Dear Miss Medhurst,

Thank you for your kindness to Emmeline. I believe she is coming down here for a month to recruit if her brother can spare her. I hope it is only want of love, but her aunt is anxious because loss of voice was the beginning of illness with another aunt - a school mistress - who went into a decline and the thought of whom prevented us from pressing Emmeline to be ... continue reading

My dear Bath Brick

Skelton was poet laureat to Henry VIII & Rector of Diss in Norfolk. I am afraid he was not a very respectable person & I do not know his poems. Your ‘Tact’ is the chosen one this time

Yours very sincerely

Arachne

Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for the payment which comes pleasantly early this year.

My Spaniards and Moors are progressing, but I suppose I had better finish all before I send them, as if abridgement is needful it is better done on a whole than on a part.

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Christabel

Such a letter as yours is hard to answer usefully, though so far as sympathy goes I know it exactly, how distressing and humiliating it is too feel ones creatures go so far beyond one in goodness that they only condemn one to oneself, while other people take them for tokens of ones goodness and then the being religious intellectually rather than spiritually and the way in which unhappiness aggravates one’s temper, and ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Mr Wilson says that the 12th will suit him best, if we drive over early So will you let me know your train on the 11th and you shall be met at Winchester, I know I shall want to send there. By the by, perhaps I should tell you that Maurice is sent home with chickenpox, and probably the others will have it, but besides the probability that you have had ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I enclose the receipt with many thanks for the cheque, also for Bp Patteson and the loan of Islam.

When I can, I should like to add to Bp Patteson that the mission has learnt the manner of his death, and that it was the women who placed his body in the canoe and sent it out to meet the boat. I have not a copy left of Pioneers and Founders, so could you ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I send 4 chapters of the Story of the Moors I will send some more as soon as I have touched it up. I think you may reckon on 30 chapters - 22 are written and bring me to Peter the cruel, but the actual siege of Granada will take up a good deal of room

About the little French history, I went over and added to the sheets as far as I ... continue reading

My dear Mr Warden

Thank you much for your kind reply. I hope to appear with my maid by the train that reaches Oxford at 4.25, when I think I arrive just in time for chapel. I have just got a card for Mrs Talbot’s evening party that night.

I am afraid I cannot stay after Saturday as I am engaged to spend Sunday at the Deanery at St Pauls.

With all thanks and kind regards to ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

They have only sent me the first 19 columns of the French primer, which I had [illegible] and which only want a little correction of the [illegible]. What I want is the latter half which I know was once set up, but which has not been lengthened, as this earlier part has been

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

I am exceedingly puzzled. I am sure I wrote on to the end of the history of France, and that Mr Greene had it and wrote to me that it only came to 86 pp, and that I must make it longer. What can have become of the latter part? What did he go upon if he had it not in type to the end? Besides, I believe I had it in ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Should not the title be 'The Story of the Moors and Christians in Spain' A Story looks as if it were fiction

Yours truly C M Yonge

I shall send the proof tomorrow

Dear Mr Craik

I am afraid the last 3d of the Primer is lost. I will re write it after my outing. Happily it is only 40 pp at most - I hope waiting will not be troublesome. Here is another instalment of 'The Story of the Christians and Moors in Spain'

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

I send the end of the Story of the Christians and Moors. It makes 27 chapters, and I think more would outrun the limits besides the history of the poor Moriscos is so piteous that I do not like to go into it

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik Please send me a copy of the Dove in the Eagle’s Nest.

I have got some of the books I wanted for my article from a school inspector, but I am afraid my ideas are not much more definite than when I saw you as to what would be likely to be of use - as I fear there is no book on English education analogous to Mr Arnold’s on German and I ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan

I must send you my warmest thanks for the very noble life which you have sent me, which I am sure must leave a deep impression on all who read it. I think the letter at p 262 is one that cannot be read without peculiar admiration and reverence - as so entirely the antidote of the spirit of self help.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Christabel

This is very nice if the evidence about the alibi is quite clear enough, for I don’t see why old Bill’s evidence was not enough if the boy had been with him - but perhaps I did not understand that clearly. The only other thing that struck me was that perhaps the effect of this illness would be better in the story if you could make the first a little less ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I desired the proof of the first chapter of the Summer on the Apennines to be sent at once to you - If you are moving about perhaps the best way would be for you to send a card with your address early every months to the printers

Messrs Clay Bread Street Hill London EC

Will you have the payment every month or at the end of the half year, and how shall it be made

Yours truly C ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Cherry is very satisfactory. The only thing I was not prepared for was Roland’s death, and Dick’s keeping the property I expect he married Nettie after all, though it is quite right not to say so. I like the contrast between Cherry’s feelings in the two illnesses very much, it is rather those of the rest of the family that I thought in danger of repetition. Miss Seyton I think ... continue reading

Dear Mrs Johns,

So many thanks for the penwipers. They are exceedingly pretty, and will last long to be a pleasant remembrance. You will indeed miss your boys. When are you looking for a house? It will be a change from your beautiful garden.

I am going from home in a few days, so I am afraid I shall not see you before your move.

