Amiable Beloved Can dear Eyes feel great hope in joy kindling lonely Margaretta’s notions of procuring quarters reposefully secure through united votes with xpressed youthful zeal - ?

The alphabet will not serve me to express that I never gave you the direction to the lady who will try to get votes for Miss Erle, and here it is. Mamma is very well and bright. The Chair is to be sent for to be inspected at home

your ... continue reading

Dear Mrs. Craik, Your note and enclosure have followed me to the home where I am staying a few days (in spite of the address on my paper). Many thanks for it.

I read with much interest the account of the Little Sisters in the Magazine. It is curious how they make their way with all kinds of people, even at Plymouth, the last place where I should have expected them to thrive.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Miss Yonge You shall have all the new matter in slips and the old sheets as they were so that the inserting may be all made at once when it is finally settled what these are to be. I have no doubt the result will be a very satisfactory volume of which we will be proud. Later down I hope you will get [illegible] your more modern volume.

In the meantime there is a small ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge Yesterday Mr Craik paid £200 into Hoare’s in your a/c. I hope my not telling you before will have caused you no [illegible]

I am very sorry you do not like the illustrations. It is now impossible to get fresh ones done, and pardon me saying I really like them. I hope you will get reconciled to them by and by

[Rest of letter indecipherable as is the one, dated 22 January 1868, that follows]

My dear Cousin, I write you a line: I have not time for more in addition to my other epistle, to tell you that I purpose to baptize, on Sunday next, eight Melanesian youths and one girl. You will, I know, thank God for this. Indeed I hope (though I say it with a kind of trembling and wonder) that a succession of scholars is now regularly established from the Banks Islands.

These nine are being closely ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, Your story is capital and I am very glad that the power of writing no longer seems to be crushed out of you. The only things I have to say are that I think a little guarding is wanted (which I would do in a note) to shew that part of it is playful since Church restoration is not altogether matter of taste, and some of the deformation was really luxury, family ... continue reading

Dear Madam, There is nothing more difficult than to get a translation especially a French translation taken. I know Madame Therèse and a very pretty book it is, but I should think most of the persons who could appreciate it could read it in French. The story now being translated in the Monthly Packet has long been out of print and was little known in England. I do not I confess see much hope at present, ... continue reading

My dear Christabel I am sorry not to have written to you before, but I could not get time before. It does seem to me good time for a story again, but do you not think the Proverb foundation has been rather much worked and could not the subject be proposed in some other way. For instance suppose they were set to Write a story shewing the difference between Romance and Sentiment Only that cuts up ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, How do you like the enclosed pages & title page? Will you kindly consult Miss Sewell, the first title was her suggestion. I am [illegible] home at the [illegible]

Yours very truly A. Macmillan

Dear Miss Yonge, You shall see your proposed title which I think an improvement.Readings has been used already.

I conclude that you

[rest of letter indecipherable]

Dear Miss Yonge,

How do you like the enclosed title page? If it suits your idea I am well pleased with it.

Yours very faithfully A. Macmillan

Dear Miss Yonge, We shall soon be out with the Cameos. It has occurred to me that we ought to put the period over which the narratives extend, on the title page. Will you kindly add it to the enclosed proof.

Yours very truly A. Macmillan

Dear Miss Yonge, Don’t you think that an Index and some chronological tables would be of similar use to the Cameos? If you agree with me I can get them done. The printer is making a table of contents of which you shall see a proof.

I enclose a letter about the terrible story(?). But I think the Little Duke has been close and [rest of paragraph indecipherable]

I hope you like the gilt-edged copy of the ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, We sent the 11 copies to make your dozen by rail the same day that the single copy was sent you by post Feb:27. I have seen in the parcels book the signature of the clerk at the Golden Cross booking office. I have sent down to enquire about it. Perhaps you could enquire at your end. The address was quite clear Elderfield Otterbourne Winchester I am sending you a copy of the ... continue reading

Dear Madam,

I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long for an answer about Lady Beatrix, but first I was unhinged by a long influenza, and then a great Sorrow has engrossed me, and left me little time for letter writing.

