MS Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter/ Yonge 1861/6 1
My dear Miss Smith,
I think your answer is a very wise one, and quite what I can understand. I am sure with all the poor I have known unusual help unless on some very pressing occasion would be anything but really beneficial, but the three old couples might be most happily provided, and I hope Mrs Elphinstone may choose that way of spending the sum. I will put what you say before her, thank you much for so answering. Thanks too for the Mothers’ Meeting particulars. I put one or two points as notes to the longer letter, which I think they help out greatly – though the object is different. I really think it might be a good time to stir Mr Mozley up about reprinting those stories of yours. Frances would come in well upon the sensation caused by My Life and What Shall I do with it I send the first proof of the Websters, who look well in print, but must wait a month. I thought I should have had a great deal of room when the stepmother and the pilgrim were both done, but there always seems to be less than ever. About the ladies, whom I rather propose to call ‘More precious than rubies’ I shall be very glad of Mrs Grant, and perhaps if you will do the other that you were thinking of first, we might then see about Mrs Carter. The fact is that my mother knows her nearly by heart, and is much inclined to her, but a little in doubt whether she shall have time to undertake her, having something else just now about which she is busy, and if you were otherwise employed, I should rather like this to decide itself. Lady Russell, Mrs Hutchinson and Caroline Perthes have been beautifully done by the author of Magdalen Stafford2, Olimpia Moratea by Miss Taylor, and likewise a wonderful Mum Bet, an American slave whom she extracted from Miss Martineau’s American book. I have a Russian lady too who has delighted me much Mme Svetchine, whom I translated from the French. I fear I shall still be long in finishing my own part.
yours sincerely
C M Yonge