MS University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign: Letter 12.
My dear Mrs Blackburn,
I fancy that you would find the Cloister & the Hearth answer for your reading to Mr Blackburn if you like a tissue of wonderful adventures which befal Erasmus’ father & mother, there are bits rather coarse and I find other people like it better than I did.1
East Lynn is very clever a capital plot, and would carry on vehemently. Perhaps you have seen reviews of it – Grandmother’s Money – clever and carries one on. Debit and Credit – a translation of Freytag’s Soll und Haben carries one into smooth water that I like very much – minute painting of ways in a great German firm, and in a Polish castle, very like Ireland, but some people think it tedious & perhaps you would – it is not new. These are the chief that occur to me, except those too patent to mention. I like Trollope’s Framley Parsonage better than most things – but I doubt if you would. Many thanks about the woodcutting. I will try to put Miss Ashwell up to do the drawing herself, I think she will do well what she does do – But I do think the French must be dear, that page of good words[?] is much bigger than any book was intended to be – and how can people ever bring out such cheap books full of ‘cuts’ – I beg Doonholm’s pardon – I could not make out the word, so performed scollops as I always do on such occasions –2 I hope you will be able to get home in the long days – we are swarming with nightingales more than I ever knew –
You must have come all the way with the swallows – I hope you fell in with the bird that picks the crocodile’s teeth.3
If you have not read it, Dr Wolff’s autobiography is more diverting than any novel – I see the old man is just dead – do read his life – it is published by Sanders & Ottley
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge