MS West Devon Area Record Office Ac 1092/271
My dear Duke
I felt as if I must write to my uncle yesterday, I hope it was not troubling him when so many must be writing.2 It seems still like a dream to me, partly from the being so far away that everything must needs look and go on as usual, however much I may see with my mind’s eye how all must be looking at Puslinch and how sad and changed the look out on the scorching wealth of autumn flowers, and how patiently dear Mary is going on in her duties and cares – now almost alone – but with all her strength within, and how Charlotte is longing to help her, but finding it hardly possible from the quiet power of management, or perhaps I am only transferring what it would be with me to Charlotte.
When I look back these forty four years, I can recollect no beginning to our love and the way in which I regarded that dear Anne as something more mine than anyone else – and never since has the thought of meeting her failed to give a start of joy unlike anything else, and now when I think that there is the hope of the further meeting, it can only be with the prayer O cleanse us ere we see that countenance pure again3
Then I look back at the naturally high spirits, strong will, and great enterprise and eagerness that were in her nature, and see the quiet force with which that will was set to tame, subdue and conquer all into perfect submission and power over thought, word and deed, leaving only the sense of power that always made her gentleness, unselfishness & playfulness so attractive that I think no one was more loved or more remarkably winning Then come the ‘clouds returning again after the rain’4 and the shade that grew over those once bright spirits, and that the ‘Praise in the Sanctuary’5 seemed alone really to soothe and heal, though the least call for exertion for the sake of others made her so bravely fight with the depression, assume all the old fun, and seem the merriest of the merry. Those last years must have been a great effort and struggle day after day, that very few could have gone through as she did. That coming here last year, feeling as she did about journeys, was an exceeding act of charity, and I do not think she was the worse for the journey here, and that the quiet life with less exertion and less struggle to keep up for her father’s sake was not unbeneficial only the journey home seemed to try her so much. Looking back and remembering how she spoke of herself, I think she always had a certain expectation of a sudden call, though perhaps she thought it would be rather from the heart than the head. But after all I rather infer than anything else, from her great reserve as to all that concerned herself I suppose hardly any one really knew her true innermost self for many years past, it was only by a sort of glimpse now and then that one pressed at it, since Alethea has been gone. And how bright she must shine now – freed from all that weighed her down so heavily here and dimmed the enjoyment But what was real and true enjoyment to her, almost the only real delight she had this last year I think was what will last with her for ever, and is only now indeed begun – How you are all to live without that dear presence, full sympathy and active aid I dare not think, and much much do I wish I could do anything to help. My love to Charlotte and all
your affectionate cousin
C M Yonge
4 o’clock Kind, dear Mary’s letter is just come, thank her for it, and tell her I will write on Monday.
Is there any indication in the other Yonge letters in the Devon RO of what Anne died from, or why “those last years must have been a great effort and struggle day after day, that very few could have gone through as she did”? A glance through CMY’s letters to Anne from the 1860s suggest the family kept only those referring to the various deaths in the family.
I have now seen the account of Anne’s death in CMY’s letter to Florence Wilford: “My dear cousin Anne had not been strong for many years, but was quite in her usual health till forty-eight hours before the end. Then as she was going upstairs at night a dreadful attack in the head came on, just what several of the family have had before, and it was very soon quite hopeless, and after the first few hours there was no apparent consciousness.”
I think it would be helpful to readers to quote this at the beginning of the correspondence with the family on Anne’s death.
We should distinguish between letters from CMY to Anne Yonge and from CMY to Mary Yonge. These are two different groups. Some of the former may have been given to CMY after Anne’s death and ended up in the possession of Helen Yonge, who lent them to Coleridge, who returned them to her. But I suspect some may have been kept back as too private, which is why the Record Office in Plymouth (which got its letters from Puslinch) holds some letters which Coleridge didn’t print. However, this is guesswork.
I don’t know about Anne’s illness, but we know she was the original of Mary in Dynevor Terrace, who is a person of great stoicism.