MS Mrs Caroline Fairclough/1
My dear Miss Butler
I have just finished reading your two chapters1, for which I thank you very much. Geneva is particularly interesting. I am so glad you did not go to Ferney, I am so tired of visits there.2 One thing in the 14th Chapter I had rather leave out, namely the story of Rudolf von Erlach’s murder, which to those who do not know the rest of his history (of whom I am sorry to say I am one) seems merely a horrible story. How beautiful the Freibourg legend of the lime tree is, did you not long to compare it with the Greek soldier who died while announcing victory in the same way. Did you see in the last Quarterly a Karelian William Tell reversed, the son shooting the apple off the father’s head. It would add another to the myths that Keightley has traced in his pretty book and shewn to belong to so many different countries. I have been thinking of asking you whether from your Danish studies you could afford me any help in some of my Name fancying3, where the Northern names quite baffle me, I mean such as Gustaf and Olaf, Swend, &c. Hilda I cannot make out either, and we find it so often in combination Clotilda, Matilda, Brenhilda that I am sure it must be significant. If you could throw any light on these matters, I should be very much obliged to you. Thanks too for Elizth Woodville’s diary, but I am sorry to say that it has been proved to be one of those vraisemblable fabrications that are so provoking, I cannot lay my hand on the refutation of it, but I know it has been made long ago, and I remember being very sorry to give up the diary – though after all I do not suppose young ladies lived so wild a life, in her time, but more probably were very stiff and stately. Thank you for mentioning le philosophe sous les toits I must send for it as good French books certainly ought to be mentioned. This was recommended to me from another quarter the day before. I hope to meet Elizabeth Barnett4 next Monday at Dogmersfield whence probably the next proof of Aunt Louisa will be forwarded to you. She will just finish with the volume if I put in a chapter into each number, and this will be the best way, so as not to have an odd chapter left for the next, so she shall have the precedence in the choice of articles
yours sincerely
C M Yonge