I like the journal very much in its gentle tone_

I only think in revising it, it will need a little condensing - and one or two things struck me. I do not think Scots ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, I have sent on to Miss Sewell Mr Pearson’s book. Could you tell me how much - how many pages - you want to use. I think I may have an opportunity of seeing him soon. He is not likely to refuse.

The story of the Hermits(?) is really wonderful. I cannot tell you how that of Anthony [illegible] me. What moral pictures there must have been there.

I am urging the printers to ... continue reading

My dear Miss Dampier, I am sorry to do no more than leave the parcel but we have to be at home in time to take Mrs Halliday to meet the train, so I can only deposit this at your door. I am much better thank you, and the nightingales have begun to sing in hearing from the house though not as near as they sometimes are. I enclose the 1/6 for Montrose.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Miss Yonge, I enclose the monthly cheque with best remembrances.

I hope the Cameos will get out by & by. The volume proves thinner than I had expected and I am making calculations as to price. This first edition at 4/6 or even 5/- will not yield much. Are you disposed to sell us the copy right?

Yours very faithfully A. Macmillan

Dear Miss Yonge, We will give you the £200 for the copyright of the Cameos. It is a rather full sum but the book is of a kind we like to possess. Some day we will get a series of actual Cameos engraved for it. But in the mean time we contract [illegible] with one for the title page & one for the cover. I think you will certainly like the look of the book.

We send ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Thank you much for your kind answer. The second set of cameos is nearly all written, but the Monthly Packet must have the first turn of them and that will take a good while - about a year at shortest.

I am afraid you think me very idle about the Worthies. The truth is that my Mother has grown so infirm of late that I have less time than usual, and that time I ... continue reading

My dear Florence, You wrote just in time for the pattern. I am going to send it tomorrow. There are five stitches between the outsides of each medallion and five rows of red beyond them at the top and bottom.

I am glad you have brought back your invalid safe and better and I wish you could speak better of your eldest sister. Is Mrs Cristall pretty well again. Yes, I was at Oxford. I think that ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan We are rather disturbed at the delay in printing the Historical Selections as Miss Sewell cannot do any corrections after the end of June, and as she has all the books and has looked out all the selections I could not supply her place.

I suppose the printers are postponing it to something more interesting, but if they cannot go on at once and finish at the end of June it would be convenient ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Miss Sewell is in want of a volume of Milmans Latin Christianity which the London Library does not send. She will write to you which it is and perhaps you could kindly cause it to be sent to her. I cant think what Clay meant by our delaying the proofs for we had never done so.

I have never had any of Heartsease to put the headings to the pages.

Yours sincerely C M ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge, I send you the first copy of the Cameos which has been bound. It has been delayed about that title page, in which I wanted to produce a cameo effect, [illegible] that may be. The book I am sure is a charming book and we tried to give it an adequate dress.

I think Clay is making better progress with the Selections. Miss Sewell seems satisfied. I have never I think spoken of ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan Thanks for the cheque and for the proposal about the Historical selections. I am sending it on to Miss Sewell to see whether she consents, it is what I myself should prefer, thinking joint accounts would be troublesome. The Cameo looks exceedingly well and gives an uncommon appearance. I should like a copy to be sent to the Dean of Chichester and one to Madame de Witt. To other friends I think ... continue reading

My dear Edith It is indeed a great treat to have had a note from you again. I always feel as if my grand setting to rights when you ought to have been resting in peace was one of the drops that assisted in making your bucket overflow Friday seems to me to have been a day that in the rudest health might be felt to be like air to a fish, but how kind the ... continue reading

My dear Edith, The Gates of Paradise came this morning and a very pretty little book they make. I don’t think one would guess the drawing had been finished in bed! I wish I could come and see you, and thank you for them but Mamma has to take a drive every day and is not fit to get out of the carriage so that I can only take her within moderate distances, and we see ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, I shall certainly be here between 3& 5 on Friday, unless something quite unforeseen falls out, and be very glad to see you.

Yours very faithfully A. Macmillan

My dear Miss Sewell, I was so hurried that I could not go to Macmillan yesterday so I am writing.

I have done the notes - the Joyeuse Garde beats both Mary Coleridge and me, we both thought it a real castle on the Seine - and never heard of its being an Order.

