Related Letters
Dearest Jay
I find I have a copy of the Shield which you are welcome to keep, I never did any more to the volumes than this, only imagined it. I found when I was half through the Shield that I had used the name of Merrifield before, in the Stokesley Secret. . .
My dear Mary How nice to have two letters from you together! You are alone, as I am for a fortnight as Helen comes on the 30th, and Lottie has just left me, but I am not sorry for a little quiet time. Thank you for letting me see those letters, I think almost Grandmamma’s last words to Dr Harris were ‘Don’t let Fanny be in a scene not fit for her,’ and we ... continue reading
My dear Anne It is a very long time since I have had such a nice long letter from you. I think the great Corfu news has given you a spur. It did take me very much by surprise though certainly if I had been asked to guess which of the Colbornes was going to be married, I should have said Jane, and you know she is at an age when two years of ... continue reading
My dear Anne Thank you for taking all my impertinence so kindly. I hope you will not be very angry with me for being highly delighted with Mary Coleridge’s prospects, and not even pitying Alethea so much as Cordelia Colborne, for you must remember that Mary will live very near home and the sisters may see each other every day of their lives, and for Mary’s youth, she is much older at twenty, than many people ... continue reading
Dear Madam My cousin answers me ‘the Lotus is not a flower, but a large tree, I do not remember the blossom, but the fruit is in large pods which the Zantiotes almost live on, we used to have them as vegetables at dinner but I always thought them very nasty. It was always called the locust tree, and it was disputed whether it was these Locusts or the insects that St John the Baptist used ... continue reading
My dear Mary I could hardly help writing a note last night before I went to bed, it seemed so long to have known about Harvey without saying a word. I do not know whether I mentioned that we were to spend Saturday in a shopping expedition to Southampton & so no chance of writing then, but so it was. You will quite understand how little I mean the words to apply to herself ... continue reading
My dear Papa, I am much obliged for your notes this morning; and I do not much expect now that John will join our festivities. It wd have been very nice and pleasant if we could all three have come together, Jane expresses great disappointment that there has been no time to arrange things in any orderly manner. She wd have had no thought but of John & Cordelia being here, if it ... continue reading
The place we are in is a sight in itself - an old house of the Knight Hospitallers, which the great Ormond converted into an Irish Chelsea, making the Commander of the Forces the Master. It is built round a quadrangle, with a cloister, a chapel, and great hall, all in Louis XIV. style . . . this house occupying one side, with the hall and chapel, the house of the Chaplain, ... continue reading
My dear Mary, It is a great undertaking to describe accurately so great a wedding, a great deal of the details I must reserve until I get home, but I was surprised to find that anything so ponderous cd be passed thro so quietly & easily. Aunt Seaton even seemed in not the least bustle & everything was arranged like magic; I suppose from the number of workmen & the abundance of payment. ... continue reading
My dear Anne- Graham and James Yonge went away before we were up this morning, and it would all have seemed like a dream if Duke had not been there at breakfast. Alice Moberly came out in the fly that fetched us, and spent the whole day with mamma; they gave the schools some buns and sugared negus by way of celebration, and I think mamma did very well.
I think we must have made a very ... continue reading
My dear Caroline I shall like very much to send a pound towards your window; shall I send it to you at once by a post-office order? I hope your diaper will be as beautiful as some of those patterns of the Cologne windows of which we used to have a great sheet, and I always longed to see in glass, thinking that they would be better than bad figures.
