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To Christabel Rose Coleridge
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Oct 12th [1871?]

MS Mrs Clare Roels

My dear Christabel
Goslings do multiply overmuch, but I cannot refuse to make a two headed one, like Double daisy out of these two damsels of Miss Keary’s about whom I send her letter.1 Will you send them the Gosling list, and standing orders I am sending them the rules. Who asks questions next – none have come to me to choose from for December- and it is January that is the holiday.

I have given up the cats in grey. I find they come from Moliere and may have an objectionable meaning.2

Can you write another story upon the Eagle and goose text, I do not think any will do as well, and no one but yourself has done it before.3 I mean to make the connecting link be an Essay Society

your affectionate
Mother Goose

1Perhaps the Goslings called York and Lancaster Rose, who joined the society after 1869 and left it in November 1872.
2‘ La nuit tous les chats sont gris’ is proverbial in French.
3Christabel Coleridge had published a story in 1864 entitled 'The eagle of one house is the goose of another'. CMY was proposing to make this proverb the theme of the MP Christmas number for 1872.

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/2421/to-christabel-rose-coleridge-68

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