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To Christabel Rose Coleridge
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Jany 23d 1865

MS Mrs Clare Roels

My dear Christabel,
Here is the first Golden egg that a Gosling has yet laid, though I am afraid it is only a paper one! Many thanks to you for the Eagle that contributed to it1. You know that I have got a new Gosling- Elizabeth Catharine Yonge, Eton – to the brood the Cobra di Capello- (because she wears spectacles)2 She is only 15, but will be a capital one in time. She is staying here now, so your Sidney questions will be the first she will see. I hope to take her up to be introduced to Kittiwake- Have you got the Barnacle yet?

your affectionate
C M Yonge

1‘The Eagle of one house is the Goose of Another'. She had evidently contributed to MP, and the 'golden egg' enclosed with the letter was a cheque to Coleridge for £5 which was cashed on 17 February. The story had appeared in December 1864 and was later reprinted in Coleridge's The Face of Carlyon and Other Stories (1875).
2The gosling, Elizabeth Catherine Yonge (1847/8-1905). In fact she called herself Cricket. Census returns suggest that she was born in 1847/8 so she may have been older than CMY thought.
Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/2003/to-christabel-rose-coleridge-6

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