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Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
14 May 1872

MS Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

My dear Elizabeth
I feel such a strong inclination to call you so and to think I have known you all your life that I do not think I shall balk myself at the risk of appearing to you both a gushing and impertinent old lady. NB – I have first read a letter from a contemporary – a year younger talking of her three great nieces also of gout and rheumaticism Isn’t that enough to make one feel venerable? But somehow I did feel to get on with you in a wonderful way. I think the deep spirit of veneration made on feel you like the dear ones I grew up with. I wished you had been here to read Mr Wither’s comment on hearing you were here ‘C Lincoln is a noble Bishop, I am glad you have one of his daughters under your roof’1 I also wanted you to be here to see a letter from Mr Codrington from Queensland, with the further particulars he had gathered, though he has not yet seen the two Mota men John and James.2 The first indication of the dreadful tetanus coming on with Mr Atkin was his sticking at a word while administering the Bread at that last Sunday Celebration, and then the Mota men knew what would follow![[footnote: Stephen’s whole behaviour was martyr like, always reading his Gospels and prayerbook in the intervals of the Convulsions. I found this copy of Mr Atkin’s letter printed in the N L [?]- I have another copy, so you need not return it.3 An Eton master – one of our many cousins has turned up as Mr Elgie’s substitute, so as I have not heard from you I am rather glad to conclude that your brother would not like it. Five girls, of whom two at least like parish work are a good look out for the schools.4

Yours affectionately
C M Young

1The former curate of Otterbourne, the Rev. William Bigg-Wither. ‘C.Lincoln’ would have been Bishop Wordsworth’s signature.
2CMY refers to the death of Bishop Patteson. His assistant the Rev. Robert Henry Codrington (1830-1922), refused the bishopric of Melanesia after his death but was head of the mission 1871-77.
3CMY's biography of Patteson records that between his being wounded and the tetanus coming on Atkin read her novel The Chaplet of Pearls.
4The Rev. John Eyre Yonge (1818-1890), first cousin to CMY, had six daughters, of whom one married in 1872. The Rev. Walter Francis Elgie (d.1881), curate of Otterbourne, was probably ill or on holiday.

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/2447/to-elizabeth-wordsworth-5

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