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Elderfield
Nov 1st [1865]

MS British Library Add MSS 54920: 117-8

Dear Mr Macmillan
By no means did I mean the graceful little lamp on Golden Deeds – nor the Dove in the Sunday Book – nor the well in Cawnpore. I meant such a high priest and book as are outside Smith’s Biblical dictionary; or some of the whole pictures of men and women one often sees upon books, – spoiling the whole effect of the real illustration within. It was odd that I asked my mother if she thought what I said could be supposed to apply to Golden Deeds and she said – no by no means.1

The Montfort arms are a lion. I will get the description soon but it need not be a formal shield like the arms on a peerage, but a sort of trophy, perhaps a helmet, shield and broken sword /& spear\, which would answer to the memory of old Montfort that pervades the whole. If the design formed a vignette on the title page it might have the motto –

But he the chieftain of them all
His sword hangs rusting on the wall
Beside his broken spear.2

I send the bit of preface, and shall be glad to have the proofs – the long concluding chapter wants to be divided and furnished with mottoes. The to be continued was a mistake that I ought to have corrected.

Yours sincerely
C M Yonge

1They were discussing plans for illustrating The Prince and the Page.
2Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel I, 7.
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/2080/to-alexander-macmillan-61

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