Michaud’s Histoire de Croisades has almost exactly the same about Simeon & his persecutions as Milman, and I dont know where to find more ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, I was from home when your note about Index & Miss Sewell’s suggestion of a chronological table came to hand. But I have not been neglecting the suggestion. We are having a set of proofs made & shall put them into the hands of a competent person and submit the proofs to you.

With regard to announcing volume 3 [Next few lines illegible] the printers want something to do [illegible] and long and ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here are the answers but I really have no time to do their Cackle. The two months holidays come now, and would you kindly tell the brood that I think they had better not send me any questions after the holidays till I tell them. I hope by no means to give up Goosedom in the end, but Mamma is so sadly failing that I must for the present drop all unnecessary claims ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith Thanks for the Exhibition - which is full of interest. I wish there was any chance of my seeing it. I like most of what you have said much, though I do not agree with your deprecation of Dr Hook’s character of Edward VI, for certainly his own journal does not bear out the praises bestowed on him, and it was rather forward to say the least of it in a mere ... continue reading

He has been with me for some years, always good and amiable; but too good-natured, too weak, so that he did not take a distinct line with his people. He is a person of some consequence in his neighbourhood. Now he gives all the proofs that can well be given of real sincerity. He wonders himself, as he contrasts his present with his former thoughts. I feel, humanly speaking, quite convinced that he is thoroughly ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Valentine, I have got my Armada story home, and on looking over it, I think it will answer your purpose very well, but I must copy it out again to take out the real names and to improve it. I suppose about 70 or 80pp of the size of the specimen I send which is the first chapter.

Please return it, when you have glanced over it, and tell me if it will do. ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, I am afraid I have been guilty of a misunderstanding, and of leading Miss Sewell into one, but I thought we were to have £200 for the copyright of the Historical Selections, and I must say I think it is hardly compensation for all the trouble it has given. Miss Sewell has connection enough to secure it a good sale as a school book and we should be quite willing to take ... continue reading

My dear Edith It is very good in you to have written me that kind little note, and I am very glad you have made those steps forward. May you meet some beneficial breezes at Malvern, and may you have a window with a view where you can watch the clouds. I wish I could have come to see you, but I can do very little now but watch, though we still have our drives and ... continue reading

Dear Miss North, I hope the translation of 'Mulhause' is ready as this is the time at which it ought to be sent to the printers. I hope you were thanked for the Hints on Reading but my time is much taken up at present by my mother’s infirm state, and a friend who was staying here wrote for me. I think if possible it would be best to avoid French idioms in English

Yours sincerely C ... continue reading

My dear Duke Thank you for your very kind letter, which has been a great pleasure to me and will be so to think of. Though every one of our friends is so kind one’s own people that all one’s life is mixed up with are so much more to one. I think that the expectation of the Consecration must have been exciting Mamma more than we knew for weeks before, she so often fancied ... continue reading

Dear Miss Finchcliffe, I am very glad to have seen Edith Crawley’s letter which I return with many thanks. I had proposed the Irishwoman to Mrs Gray for the Cape ladies, and she had rejected her, but perhaps they know their own plans best. I am glad that another and elder lady has been added to them for someone to take the command was much wanted.

I am glad that dear Miss Mackenzie is so much better, ... continue reading

My dear Mr Craik, I am dismayed at what I never found out till the Saturday Review called my attention to it - ie that the Cameo about the conquest of Wales was left out.

Such a Cameo there was written, it is at Vol IV p. 6 of the Monthly Packet, but it must have been neglected when I was collecting the Cameos and the printing was done so very slowly that I lost the connection, ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik I send the lacking Cameo. I have found things needing correction in three sheets of the Chaplet of Pearls, and I am searching for a sentence that I know was spoilt for want of a not - but the whereabouts of which I can in no wise as yet discover. If I do not find it before tomorrow’s post, I shall send the sheets to you which I have corrected for you to ... continue reading

My dear Edith I am so glad to have heard from you though I wish I could hear that Malvern was invigorating you, to say nothing of Dr Gully. Miss Dyson is the niece of my friend; I have only once seen her. She, ie Miss Dyson of Malvern is the daughter [of] old Mr Frank Dyson of Tidworth whose name I think you must know and do not take it as a bad omen, has ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, The mistakes about Walsingham & Sidney had perhaps better be mentioned in the preface to disarm the critics, and that unlucky Amen must be made an erratum it is so ridiculous in its present position.

