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[? November 1854]

MS location unknown. This fragment printed in Romanes, Appreciation 75

Mamma told you of the wonderful début of Violet.1 I only wonder whether she will thrive as well when the critics have set their claws on her; the home critics are very amusing in their variety and ‘characteristicalness’ (there’s a word!).

My Colonel correspondent complains of the babies2 . . . .Sir W. Heathcote says the will would not stand3; Judge Coleridge falls foul of the geography of the Lakes; and so on.4

Most people say they think others will like it as well as Guy, though they don’t themselves, and some few prefer it. It does want papa very much; but, then, he did set it going, and there is mamma to gloat over it.

1Her novel Heartsease, or, The Brother's Wife, which had just been published. A review in The Times (28 Dec 1854) 5, refers to its success.
2 The heroine of Heartsease gives birth to four children, and the dangers of childbirth are emphasised, though not so as to terrify a modern reader.
3In the novel Aunt Nesbit leaves her money in trust, the heir to be one of the grandsons of her nephew-in-law, Lord Martindale, when he shall inherit his grandfather's title. Such a trust would have infringed the perpetuities rule against remoteness of vesting.
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/3053/to-elizabeth-barnett-6

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