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To Christabel Rose Coleridge
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Feb 1st [endorsed '1872']

MS Mrs Clare Roels

My dear Christabel
Here are the answers please to set on the next questioner. Is it Polypodium whom I think a very good one with plenty of stuff in her.1 I am sorry you have not caught any pupils I thought you would have had Mr Johns’s rejected addresses.2

I am having new school experiences, having taken half an hour twice a week of our boys’ school, which somehow had got a good deal let down, so that nobody knew who his neighbour was.3 They are quiet little lads and I don’t think stupid

Cannot you invent some small stimulus to break the silent spell? I believe it is the second stage of civilisation there is the blurting out period, the silent one and that of reasonable speech

your affectionate
C M Yonge

1Polypodium, Maria Archer Houblon, was a member of the Gosling Society, of which Christabel Coleridge was the secretary.
2The phrase no doubt comes from the well-known parodies of Wordsworth etc. (James and Horatio Smith, Rejected Addresses, 1812). The Rev. Charles Alexander Johns ran a prep school at Winton House, Winchester, until his death in 1874; but was absent during the 1871 census, and it is possible that ill-health or some other reason had led to a scaling down of the school. Christabel's brother Ernest had perhaps hoped for his pupils.
3This refers to the questions in the church catechism about 'my duty towards my Neighbour'.

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/2438/to-christabel-rose-coleridge-71

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