Copy outletter book British Library Add MSS. 55384 (1): P. 450

My dear Miss Yonge
Your note will do very well in the mean time. If I can remember, tomorrow, I will get you and send you a small formal receipt book which you will be able to sign with little trouble.

I have only got the first chapter in type, the one I sent and you returned. I read it through once to myself and then aloud yesterday. The impression I had at first was somewhat confirmed on this reading. I think you will find yourself rightly[?] that it is rather meagre for an opening, slight and unimpressive compared with what I am sure the rest will be. The quotations dont please me quite. You should tell your story yourself, not through scraps of this & that. Of course I dont mean the quotation from the Gospel which is admirably brought in, and just as it ought to be. I am asking Clay to set all you have sent up in type. Then I mean to go over it again carefully, and I will tell you all I feel. I think it possible as I see the subsequent parts I may feel the meagreness of the first chapter less. Have you Kittos Cyclopaedia, or Pictorial History of Palestine, or Bible Dictionary?