Dear Madam,

. . . . .

Yours much obliged,

C. M. Yonge

P.S., I daresay you may know my name as a Devonshire one, I am a niece of Mr. Yonge of Puslinch.

Many thanks for this beautiful paper which will beautifully finish off the year .... Your references are all so full and so clear that they make the papers all the more useful, and I always find myself glad when I have one to read with my class which is after all the best test.

Many thanks for this paper on Elisha, it is so exactly the thing that it makes me feel what an excellent collaborateur you are! I believe your next is the Babylonish destruction with an eve to the final one and of course the Anti-type, but you always take the very course I like best in your comments.

My dear Miss Peard

It is very kind of you and exceedingly inviting - the Sphinxes especially, but just at this moment my mother and I are moving into a cottage - as my brother’s family is outgrowing this house, where I have lived the 39 years of my life - and we are in such difficulties how to stow away our belongings, especially in the way of pictures that we are really afraid to increase ... continue reading

My clever woman, instead of living alone as she intended when you were here, has had a flirtation with three magazines, and is at present engaged to Hogg’s Churchman’s Family Magazine if she can agree to settlements.

My dear Miss Peard,

I am so sorry I did not come to the full perception of what I had done till I got home, but I was stupid enough when at Puslinch to take your St. Sebastian for your Book of Joshua, and pack it and send it off with the Monthly Paper things, and then I took (or fear I took) Joshua for a letter and made away with it. At least I cannot ... continue reading

My dear Miss Peard, There is a part of it in which I think perhaps you would be so kind as to help. We are trying to bring in accounts of that troublesome contemporary time of the history of each country, that have not got into books so as to enable ‘our readers’ to know what is going on. Now Mr. Church has done Greece, Poland is in good hands, and Miss Roberts, I believe, does ... continue reading

My dear Frances, Is this a very outrageous thing I am going to propose. You must know Goosedom has had a shock and a revolution, chiefly induced by Mildred Coleridge having no time for it and her aunt therefore losing her interest in it. So after having very nearly broken up, we are beginning again in a more brilliant manner, and the thing is would you condescend to be a Gosling. All you would have to ... continue reading

My dear Christabel, I should have said that I think you must specify your stones, there are such a frightful number- Pray have opal and turquoise- One for its weird history, the other for its nature- but exclude all the stupid ones, like garnets &c or we shall be swamped - I shall send the parcel on Monday - Meantime I send you the grand Goslings acceptance - I think Fernseed must be her name - ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Thank you for your kind full letter. I feel great confidence in Dr Vaughan, and should consider his as a very safe name to sanction the Library; and I think all the arrangements shew great consideration for my views. I think I could well work under them. I believe that the toleration that you ascribe to me is rather for persons than principles. I do very greatly admire many persons who I think ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I am sorry that Dr Vaughan cannot undertake to give us his name. I wish indeed that the Archbishop of Dublin could, but if it is in vain to fly so high, what do you think of Dean Alford? I do not know him personally, nor would his name give the same complete confidence to the High Church as those before mentioned, but it might be the best attainable.

I had only thought ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Our start from home is fixed for the 30th of this month. I suppose there is no chance of my getting any copies of the Dove before I start. I was obliged to delay further by having a revise of the preface where the printers had contrived to make a good many gratuitous mistakes. I never knew Messrs Clay so long printing anything. If there is no chance of your sending me a ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Can you tell me how far back in time the reservation of the right of translation goes-? There is a pretty story of Paul Feval’s in the Feé des Grèves which my mother translated, and I want to have in the Monthly Packet. It was printed in 1853, and is out of print in France, and there is no notice of reservation of translation in the title page - however by way of ... continue reading

My dear Christabel, I should not have been so ungrateful if I had not been laid up, first by being deluded into eating some Scallop fish that everybody else flourished upon, and then by a wicked chair, which cast its hind leg as I was sitting down on it, and strained my back - Not till lately have I had the energy to pack up the Answers and write to you. I shall be very thankful ... 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 Mary Thank you so much for your long letter and history of all your doings. I am sure if usefulness makes a happy life this ought to be one, and you must have much of kindness and of the sense of a living Church round you to fill you with energy. I do not know whether you have ever felt a sort of sense of the absence of the whole salt of life in ... continue reading

My dear Henrietta I believe Goosedom is to be revived in the new members, not that new ones are ever so good as old. The two first proposed are accepted, and I hope your Lilian will be, but you will hear from the Secretary. I am afraid I did not find her out at the Patteson’s party. We shall have to make a new arrangement as to circulation which you shall hear in the next Cackle ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- Yesterday was so rainy that there really is very little to say about it. The breakfast was enlivened by our being told that Madame Adelaide always had a set of bonbons placed beside the seat of each member of her brother’s cabinet whenever they met, and that they were of a superior quality or not according as to whether she liked the ministry or not. M. Guizot said he had the experience of ... continue reading

