MS Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter/ Yonge 1860/2 1
My dear Miss Smith
Thank you, I think this is very satisfactory, and that all the part about old Mr Webster is quite in your best style – and the contrast between the brothers excellent. Mr Webster certainly has his deserts, and one is comforted by his tardy appreciation of George. I am glad Harry’s Confirmation did go off, though by the by, you have not made the corresponding alteration in the account of his death[.] I have a sort of feeling that his death and funeral are capable of being somewhat improved not in substance but in form of narration, but this is for you to consider rather than me, but somehow the language does not flow. You know more of Woolwich funerals than I do, but do ladies ever join the procession at a military funeral, I should have thought they might be in church but that the procession should be all soldiers. I ought to have said this before, when you asked for last criticisms, and so I should say that you have some little lengthiness, and some word repetitions. In the new part George ‘labours laboriously’ and there are several sentences needing revision, but this no doubt will come right as you go over it, and I think the story will be a very ‘prudent & proper’ one ‘out of the common run. You know there is a ‘commonplace story’ of Miss Farrer’s. Might not Grace & her brothers do better than the George and Harry, which makes rather an awkward length of name to say, but I do not care.
I am much obliged to you for so kindly bearing all the criticisms and suggestions, I do think it pleasant to dwell more on the Thistleworth people and less on the Wingates though Marianne’s part I think excellent, and the scene of the Mother writing the letter and coercing the father is capital.
By the by, I am not clerical, though from our clergyman being unmarried I have had so much school work to do that people always think I am clerical. My Father was a soldier, and so was my brother till he lost his health at Varna, but I have certainly lived much with clergymen’s families, and have never been in the way of seeing middle class hostility to them. Here the whole place is agricultural, and 28 years of one clergyman has given him a great influence with all the farmer kind. But I do think it will be very useful to clerical families to see the feelings of the people they are thrown with so put forth. Poor Mrs Webster is rather cowed and suppressed, but I think you meant it. Poor Harry, his airs do very well
yours sincerely
C M Yonge