2 SULYARDE TERRACE, TORQUAY, _10th February 1874_.
MY DEAR FRIENDS--I feel that both you and I have had a very great loss indeed, and my heart yearns to say to you that you do not know how grieved I am for you; you know full well what the loss is to yourselves, but you can hardly tell what it is to me; you cannot know how he who is now taken and I have worked together with the self-same end of helping you, and now I am left, deprived of all the help that your dear and true friend gave me, and it is impossible for me to tell you how deeply I feel the loss.
Mr. Levy never spared himself when your interest was at stake, and now that he is taken from us, and I am left alone, I feel that I must ask you all to give me all the help in your power, and you can help me by giving me your confidence, by showing me that you feel I will do the best I can for you, and, above all, by trying, with God's help, to become the men and women He would have you to be. Nothing gives me greater joy than for the Association to be the means of helping you, by God's blessing, to lead really Christian lives. This means that you should have in your hearts the love of God and the love of your neighbour, which love will prevent you hurting anybody by word or deed, make you true and just in all your dealings, and temperate and sober in your living. My earnest desire is that the Association should help you to learn and labour truly to get your own living; but you know that this must be a work of time. If I could prevent it there should not be one blind person begging, but all should have the blessing of earning their living; but, as I say, it will take a long time to bring this to pass. Had I been asked I should have said, "You would do better without me than without him who is taken from us; but God does not ask us, and does what He sees and knows to be best, and He has taken Mr. Levy to his rest and reward, and has left me."
If it is His will that I should have strength, I will, with His help and with the aid of the friends engaged in the work, do the best I can. Many of you I have never seen; I wish this were not so, but I cannot help it; but to you all I earnestly say: please think of me as of one who has your truest interest at heart, who is, like yourselves, without sight, and who tries, to the best of her power, to understand what it is to be poor as well as blind, and who longs for your help and co-operation in the work of endeavouring to help you to help yourselves. You will help me, will you not?--Believe me, my dear friends, to be most sincerely yours, ELIZABETH GILBERT.