possibility of getting a pension for our blind girl, Annie Norgate. It would be a most happy thing, as she is entirely dependant on her parents – and the father is a labourer not so young as he was[.]1 There are fifteen children, but most are now off their hands[.] I believe the disease is atrophy of the nerve. It came on when she was about eleven and she is now seventeen. There is paralysis with it, she got into much better health two years ago, and was sent to the Portsea asylum where they liked her very much, and thought her a good influence. She learnt to read Braille and began to learn to do chair bottoms, but I believe the exertion of brain was too much for her, for after the first half year there was a renewal of symptoms, and she was very ill all last winter, but is now better and gets into the garden in a chair that her brothers gave her. The whole family are kind to her, but I believe it is her mother’s great fear that she should survive her care.
Yours very sincerely
C M Yonge