With many thanks Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

Will you let Miss Carter Smith as before order some of the Scripture Readings at the price to the trade.

I wish Clay would finish off that last volume. He always sends me a proof when I am busy. I send more copy. Then he stops for another 3 months. I have now finished within about 12 chapters, but I shall be in Devonshire after Tuesday for 6 weeks, however a letter here will ... continue reading

Dear Miss Palmer

I hope Lady Laura Hampton will not mind waiting a fortnight or so, for I am as you see in Devonshire and I can hardly manage to look at them till I come home, where they are waiting for me. I have however had a series of poems on the Collects in the Monthly Packet, and I hardly know how I could begin another.

I came here yesterday and found Mildred pretty well, but ... continue reading

Dear Mr Beck

I hear that the Warden and the Echeverias have safely reached Otterbourne.

Thank you very much for them

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Christabel

The Packet will be happy to take Cherry cut down when Heriot’s Choice is over. I am afraid it will last a long time – for I never can succeed in getting in two chapters of Heriot’s Choice- Our pupil teachers have had a paper sent in from Salisbury training college for religious examination, saying 2nd class – Alice Misselbrook 8, Harriet Godwin 18, but whether this means no from the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Thank you first for your answer about magazine rights. I am going to try the paper a little longer.

Next thanks for the account. I am very glad to know what I have to look to. I suppose scarcity of money tells more on the sale of books than anything else, but all things considered this is very good for the year 1878.

If I find that I want £100 or £150 in advance ... continue reading

My dear Miss Medhurst

I believe Emmelines engagement is an excellent one in every way except for the unfortunate matter of the man being a dissenter

He seems to be a very good man, a clerk, and of a station rather above, much given to good works. He has had to provide for a large family of brothers and sisters and is waiting to marry till they are off his hands. I don’t think one can object, ... continue reading

My dear Lizzie

Beatrice Morshead wrote to me on Saturday, so that I had her letter at the same time as yours. I had heard from Miss Bourne the day before this change. Beatrice's letter seemed as if there was a little more revival, and it seems now to be possible that there may be more vitality even now than we thought. But one cannot wish for aught but rest. There was something ... continue reading

My dear Florence

I am glad you finished your journey prosperously, and I hope you have brought home a store of strength for the winter and for the trials.

How one sometimes wishes that one's people may never have another worry, and yet I suppose it is all right! I have just lost my most good and wise friend Marianne Dyson. For more than a year she had been in so utterly feeble and broken ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Curteis

First I must tell you of what perhaps you have seen in the Guardian, my dear Miss Dyson’s death. She had been growing feebler and feebler for the last two years and had for months been wholly confined to bed, and unable to read even a letter, though she was constantly read to for the last fortnight she was almost unconscious, and slept herself away. She leaves a great blank behind her!

I ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

You must take care about the law of the thing for if Alvar has been subpoenad as a witness Cherry’s appearing would not save him from a terrible scrape. It could be only at the examination before a magistrate at first. The Spanish indifference to doing good to one’s neighbour might come out well I wonder whether he ever could come to be good for much I should like ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

I never thanked you for your last kind note- The loss out of ones life is very great, though the long weakness and inability to correspond had done much to break the habit of dependance for sympathy & confidence so that one can bear it better than if ‘her sun had gone down while it was yet day’.

I have been making efforts through Mr Awdry to get the Blue Bells taken by ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

Thank you very much for sending me this very severe review in the Academy. I feel annihilated, and if my old name does carry off this edition, I will gladly rewrite what calls for it. I really did not know that German criticism had overthrown so much of the old Spanish standard histories to which I trusted, especially for a mere epitome of the old Gothic kingdom, and as I did not want ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan

Very hearty thanks for your kind letter, I will thankfully correct my own careless blunders, of which I know three. I have sent to the London Library for one or two of the authorities but ‘Dahn’s great work’ is not there at all, unless it is more recent than my catalogue, and I don’t think I could properly understand it if I had it

I will keep to the old lines of the ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I wish I could promise a ready admittance to My English Servant into the Monthly Packet, but I am afraid that sending it to me would only involve an almost endless waiting. Some stories I have had by me for two years, and I think yours deserves a better fate, I wish the SPCK would take it, I can’t understand their principles, for I am sure there are two or three stories in ... continue reading

Miss Yonge would be obliged if Messrs Macmillan would send to

the Revd R Bigg Wither St Thomas’ Home Basingstoke

a copy of each of

The Heir of Redclyffe Heartsease The Daisy Chain The Trial Pillars of the House Scripture Readings with comment Pupils of St John

Dear Mr Craik

You were so kind as to say you would let me have an advance on account. I should be very glad if you would send me a cheque for £150

Yours truly C M Yonge

Gentlemen

I am much obliged for the draft for £10 received this morning as well as the copies of the Story of the Christians and Moors, which I am very glad to have in this cheap form. I am much obliged for your liberality in the matter, and

remain &c C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

One line to acknowledge the safe receipt of £150 on account with many thanks I don’t suppose you will receive this tomorrow but accept with it my best Christmas wishes

Yours truly C M Yonge