My dear Mrs Mercier I tried to get your questions answered by sending them to Miss Bramston, the Dean’s daughter, but unluckily female education at Winchester received a blow when Mr & Mrs Awdry went to Hurstpierpoint - and Mrs Johns, the only other lady who really cared, fell ill. The getting lecturers down needs some energy and there is no one to do it now.

I send you Miss Bramston’s note and that from [[person:1902]Mrs ... continue reading

J.F.O. slept here last night to assist at the opening of Mr. Randall's church at Clifton, to which we have been this morning. The Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Moberly, preached most beautifully about the Shadow and the Image. Mr. Skinner is also here for it. . . Those who stayed for the luncheon are full of enthusiasm, and say it was most successful, and that the two Bishops spoke ... continue reading

There is a full detail of all that is known in a letter from Mr. Brooke in the new number of Mission Life . . . both bring out more of the pain and grief than the first, which rests on one like a vision of the crystal sea and the palm. But the sweet smile bears one on through it all. I go to Lichfield on Monday; ... continue reading

My dear Christabel I did not mean to admit another Gosling but an old promise has come up to Beatrice Morshead, Bog Oak’s sister, who like her abides at Wiverton Plympton. She is a very nice girl but I don’t think will prove as brilliant as Bog Oak was. Will you tell Cherry to send her questions – if it be Cherry’s turn. I have had none from her yet, and I can ... continue reading

My dear Sir William- Your letter has come on to me here. I came on Monday to be instructed respecting Bishop Patteson's life, which I am to try to draw up from the very full materials that his family and Bishop Selwyn can provide. I hope to return on Saturday.

Thank you for letting me see Mr. Faithfull's decision; I think he is wise to give his name, and so obtain the subscriptions of all his friends. ... continue reading

My dear William I have to thank you for some game which gives me an opportunity of writing to you. I have thought much of your concern for Lord Carnarvon’s illness, which must have been great; I felt no little interest in it myself, as he is too good a man to be spared. I was the more alarmed from recollecting how few of his family have lived to be old : now ... continue reading

I am going to Lichfield from Monday to Saturday of next week - to talk and look over letters of our noble martyr with the Selwyns. I believe I am to manage the putting his life together but it will be more editing than writing. I seem to have thought of nothing but the wonderful symbolism of the work of those unconscious savages.

Your affectionate C M Yonge

My dear Sir William, Many warm thanks for sending me Mr Austen Leigh’s kind comment on the Daisies. I believe I enjoyed them most, which is the best way to make a thing prosper. I am afraid the moral is not good but I have always found that what one likes best one does best. As to the crayfish, I did not know that they were so local, having always associated them with rivers and ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here are the answers please to set on the next questioner. Is it Polypodium whom I think a very good one with plenty of stuff in her. I am sorry you have not caught any pupils I thought you would have had Mr Johns’s rejected addresses.

I am having new school experiences, having taken half an hour twice a week of our boys’ school, which somehow had got a good deal ... continue reading

My dear Charlotte I had written one letter to you today when your other came by the second post and I just stopped it. I am writing to Mrs Johns to desire her to put these Carters into communication with you. I believe the Bishop of Victoria is not much of a Churchman. On the whole I think governesses are much more inclined to height than depth in the present day. [[person:2279]Mrs ... continue reading

My dear Mary, How well George Harris seems to be going on. It is a great relief even if it be only a present rally, and rest and summer may do much for him. I hear he is eating oysters and much enjoying them. I hear that the Mr Merton Smith who is coming to Plympton St Mary is an excellent person not a Wantage Curate, but a neighbour. I do not ... continue reading

My dear Miss Sewell, Will not this do? The M.S is come?

Hoping for you on the 25th

Yours affectionately C M Yonge

My dear Sir William Would you be so kind as to look at page 9 of the 'Gleanings' at the beginning of the Musings on the Christian Year, and tell me whether you have any recollection of telling Mr. Keble anything about your opinion of King Charles's truth?

There is a new edition called for, and Miss Dyson wants me to take it out. Her letter coming while I was at Salisbury, I asked whether it ... continue reading

My dear Sir William Thank you greatly, I thought just as you do that it was rather a needless question since I was quite sure of the fact of what Mr. Keble said to me, and I should not have asked you if it had been any one else who advised me, but having asked him it seemed wrong not to do just what he told me.

Miss Dyson is a devoted lover of King Charles, and ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Beck Thank you much for your kind invitation. I am sorry to say that Saturday is a day I never can go out as I have Church decoration always more or less on my hands that day. – Poor Gertrude has rather a bad time just now, her leg has been very painful

Yours very sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Cousin Thank you for your note. The character you give dear Coley is I think almost exactly what Bishop Abraham, [in] the papers in St Luke’s Magazine, and his own letters, have been helping me to trace, but I am very glad of your confirmation of it. Can you remember anything about his giving a seal to Bishop Selwyn when he came to take leave at Eton before his first going out. ... continue reading

My dear Marianne, It seems a long time since I have written - in fact Miss Wordsworth hardly let me do anything for talking. I have not taken to a person so much for a great while past; she is so good and so sensible, and, what I was far from expecting, so funny, and her fervent love and devotion to her father are so very charming, and her last evening she made such ... continue reading

My dear Mr Argles I am so glad to hear there is a chance of seeing you and your daughter. I wish I could ask you to stay but my abode is small and is at this moment full. I hope we shall see you at luncheon which is naturally at two. The only time I must ask you to avoid is between three and six on Thursday when I must go to a lecture on ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

I think if you told Warne that you had had an offer from Smith and Elder he would be sure to take your story. The stupid man has just refused Florence Wilford’s dominie and ought to be scarified. I shall have Joanna and Fanny Patteson with me on the 20th, and it is also the time of one of the lectures, so it will depend on a good many things ... continue reading

My dear Lord Bishop, I had been thinking of writing to you, if I could not meet you for some time past and the being asked to send you this card gives an impulse. I wanted to ask you whether you published - or have any record of a sermon which you preached at Eton on the 31st of October 1841, when Bishop Selwyn was taking leave for the first time. I am doing my ... continue reading

My dear Christabel I like this very much and Gruet is a very satisfactory Eagle. It is much more satisfactory to reform Ruprecht instead of demolishing him- The land of romance too is a satisfactory variety. There is one fairy land play – also a story from Gibraltar and one from Ascension isle and one from Mme de Witt about a poor girl left in charge of her sisters children while their parents ... continue reading

My dear Miss Curteis Your queries shall go in next time but is your Eagle & Goose story ready. If it is I should be thank [sic] to have it next week, as I am going from home, and I meant to get the number made complete before I go. I direct this to Leasams as Exmouth seems too large to find a stranger without further address.

I am dismayed to find that I have lost your ... continue reading

My dear Mr Freeman If the Scotsman is prunable, it will be a great relief to Miss Roberts and myself. If we do it at all it will be on the Cameo plan, with a table of contemporary Princes of the Empire at the head of each section. To divide by Emperors’ reigns any time between Frederick II and Maximilian would bring one to the verge of distraction. But I suspect our plan would make us ... continue reading

My dear Mr Freeman I am not sure whether it be you or Macmillan whom I have to thank for the masterly little compendium that makes your introductory volume. It is a great comfort to be so helped along the line of the Holy Roman Empire. I dare say you know those quaint old books - I have seen two different ones - that give portraits of all the Emperors in succession from Constantine to the ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Your Face seems to me very effective, I long to hear more of it. I suppose it will not be like the Face story I heard of, which has a terrible ending. I hope you will go on and get me out of the eerieness it gives me. Thanks for the promise of Handley Mills [sic], I shall be so glad of it, for poor Gertrude’s reading, she is so ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here are the Answers All to one question! I have read Hanbury Mills once to myself and am now reading it to poor Gertrude who enjoys it exceedingly – I like it very much indeed – there is so much character in the three degrees of refusement, and all the people seem to me very successful- Wilfred and Frank especially & Mrs Bridgewater and Joe. By the by in 108 & ... continue reading

Miss Yonge sends up a parcel of books for which she will be obliged if Messrs Reeves & Turner will send her an order as before

My dear Christabel York and Lancaster Rose has gone- one half to school- and the other has grown too busy, so it resigns, and I have accepted a

Miss Alice Poole Uffington Farrington

She is sister to a governess I like very much –

Hanbury Mills was an immense pleasure to Gertrude. She and Frances have both bought one. I think Linda is true, but as you say, it was not possible to bring her out more. ... continue reading

Dear Mr Richmond Could you and would you do me a great kindness? The charge of writing my cousin Bishop Patteson’s life has been given to me and I feel that a personal description of him as he was when he left England is much wanted. I do not recollect his appearance distinctly enough to judge between hearsays and it would be a great boon if you could set down for me what you ... continue reading

Dear Miss Medhurst I like your New Year’s Eve poem, but I ought to have had it long ago.

If you have not disposed of it otherwise, will you send it to me next October for December of 1873.

I believe Mrs Mercier has put a little pupil of mine under your care as member of the Guild Emmeline Spratt. She is a really good girl I believe, and very affectionate but I should not wonder if ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here is the pay for Minne’s Knight, with many thanks. I conclude you are at home. You will see proposals for a monstrous Goose affair in the next packet, but I shall get help in the selection of the essays. I hope you will do the Snow and Sun next year

Who asks our question next? I should think Hanbury Mills must be a great success, every body seems to ... continue reading

Dear Miss Medhurst Thank you for your kindness to Emmeline, she is an affectionate girl and has a refinement about her that makes her pleasant to have to do with. Her brother with whom she lives was one of the College choristers at Winchester and had a good education there, so I hope she is in good hands, but a little notice and sympathy will be a great help in the great plunge it must ... continue reading