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To Margaret Wilcox
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
June 7th 1882

MS Princeton University, Parrish Collection

My dear Margaret

So many thanks for sending me Miss Smedley.1 I had a good deal of her in the Readers, but I shall borrow more now.2 I wish her verses had been more known but I think they will grow into part of the common stock of knowledge of poetry in our youth. I sincerely rejoice at your brother’s appointment not only is it good for him, but what a load it takes from your shoulders which are used indeed to bearing family burthens.3 I filled in the address of your letter and I hope Canon Bright’s poems arrived all right

Mrs Langton Clarke’s death is a terrible blow4 There was something so bright and charming about her, which left a long impression though I have seen so little of her. I should think it must greatly dim the brightness of Whitburn for years to come though there will be every help that kindness can give, but poor Mr Clarke with his weak health has so depended upon her that I cant [sic] think how he will every hold up his head

Yours affectionately
C.M. Yonge

1Menella Bute Smedley, Lays and Ballads from English History (1850).
2Between 1881 and 1888 CMY edited a series of history readers, English History Reading Books (1881-1883). At the time of this letter she was also working on another textbook for the National Society, Historical Ballads (1882).
3Of her several brothers the one most likely to be referred to here was the much younger Ernest Shepley Wilcox, who was a widowed civil engineer living with her and his children in the 1881 census, but had remarried by 1891.
4Frances Mary Clarke (1835/6-1882), the wife of the Rev. James Langton Clarke (b.1833/4), curate of Whitburn, was born at Whitburn, and was perhaps related to CMY’s friends Thomas and Sophia (Collinson) Harrison, friends and neighbours of Margaret Wilcox.

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/2751/to-margaret-wilcox

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