This life is not the Temple but the Gate
Where men secure of entrance watch and wait
Dear Mrs Trebeck
I am afraid this is too late but I cannot help sending it
yours sincerely
C M Yonge
They are the end of his sonnet in answer to ‘A life worth living[‘]
Dear Mrs Lange
I send you what the Author writes about Mental Purity and will tell the publisher what you say; though I am doubtful whether its publication as a leaflet can be managed
yours truly
C M Yonge
My dear Edmund,
Here is an entreaty I have had from Mary. I can’t worry the old Warden, and I don’t know what niece is with him.2 I don’t think there is much to see extra at New College, but would you send her a note to make it possible. I think one sees the Hall naturally, and there was not much in the Library to see, but I suppose William of Wykeham’s staff is only shewn by special favour
Your affec
C M Yonge
My dear Miss Merriman1
I am sorry to hear Mrs Sumner is laid up but I am sure it is a good thing that she should be obliged to take a little entire rest. The MSS went last week. I thought they would be easier to look over as proofs, and I wanted to have Christabel Coleridge while she is here. Mrs Matthew has asked me the last moment available for the report of the meeting, I begged her to avoid too many names to take up room. I go into Devon from the 7th to the 17th of June. I hope the proofs will come in good time.
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge
My dear Anna
I am only just in time to catch the post and thank you very much for the photographs. The outside of the house is charming, and Annie Moberly is venturing to ask if she might have one of them and of the group. She and Miss Price came out exactly like and she is like half her sisters. She would like them unmounted. I shall be very glad to see you when you make another attempt on the garden side, but I shall be out on Friday week probably on the Thursday and on the Friday
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge
My dear Lottie-
How are you getting on ; I am afraid there is not much change any way and that your hands are full.
I believe Helen is somewhere either in the Bay of Biscay or the Chops of the Channel; she sailed on the 18th, and in a nice cabin with her goldfinches, and after to-morrow I may have a telegram any day to say she is in the Thames.
Christabel talks of coming on the 7th or 8th; 1 will let you know when, as you might be able to come over and see them.
Poor Reggie has never been well since he went to St. Leonards; Alethea is going over to-morrow to see about him and bring him home.
Cordelia Steer was to come to her grandmother for good, as soon as she has fully recovered on the Blue Mountains from her fever. Charles and Ada are in their new house.
Fancy a girl writing to me for my autograph and saying she had got Lord Roberts, and hoped to get General Buller when she knew his address. I could not help telling her that I thought it very impertinent to worry a busy General about a young lady’s fashion of collection. I wonder if she will heed.-
Your affectionate
C. M. YONGE.
Mr. Hare’s recollections are very entertaining, brimful of Ghost Stories.
My dear C C
I shall be very glad to see you on the 7th or 8th, I trust you will find Helen here as her ship is due before the end of this week. She sailed on the 18th and was to take ten days –weather being good, and to look in at Cadiz and Lisbon on the way. She will be able to tell you about Ronda &c. You will find my good Bessie Pond just departing to be married at Hartlepool to her iron worker to whom she has been engaged these 5 years. May’s old Ellen is coming instead which is very good, but Rose does not mean to stay long after Easter as she wants to learn more of her work, and she is nearly too good for my work and wages- so I must look for a good superior under housemaids place for her and a good trainable girl, an easier thing to find. Have you got a circular from the Churchwoman asking help in subscriptions &c? I am afraid it is a bad sign of its success! By the by Wells Gardner sends me the acct of Chimes for the Mothers. Only 57 sold this year and 900 in hand. I never had a book that answered so ill, I fancy it is too Churchy. Miss Fin’s children come tomorrow, I hope it will do, but I don’t entirely trust it, and it is just when Mrs Jewel is gone off to nurse her sister & new baby, so they are all at 6s & 7s. I am glad ADI has something to do. Arthur Butler had it for some time – 1 I had a letter from Mrs Townsend asking about the Aunt Charlotte histories that Marcus Ward had, I wish people would not go bankrupt, it is very troublesome to their clients
My old cat has been in a gin and got a horrible paw Her son is a huge creature but not so agreeable as was expected, and Miss Fin’s pretty white May has been poisoned, also two Jewel cats (supposed)- I fancy eating poisoned rats
your affte
C M Yonge
My dear C C
The Kings of Scotland were Earls of Huntingdon from the time of St David, and sat in parliament as English peers down to John Baliol.
Newspaper history has been a good deal at fault. Miss Finlaison saw that Henry VII married a daughter of Edward III which might have been only a misprint, but that it went on to say that Lionel had no children and that the York claim came from Edmund, the 5th son.
The Jacobites struck up a protest for this Mary in Bavaria1, and the Board of Works was so foolish as to punish them by forbidding the wreath to Charles I on the 30th- as if it was his fault. Mary Morshead satisfied herself with a whispered protest, but made a lout take off his hat at the Proclamation- What a grand opening of Parliament! Mrs Burrows of Godalming is our Diocesan President the only one who did not refuse! She is a good spirited useful person. I could not go, having caught a fresh small cold. Mrs Chute is not well, and could only send a written address of parting.
Miss Finlaison has caught two pupils, an Irish widowers children, a delicate boy of 9 and a girl of three named Yvonne, also a nurse. I hope it will do, and the Scotch girl comes back on Monday having been snowed up, but poor Miss F has been doing without servants and having a woman who turned out half crazy and wholly untruthful and incapable and she is really nearly starved and quite weak, so she is here to be heartened up before the term begins- Margaret Roberts has translated a French story into Italian La Marchesa, and sent it to Miss Watkins, her friend at Chandlers Ford It is very easy Italian.
The Churchwoman has a nasty flippant leading article on the Bishops’ letter. I hope every body will scold. We really ought to keep it in order
your affte
C M Yonge
My dear C C
I had not read the Notes on Modern Thought and I don’t know what Prof Collins is, though looking at them in a hurry on your letter, I don’t like the looks of them. But would it be well for you and me, and perhaps Lady Frederick Bruce to remonstrate on the danger. I think GIB minds us, and I feel rather pledged to the ‘gates’ for Reason’s Why, which I have written on to 9 or 10 chapters and I think is wanted – if anyone reads the Churchwoman, I don’t so much mind Kg Charles his I think /the paper\ him exaggerated, and I never should belong to the White Rose in spite of Mary Morshead, though I do wish for the Memorial.1 It is funny to remember what a radical GIB was when she wrote ZigZag! I believe it was Hawarden. But she is under Mr Villiers now, and has a charming class of his school children. Are you sure Mrs Halliday is ill, we have heard nothing of it, and I expect it is the Russian scandal of Mrs George Yonge at Bishopstoke (whence by the by the Hallidays are departed into Somersetshire). She, poor thing, Mrs George Yonge is, I fear dying of complaint of the heart, and Lottie is there doing what she can for poor broken hearted George (her uncle)2 The direction is Stoke Lodge, Bishopstoke, Hants. She carried off books to write your article if she has time, which I doubt. I think it will end in her living there. We have had our Religious Inspection and my boys were perfectly senseless! Tomorrow is the girls, and we hope for better things, I believe boys brains between 10 and 12 turn to cricket &c.
It rained furiously all Saturday here, I am glad it did not in London. And the Navy came out beautifully – but it is only alas!
Did you hear of the little Dublin tramp whom a gentleman watched, laying down his only penny for a bunch of violets which he scattered over her name3
your affte
C M Yonge
