Read it through once

During the year 1817, Sir William Elford lost his wife. She was a most estimable woman, and although her husband had, occasionally, called on the Mitfords—turning aside, for that purpose, from the main road which ran through Reading—in his journeys from the west to London, she had never made their acquaintance and only knew of them by repute and what she gathered from the voluminous correspondence which passed between her husband and his literary friend. News of this lady’s death drew from Miss Mitford a charming letter of condolence which must have proved to Sir William how large a place he held in her thoughts: “Your very touching letter, my dear friend, brought me the first intelligence of the dreadful loss you have experienced. I had not even any idea of danger, or surely, most surely, I should never have intruded on you those letters whose apparently heartless levity I am now shocked to remember. I write now, partly in pursuance of your own excellent system, to avoid, as much as may be, prolonging and renewing your sorrow, and partly to assure you of our sincere and unaffected sympathy. We had not, indeed, the happiness of a personal acquaintance with Lady Elford, but the virtues of the departed are best known in the grief of the survivors. To be so lamented is to have been most excellent. And the recollected virtue, which is now agony, will soon be consolation. God bless and comfort you all!