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To Christabel Rose Coleridge
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Decr 1st [or 14?] [1883]

MS Mrs Clare Roels

My dear Christabel

Things change a good deal.- Before John went to America, he altered his will so as to make her tolerably dependent on Bernard, hoping thus to put a stop to it all and thinking it would keep the man on his good behaviour.1 Since that he offered £300 for her life if before June, Mr Adams found employment so as to secure a reasonable even if small income, £400 if she would live with one of her own friends but this was rejected. On Sunday poor May wrote to me in despair saying she was gone to stay with Miss Blatchford, it is said to be for a fortnight, but they don’t know what is meant to be the result. It is a strange matter altogether-! I got, about a fortnight ago- a sheet of the Miz Maze that had not had Press written upon it, with ‘Please Pass’ which I did, so I suppose they are finishing off. I have had one other list of names sent in, but I don’t think there has been time enough to know whether Carlyle is world famous.2 Do pray read Thring’s ‘Theory and Practice of teaching.’ It is the nicest book I have read for a long time. He says Genius is ‘infinite capacity for work, and infinite capacity for love’ the love giving power to reach the Spirit of what it observes

We had a fund evening at the Guildhall of Tableaux from Winchester history & legend- Queen Emma & the ploughshares. Such ploughshares with lamps inside. I am sorry for the man’s companion3 I expect something will rise in its stead I feel Florence is very bad4 I don’t know what to advise about dog homes

your affte
C M Yonge

1John Duke, 1st Lord Coleridge (1820-1894), was trying unsuccessfully to stop his daughter Mildred (1847-1929) from marrying Charles Warren Adams (1833-1903). Bernard was his eldest son (1851-1927). This affair, which was played out in a blaze of publicity, including a libel action, is discussed by Julia Courtney, in ‘Charlotte M. Yonge: A Novelist and her Readers’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1990. Adams accused Bernard Coleridge of libelling him by saying that he ‘ran away with a girl under age and that he led her an unhappy life after their marriage’; the case was reported in The Times (24 November 1884) 3e and commented on in a leader in the same issue, page 9e. The first Mrs Adams, whom he had married in 1861, had been Georgina Alethe Polson (b.1838), daughter of CMY’s first cousin Georgiana (Crawley) Polson and granddaughter of her godmother and aunt Charlotte (Yonge) Crawley, later Jones.
2'Name thirty world-famous authors (not living).' was one of the Spider Questions in MP (December 1883); the best answer was printed in MP (February 1884), 193.
3This sounds like a periodical, but has not been identified.
4Florence Wilford was mentally ill with depression.

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/2782/to-christabel-rose-coleridge-109

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