My dear Frances Here is the autograph of M Guizot’s that I promised to get for you. If you could only see his collection. A bit of rough copy of one of Bossuet’s sermons, a brown scrap of the Chevalier Bose written out of the midst of the plague, an abject letter of Murat saying he was expelled from his kingdom for having followed La Système Britannique a curious letter of old Napoleon about a rising ... continue reading

Dear Mr Furnivall I have a friend belonging to a Cornish family staying with me, and she thinks her relations competent to look over the Cornish which is not naughty English, so she is sending it to them, and they will return it to you

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear C C I am glad there are some signs of life or of decay more properly of poor A D I- ! I do think there are more and more signs that a 6d phoenix would be welcomed.

I find the booksellers make all sorts of excuses for not having got it – The Authors Soc want to see my agreement before advising me. I could not find it easily before I ... continue reading

My dear C C I am sure unless we could get an amount of subscribers enough to start a new Church Packet with security, it would be vain. Could we find out? Otherwise Sir W Besant is right, and we must acquiesce. I would make Duck’s Eggs a fresh start for it is needed, but I think it is not hopeful, sorry as I am, especially that Church should be a ... continue reading

My dear C C Here is a behind the times letter that concerns you. I have heard from Mr Thring, who says I can remove my books with proper notice, but as I don’t know how long proper notice is, I have written to ask, also he thinks there may be trouble about those of which A D I gives Royalty and on the older ones there is no agreement. I asked if ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Good luck to you in your new work! I had various things to write to you about Will you send a list of the Goslings to

Miss Margaret Macmillan The Elms Streatham Tooting

I think I told you I have promised to make her a Gosling though she is rather too young. Who is the next to ask questions - will you send her a reminder to send them to me to choose from, and ... continue reading

My dear Christabel It is a fine story and I like it. I dare say you never read Rosanne, a very old book of the beginning of the century, where there is the same idea, a girl brought up by an infidel father with her mind a blank, and then struggling towards the light, and assimilating every shred. Her first prayer is very beautiful but I think your unprayed prayer is more ... continue reading

My dear Gertrude Thanks for your chapters. If anything strikes me, I will tell you, but I like all I have read very much. I think Miss Peard does know Arcachon, so I am desiring her to write to you, but I do not believe that Miss Roberts has ever been on that side of France. She /MR is at the Crescent Hotel, Filey, sadly laid up by a strain of the hip, which ... continue reading

My 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

My dear Christabel

The elder sister may be a good modification and pray do you – or FMP invent a love story to work in.

No Robber appears so do pray write him, also Geo III and the beggar. I have done a White Ship. There ought I fancy to be about 30, and I have 28 in my eye or written out ie if I take two Whittingtons.

What do you think of the baby Pretender ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I think the printing may be begun at once of Stray Pearls, and the proofs had better come to me as inconsistencies arise when tales run on long. And besides I always find that the printers make their worst blunders when their copy is in print. I suppose they set on their worst hands. Clay is sure to have the copy. It may very well come out in April - it will only ... continue reading

My dear Miss Kirke

I send you my autograph and a few more that I happened to have by me, but I do not know if those that are only initials with [sic] be useful to you. CRC is Christabel Rose Coleridge, author of Lady Betty, Hugh Crighton’s Romance &c. F M P is Frances Mary Peard author of a good many novels, M R is Margaret Roberts, author of Mlle Mori. Louisa Molesworth (Mrs) has ... continue reading

My dear Frances

Thank you for your letter. We don’t deal in squills, but I have just brought in various primroses and violets, though there was hardly a berry for the Church. However the holly leaves are much finer than when the berries have starved them.

Gertrude was tolerable and could enjoy her cards and presents, and shells go on as her great delight at present, that wonderful step-step father of hers has an endless variety of ... continue reading

My dear Frances,

We have had a chance of seeing the new (April) Aunt Judy, so we will not benefit the revenue by the transmission of your copy this time

Poor Alethea, one sympathises with her, but she is very naughty, and I am wondering what her form of discipline will be. We have had a splendid Easter, and the dry weather so favoured the Lenten services that they were remarkably well attended, and the church ... continue reading

My dear Miss Peard,

You are a most comfortable correspondent and contributor, and it will be very pleasant to us to have the print of St. Sebastian which your friend has so kindly procured for us.

We shall be wandering for two or three months to come but it will be sure to reach me safely if sent either direct here, or to the care of Messrs Mozley 6 Paternoster Row. Which perhaps will be the best ... continue reading