In December 1841 at age 60, Frances wrote,

​"I have this summer mastered Syriac enough to know that with a previous knowledge of Hebrew and the Chaldee verb differences, you have only the characters to learn, an ugly bungling device, from which, however, the Cufic* is mainly borrowed, and to which the modern Arabic has some little obligation."

Huh?

Here is a woman who not only had the discipline to learn ancient languages, she also understood their development.

Her letter continued: "Arabic I am now rather hot upon, have exhausted the little vocabulary I have here, and am most anxious for a lexicon; do you know of a Castell? but I believe a modern German one would do better, except that Latin suits me better than German."

So, she needs a better dictionary to help her translate Arabic. An Arabic-German dictionary will do, but an Arabic-Latin one would be better.

By this time she already has Hebrew, French, German and some Danish—at least.



*Cufic or Kufic is an early angular form of Arabic script found mainly in decorative inscriptions.

Frances Rolleston's friend James Reddie was engaged in an argument with Darwinists over the matter of "races," specifically, the origin of the negro or black "race." His opponents had proposed that a negro race had developed ages before the Adam of the Bible. In those early days of Darwinian evolutionary theory, churchmen were very much involved in the argument and the Bible frequently consulted.

April 5th, 1964
"I have spent the whole of this day in looking out evidence and explanation for my life-long belief that in Ham was the origin of the negro race. Ham in the primitive and Oriental dialects is, hot, heated, &c.; this seems known and admitted, but that Cush was a degree deeper in what is now called negro blood, and peculiarities, I had not put in evidence till now. Butterworth's Concordance, edited by Adam Clarke, my book being fifty years old, and only just tumbling to pieces, boldly says, 'Cush, Black,'—no more."

Frances continued describing her finds on the subject, ending with, "Now then, what becomes of ante-adamic negroes? and your opponents with them?"

What impresses me about all this is her willingness to help a friend in his battle for the integrity of the scriptures. To spend a whole day doing research for him when her own work regarding the publication of her book was so demanding. And the timing of this was only two months before her death.

James Reddie went on to write a number of papers about Darwinism that were published in the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute or Philosophical Society of Great Britain.

Sometimes in her letters, FR reproduced the colloquialisms of the people she visited. February 16, 1841 she recorded some lines spoken by an inmate of the workhouse in Scarborough:

"There's a change come over me,—just afore ha'arst [harvest] I thought the Lord was striving with me, but I could not get started in praying then, but at the end of ha'arst I felt it again, and I said now's the time, and I got prayer, and I went to prayer-meetings,—prayer-meetings is best for them as is no scholars, one don't know what preacher says, though it's all very fine like,—but at prayer-meetings, one says, and another says, and it's all like as our own. My husband had it all in him once, but he got into the world again,—but I shall have him! I shall have him yet! He says, 'pray, my lass, and thou'lt not go back.' He is a scholar, and likes a book. I bought him a Testament out of my ha'arst work, and I want to save up to buy him a Bible; but they are dear at our place, it's an out-of-the-way place, no super-scription [subscription] there."

Here's a short clip for hearing accents from all around England.