Would you notify this to Clay, as I do not know the page.

What do you say to the story of Indian Life I sent you? If you cannot do any thing with it, please write to me before ... continue reading

My dear Mrs. Moberly,

Thank you for your kind, sweet, cheering note. It does seem to me truly that it is the burden of the flesh she is freed from, so entirely labour and weariness had the mere act of living been to her for months past; but with what sweet smiles! I am glad your dear Alice so thoroughly shared the peacefulness of the earlier watch, as well as that last trying day, which I ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I am obliged for the cheque which came safely this morning.

My dear Mother died on Monday, the end coming much more suddenly than we had expected - and very mercifully to close the long course of feebleness of mind and body.

I do not think that I shall be able to do much steady work for some weeks to come, but after that, I hope to return to regular ways

Yours truly C M Yonge

I add one line, my dear Cousin, to assure you of my prayers being offered for you, now more especially when a heavy trial is upon you and a deep sorrow awaiting you. May God comfort and bless you! Perhaps the full experience of such anxiety and the pressure of a constant weight may, in His good Providence, qualify you more than ever to help others by words put into your mouth out of your ... continue reading

My dear Miss Jacob I am afraid you will be vexing yourself at having written to me, but indeed there is no cause, I was quite able to read and thank for it. The sad decay of the recent months makes me thankful that the painful struggle is ended, and the thread has been rather slowly untwisted than rent violently out of my life.

Your aunt’s sufferings have been far more acute, but Rest has come to ... continue reading

My dear Marianne Things have gone on well and quietly; I only wonder what I am that I seem to have no breakdown in me, but cannot help feeling for ever that the ‘Ephphatha is sung’when I think of the frowning look with which she would try to make us understand her, and that struggle to say words of praise, ‘glorify’ so often coming. You cannot think how her work, the illuminated ‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’ and ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Thank you for your kind note and expressions of sympathy. It is the beginning of a lonely life to me, but I have my brother’s house very near, and full of kindness.

I write now about that unfortunate Cameo which was missed out. The proof of it came to me first numbered XXXVI, which is its proper place, but the revise is XLII, so as to make it seem as if it belonged ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns Thank you warmly for your kind note. I can see that both as daughter and as mother you have more than a common fellow feeling for the sorrow. In fact, I think the present loss is softened by the long weaning as it were which the slow dimming of the faculties led to, with quite as much affection and clings, but without the power of response - and latterly the weariness of ... continue reading

My dear Caroline It did indeed seem to be bringing sorrow upon sorrow when that account came of your dear father, and one recollected all that he was to us in 1854, and indeed ever since, and the accounts since have been a great cheer. It is strange that scarcely any of our own specially near and dear friends who were round us fourteen years ago were either left or at hand, Dr. Moberly even out ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, Thank you for your kind, warm hearted letter. I know you too know what a great grief is, and how close one clings to the last surviving parent, and the sense of being still a child at home. May you long preserve that blessing.

I should be very lonely but that my brother and his wife are only a garden’s length from me, and most kind, and just at present I have a ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan The lack of a tiger is serious. I mourned it as I read, and yet I thought it shewed some strength of mind to have avoided any ordinary ingredients of excitement. And when we were reading many books aloud, I certainly found this answer better than many with a more direct selling element did, and the freshness of descriptions to me compensated for want of incident. Will you kindly direct it to [[person:1437]Mrs ... continue reading

Anne and I were pleased to have a sight of Emily; there is more change in the latter than in the former in the fourteen years since they met. I hope you will not have to part with the Chester division of the family much before Christmas. Perhaps if you do not join them there very soon after they go, you would let me come to you for a little while. . . I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Sewell I think you will like to see what the Literary Churchman says of our performance but please return it

yours sincerely C M Yonge

Do you know anyone who would like one of these photos I am selling them towards the school at Eastleigh

Dear Mr Macmillan The enclosed rather puzzles me, for I thought it was settled that sheets of the Chaplet of Pearls were to be forwarded to Mr Franke as they were ready for the Magazine?

Will you kindly see if this has been done?

Please send me back Wooed and Won. I must try what I can do with it.

Are you reprinting Kingsley’s Heroes. We tried for both them and Miss Keary’s heroes of Asgard for my ... continue reading

[Character of Anne Yonge] So unselfish as to have no will of her own - strong opinions, kept under great check & reserve - A great sense of subordination and an infinite kindness and charity, taking up small disregarded offices. A great power of effectiveness, though want of method makes her do less than might be. True but reserved. Very strong & deep affections, without much demonstration, prone to tormenting herself. Very attractive in her whole ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan A proof of the history of St Louis, I suppose M. Guizot’s has come here, but I do not know the why or wherefore. Is it a mistake?

Mrs Valentine (Mr Warne’s reader) says they do not know anything of having had 'Wooed and Won' sent in. Perhaps you would kindly ask whoever was your messenger to whom he gave it

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Would you kindly have both the Cameos and Historical Selections ... continue reading

My dear Mr Moor, We are so very much concerned to hear of Mrs Moor’s illness, of which we were not at all aware till Saturday.

I would not trouble you now, but that I should be so very glad if you found it convenient to trust us with Selina and Philip. Mr Wither (who is obliged to go to Winchester today) desires me to say he would be very glad to have them and their maid ... continue reading

My dear Mr. Butler Thanks. I wish I felt more worthy of being an Exterior Sister, but I am thankful to be joined to what is good, though I do not think you would care to have me if you knew how I ‘shrink when hard service must be done,’ and what a spoilt child I have been ever since I grew up, very nearly useless in anything practical. But I will constantly use the prayer, ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Thank you much for Giftie. She looks very pretty and I like her picture. Yes, we will, if we can, have a Christmas Barnacle. I have one capitally illustrated paper for it already from Sparrow Hawk.

Shall we send out the Questions for December, or January, I mean shall they go New Years day, or the month before?

I think we are to have a new Gosling -

Emma Butler Wantage Vicarage Berks.

Would you send her the rules, ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Harrison, I begin to fear that ‘Katharine Charlotte’’s photograph could not have taken effect, but you see I send her (or you) one of her godmother - It was done by one of my cousins, and if any of the kind friends at Whitburn care to have the like, we are selling them for a shilling apiece, our mercenary spirit being roused by the desire to build a school for the new Church ... continue reading

My dear Miss Warren, I am quite inclined to believe the Cambridge examinations to be a very good thing. I should have been very glad of them to work for when I was young enough. I hope it may occupy the clever young ladies [the rest missing]

Many many thanks for your most kind letter, and for telling me of the happy prospect before Dora . . . I have asked Mrs. Wilson to send on to you a letter of Bishop Patteson’s, which I think you will feel refreshed by reading; please send it on to Miss Anne Mackenzie. You are so very kind, and it would be very delightful to make one in the migration; but I have only seen ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here is another Gosling for us, and I should think a good one. She is a granddaughter of Dr Arnold her father being Mr T Arnold, and Frances Peard knows her well, which is almost equivalent to an introduction to a [sic turn of page] I send you her letter that you may see the nature of the bird and also consider of the Guernsey goose. I think we had better have her ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Many, many thanks[.] the birthday for which the Heroes were wanted comes tomorrow, so nothing can be more convenient. The Lances look very well

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Christabel Thank you and Edith for taking the Bandits’ Bride, I hope your collections will prosper. We have £163, and want £700 if we build a masters house, £400 if we content ourselves with a school

Have you written to Miss Arnold, or shall I accepting Miss Clarke I find Grace Latham has not time, so perhaps we had better accept Miss Budd and Miss Llewellyn. Scotland has sunk away from us, so I suppose ... continue reading

My dear Cousin, I must write you a few lines, not as yet in answer to your very interesting letter about Mr. Keble and about Ritualism, &c., but about our great event of yesterday.

George Sarawia was ordained Deacon in our little chapel, in the presence of fifty-five Melanesians and a few Norfolk Islanders. With him Charles Bice, a very excellent man from St. Augustine’s, was ordained Deacon also. He has uncommon gifts of making himself thoroughly ... continue reading