MS Girton College Cambridge, Yonge XI 31
My dear Miss Warren
Thank you for the two little books – Yours I do like greatly, but I am afraid I can’t quite take to your friend’s.2 I think it is too puerile. Don’t you think it might have been made easy without saying that David’s face was nice or that they played prettily – and the children that have to be told that there were no guns, would be rather amazed at hearing that Saul expected David to dine ‘on the new moon’.
I am afraid too that Jonathan could not have been of nearly the same age as David – He must have been old enough to be David’s father, when one recollects that Saul reigned 40 years, and that David was only 30 when Saul died – and that in the 2nd year of Saul’s reign came Jonathan’s great exploit among the Philistines – Do not you think that on the whole it will be the best way for the M P to say nothing about it? I did like the Missing Sovereign very much, and so did the school children, but I do not think this could have been taken much pains with. The use of ‘you’ and ‘thou’ is oddly mixed up together among other things.
I believe that in January the Monthly Packet is to begin to appear in larger size, and I hope soon after that to have room for the Adelsburg grottoes- I was delighted to meet your sister at Mary Church.3 I begin to think you will have to spend Christmas at Durham They will never let you go sooner. Is not Dr Pusey’s Eirenicon glorious? With kind regard to Mr & Mrs Henderson4
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge