Dear Madam,

I must apologise most heartily. The fact was, I had sent off your second M S to be printed and foolishly had not set down your address. So when those letters came I searched my memory, and made this strange blunder, I dont know how, except that our vicar being gone away to be married there has been such a whirl of parish work that it has confused my senses, I think.

However I ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

I heard of both your troubles from Mary Lund, Miss Finlaison’s scholar whose brother is with Ernest, but I much doubted where you were. I dare say your coming home made a change that was good and refreshing to all. It was sad indeed to lose this second boy, after all the sorrow for the first I hope the little girl is strong.

The Squire has spread happily into three volumes. ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I am much obliged for the loan of these two books. I have the Queens of England but not the Queens of Scotland, and the little book about Northamptonshire told me just what I wanted

With many thanks Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Mr Warburton

I am glad you are coming to us, and hope you will come to luncheon. I trust we shall have all things in right order but to have so active and efficient a head suddenly laid aside is somewhat paralysing. I trust however that the corner will have been turned some days before Thursday.

I am afraid there are no daffodils and only scant primroses to attract your daughters

Yours sincerely C M ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Elgie

This is only to tell you that I am thinking about you and Blanche and all. I would come to see you, but I think you had better not see a fresh person, and besides Annie Moberly comes to me tomorrow May God bear you all through it

Ever yours affectionately C M Yonge

My dear Mr Warburton

Our good Vicar sank suddenly last night, and died this morning.

Could you be so kind as to change the examination day-? Any day after next week, but it is so likely the funeral may be on Thursday and we all feel so full of consternation and grief that we do not know how to be ready, though we would be any time after the 4th

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Miss Smith

It is very pleasant to hear from you again. I think I shall read your paper to our mothers next Friday as part of it. We only began last winter- our clergyman’s wife to do the executive and I to read to them Alas! this spring we have had the terrible and unexpected loss of our good Vicar. He was only 42, and in full work, when struck ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

It certainly used to be considered the thing to give the publisher of the magazine the refusal of the story but there is so much more free trade in publishing now that I do not know whether this is still necessary. I think most likely Masters would say he did not want to have it particularly.

No, I think Miss Ingelow has diverged plentifully from you, except in the original idea. ... continue reading

My dear Mr Tyrwhitt

Those Kindergarten books are published by a Froebel society The one I read last was ‘Kindergarten’ Lectures by ladies of the Froebel society, Miss Shirreff, Miss Anna Buckland &c. Some of the said lectures were sensible There is one on stories including fairy and that though inconsistent with the rest is very good. I think so far as the Kindergarten is an Infant school with a fine name, to which ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Thank you, I like the beginning very much, and I think it much to the purpose, as you always are. I hope it is not to turn out very melancholy, though I have my fears. The Church going is very pretty and calm. But I cannot help thinking that though the favoured inmates of the pew do feel the shelter, and the associations, the poor had much less chance ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Thank you for the end of your story which I like very much. Here and there you may have been a little discursive, and possibly abridgement may find out some bits. About the incongruity of wreaths with the feelings of the last generation I quite agree with you. We /elder ones felt it so with my dear old uncle who we knew held it as a frivolity, and ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

There is a nice little life of the Black Prince by Louise Creighton in Rivington’s series of Biographies. Also G P R James wrote a nice long romantic life of him which might be in old libraries, and Canon Warburton has a life of Edward III in Longman’s Epochs of history. I can’t understand about the grown man schools, but Mr Green is pretty sure to be right. I cannot ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I do not like to lay more revising on your eyes, but since you propose it, I think it would be safer. Armigel’s surname is a very undetermined matter, though I think you mean it to be Griffiths, by which I think Gladys is rather victimized. I think it will be certainly better to omit the engagement which does spoil the generosity of the act, and has not been prepared ... continue reading

My dear Florence-

It is a very good story, but I wish it had not been about an election, for I have another election story which I cannot throw over. It is by my poor old friend Fanny Wilbraham, who is so nearly blind that it is a wonder she has written it at all, and it is really very good. It is the conduct of a Cheshire peasant the other day, but she has put ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I am sorry to say your story, even with a little abridging, comes to 63 pp, and as that is nearly a quarter of the Christmas no. I had to give it up with another which I liked almost as well, but was 53 pp, so I am afraid I must keep it waiting for the end of Paul and Virginia and put it into the regular M P. I like your ... continue reading

My dear Ellie-

I have just heard of that having happened which for years I have feared to recollect must come some day. I don't know how to dwell on it or how to think of it. I think what comes before me oftenest is selfishly the sorrow for not having seen more of him this last year, especially this spring.

There are some friends that one looks to like a sort of father, and he was ... continue reading

My dear Caroline

Somehow I must write for one can easier do that than say, all that my mind is full of .

It is very very kind of Lady Heathcote to send me that message and of you to think of me. I shall be there at the house on Tuesday - and as it is Gertrude’s Communion day, it will be a fit beginning and will chime with you.

I hope to come over on Thursday, ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Thank you for your proverbs, which are very curious. There are some odd Eastern ones in todays Saturday, one of which takes my fancy, though not for a Christmas number ‘If a Jackal howls shall my old buffalo die’. I am afraid people would not understand it. I mean to have

Crow not, Croak not

as the next year’s proverb. I think most peoples’ stories are variations of a certain ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Here are two themes for you quite true to start upon. Alice Moberly once found a diamond ring left behind on a wash hand stand in Switzerland. Invent the previous and subsequent history of that ring.

Also – At Dorchester Church in Oxfordshire there is the tomb of a Crusader, not lying peaceably on his back, but writhing round his spear. Something might be written to account for this – ... continue reading

My dear Elizabeth

I wonder whether you are taking your holiday at home or abroad. Of course I am only having the grace to write to you to ask you to help me, but I daresay you will excuse that. I think you went once to Buxton. Do you happen to have a guide book or the like with a description of Pools’ hole, or did you see the latter (if you hate ... continue reading

Dear Miss Birley

Many thanks for your two pretty books, I was a little startled at the [???] with which they afflicted you in ‘Yes and no’- but I hope that gentleman’s white lion[?] explains it sufficiently to be a fatherly embrace

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Madam

I am much obliged by your paper on Clothes for the poor, and would willingly put it in at once, but I am afraid that the great want of space will delay it and also the payment for it for some time

Yours truly C M Yonge

Madam

I liked the opening of your story very much but I do not think the danger of the time is so much want of toleration as indifference to faith, and therefore I cannot accept it.

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Lady Salisbury,

It is very kind in you to ask me, but I have again to say that it is a time when I am engaged. I hope have [sic] Fanny Patteson with me that week, for a little while in her wanderings. I am afraid the life that those two sisters lead has become very sad.

with many thanks and regrets yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Madam

I should like much to get your Christmas tree paper in for December, and I will try, but it must depend on the reckoning of pages by the printer

Yours truly C M Yonge