I have always delighted in your company, and when labors would permit, you know I have not spared hours to talk and commune with you. … Now absent, and so absent that by bodily presence neither of us can receive comfort of the other, I call to mind how that oftimes when with dolorous [sorrowful] hearts we have begun our talking, God hath sent great comfort unto both. … The exposition of your troubles, and acknowledging of your infirmity were … unto me a very mirror and glass wherein I beheld myself so rightly painted forth.

—John Knox in a letter to Elizabeth Bowes (1553)

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