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To Christabel Rose Coleridge
Elderfield
May 28th [1887]

MS Mrs Clare Roels/67

My dear Christabel

I never did expect the debate in time for June, only we should have had a question.1 It may be as well to reserve those two letters in case of need for August. I fancied you knew that Annie Cazenove is the Muffin man I think she is one of the very best and most selfdevoted people in the world, but she had the disadvantage of being the only one in her immediate family with much of a soul, and she has had to make hers2 She believes in her own doings with a bonhommie [sic] that is quite comical and shocks one till one sees how admirably [she] takes a snubbing I am sure I have laughed at her and snubbed her till I have been quite ashamed, and she has only been like the man in the Irish fairy tale who said Roast me harder

To ‘bustle up’ people /as she calls it\ is one of her missions! Lady Brabazon is a heroine of hers, and is apt to overdo herself.3 Here is an elucidatory motto to be kept for the subject from BonnyboroughWhen I’m to work in carness I can’t stop to hand over no helpins [illegible faint] – I should fly to pieces if I did’ What a pretty book it is! I expect the June no will be out on Saturday, so it is of no use to send up anything for it. If I was Edith, my flesh would quail at the Chaos awaiting her. I hope your horse to the water won’t be a love matter for they are much inclined to take that line3

your affec
C M Yonge

1In the May 1886 issue of MP a letter from Coleridge signed 'Chelsea China' inaugurated a forum for discussion called 'Debatable Ground' which ran until 1890. The June 1887 issue has no question for debate, but an invitation to correspondents to send in any supplementary remarks they may have.
2CMY used this expression to mean devoted to causes, see her Modern Broods, 288.
3Lady Mary Jane Maitland (1847-1918) married (1868) Reginald, Lord Brabazon (1841-1929) who succeeded his father (1887) as 12th Earl of Meath. An article in MP 1885 (2): 290 describes CMY opening the Brabazon Home of Comfort, an institution paid for by Brabazon and set up by Annie Cazenove.
3It was CMY's custom to use a proverb as a theme for the stories in the Christmas number of MP, and in 1886 it was 'One man can bring a horse to the water, but ten cannot make him drink'. Coleridge contributed a story called 'Diamond cut diamond'.


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/2859/to-christabel-rose-coleridge-115

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