MS WDRO Acc No 308: 27/7/63
My dear Anne,
A few lines I must write before we go – Your letter this morning told us much more than we had had before but it was so sad yesterday getting both together the letters written in the fluctuations. We shall be only one day’s post away now, and that really induces Mamma to go on to St Dunstans. Otherwise we should like to have staid [sic] in this kind quiet place.1 Those boys will be more than ever dear to you now.2 I think it is a thing to be very thankful for that they have been so much with you all that they can look to you and cling to you more than many can to their aunts. Dear boys, I am glad we are in the way of seeing so much of the elder ones3. I got to know them much better this summer, when they came to us in our own house. I do think her spirit pervades them all and will last with them. O how one looked up to her admired her bright freshness. I never knew any death that so rang in one’s ears ‘in the midst of life we are in death’ she was so full of life and vigour and so untiring that she was one’s marvel & delight and I believe a recollection of undimmed brightness is a precious thing – unmixed with long hours of pain and weary decay. I have been hearing much of a large family belonging to the Mackenzies whose mother was cut down in her bloom having brought them to much about the age of these dear boys- and oh! the way her presence and influence seem still to guide her sailor and her soldier, and influence the choice of the one who is to be a clergyman is full of hope & encouragement for them.4 But the putting out of that brightest spot in uncle Yonge’s life- I don’t know why it is but I can’t help grieving for that most of all. How often I think of the tablet to your brothers and its inscription.5 What a year it has been. You know our direction. St Dunstan’s Regents Park N W. I suppose it will be the little ones that uncle Yonge brings. – How sad that the deferred holidays made such a difference to their being with her.
I hope John is better. I do look to the hope at Newton being a rainbow, as an old lady who was here last week calls her grandchild who was born the day after her husband’s death.6 I cannot write more.
your most affectionate
C M Yonge