Miss Keble's illness was a very bad ... continue reading
My dear Anne,
Thank you much and indeed for your letter which told so much that we wanted to know. I had not been able to gather what you had been doing, nor how it had come to you, and now uncle Yonge has written the most beautiful account to Mamma, of the last hours, so that we understand far better the closing in and extinction of hope upon them all. And oh! that beautiful ... continue reading
My dear Mary Your letter met me at the Station on my way home, and I hope that the fog of Wednesday was less bad for uncle Yonge though more disagreeable than frost would have been. There was one continuous fog all the time I was away, and it is very bad for Ottery where there is a bad low typhoid fever among the poor. I found Sir John better than I expected with no cough, ... continue reading
My dear Jay Thank you very much for the dear little Tom tit. They are great friends of ours, we keep fat for them at the window all the winter and have 4 sorts. Have you ever been to that delicious Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and seen the birds nests ? There is a tom tits’ nest in a post box, where the creature sat through all the letters! I ... continue reading
My dear Mary I hope your Dynamite explosions will soon cease Are they through Sheepstor or through the wood above Hanover Green[?] Major Woollcombe and I have been mourning over them. He does not think the Auckland people are RCs. You remember one Lord Auckland was Bishop of the I of Man. A RC named Capes, who takes one of the houses on the Winchester Road and the village people say his rough ... continue reading
My dear Mary I hope you accomplished meeting Jane Moore after all, though the hitting off the right time with any Colborne is so difficult, I wonder whether Jane looks as bright and fresh as ever. We are going through a grave time- When the Woollcombes came at the end of April, Gertrude was in the midst of a very bad sick fit, however she began to revive, and they went away on Monday ... continue reading
My dear Mary I have just heard from Jane Moore. She is at Ramsgate, where her husband has been sent to get over an attack of bronchitis from 7 hours work at Aldershot! She and I have had a great blow in the sudden loss of Lady Susan Blunt. You know she was the General’s cousin, and the daughter of my mother’s old friend, Lady Nelson We always so enjoyed meeting ... continue reading
My dear Lord Nelson I have been thinking of writing to you ever since I saw this grievous loss in the paper, and Easter eve seems to bear it the more in upon me, for surely no one can be more at peace in the home consecrated by this day than that gentle dutiful spirit. I remember her ever since she was a little thing of four or five years old in her striped frock, and ... continue reading
My dear Mary You will like to hear that Maurice and Maude have had tea with Jane Moore in her hufet at Aldershot, which Maude says is exceedingly pretty, but they are having very hard work for 40000 men are expected at Aldershot altogether, and it generally holds 15000 and those regular soldiers whereas all these have little notion of more than a summer diversion and are very hard to bring into discipline- I do ... continue reading
My dear Mary I knew this loss would be one to come home to you especially, so often as you and uncle James have consulted together over illness and so much as he loved and trusted you. It grieves on to look back upon the sad anxious disappointed life it has been, with those strong vehement and always kind and generous aims so seldom successful- at least in that part of his life that I ... continue reading
Dear Miss Cole I am much obliged for your book which I am sure I shall read with much interest as the fruit of so many thoughts
I hear from Mrs Montgomery Moore from Rawal Pindee which at least is near that beautiful Cashmere though she never will be happy in India.
Elizabeth is at Dittisham
yours sincerely C M Yonge
... continue readingMy dear Mary
Thank you much for your letter. It is curious that Mary Woollcombe should have found the report going, but I think no one likes to speak to any of you of gossip concerning any of the family. As to the measure of the loss we do not fathom it yet, it is so mixed up with all sorts of things and people, as I suppose those things are. It is ... continue reading
which he was convicted he has had two years imprisonment & hard labour and to be watched by the police for 5 years more.
The learned say the Easter moon is right at the place which fixes for all the world. It was not full before noon which is the time they count from. You see if the full moon as it is in each place were reckoned some countries would ... continue reading
My dear Miss Cole
I have been a long time answering you, but I waited to see Mrs Moore and hear more about the matter as it is one in which I hardly felt competent to judge. I am sure it is an excellent purpose, and I send you my shilling, though my country life is so utterly unconnected with anything of the kind that I can be of no use
yours sincerely C M Yonge
... continue readingDearest Jay
If you would write to me once a fortnight how delightful it would be for we do let each other drop fearfully, and as long as my poor Gertrude is in her present state I can not go from home unles I can leave Mary Woollcombe here. She is here now, finishing a fortnights stay, during which I have been able to get a few days with the Moberlys. Near as they ... continue reading
My dear Mary
Thank you for the sight of the photographs Julian says the iron work is meant to cover it. It is very beautiful but I am afraid I do not like the idea of the Dove. It seems to me going beyond the lawful symbol, and I am sorry for it, though of course I have heard of such before, but not I think very frequently. I do not think ... continue reading
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