MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life pp. 312-313
Dearest Lizzie-
Here am I writing to you out upon the lawn under the pleasant shade of the berberis. There ought to be a nightingale singing, for one lives at the corner, but he is a lazy bird, and year after year always is nearly silent after the first fortnight, though yesterday I not only heard but saw his fellow singing with all his might in a young oak, making his tail and wings quiver.
I had your letter just as I was starting for Amport where Emily Awdry had asked me to come for her G.F.S. festival- a quiet little parish excellently worked, and it was a happy visit, though saddened by Mr. Chute’s death.1 I think you know all about that almost ideal family in their historical old home, the Vyne. He has had heart complaint for years, so it was not unexpected, but he went about and was a most helpful churchman. His family called him their Saintly Chaloner. He had just had the pleasure of his eldest boy getting into college at Eton with only his preparation. He is a very great loss. Mr. Brock still has heard nothing from Government about his father’s living, though as all Guernsey has begged for him, there seems no doubt that he will go, and he thinks he can deal with the people as no one can whom they do not already care for. It is an anxious time, but in the main we are in safe hands.2
My old frail house has had to be shored up and Gertrude had to be moved into the drawing-room, bed and all; she goes back today, but the déménagement will last for another week at least, and then I go to London for the G.F.S. week. After her last year’s experience I suppose Emma will not encounter it again this time. My old Harriet is to meet me there; she has been visiting her nieces, and there a great dog bit her; she was feeding it, and it thought she was going to take away its dish of water. It was only a graze, but it swelled so much that after ten days she can only just put her foot to the ground. She is on the whole much better.
I am glad to hear of the two more volumes of Essays; we have been reading the Blackwood ones, also that very striking ‘Pharaohs and Fellahs’.3 You will like C. Coleridge’s N. S. story, a German chivalrous one.
Your affectionate
C. M. YONGE.