My dear Lottie

Many thanks for the Water Soldier who came in excellent order. Fancy Arthur Yonge being like Julian. He was in a very different style in his younger days being very dark and always carrying his chin rather in the air but I think his beard must have made a difference and I know there always is a tendency in us to be more like the Duke Yonges than anyone else. ... continue reading

My dear Julian The photographer finds our lights so very inconvenient that I am going to bring him down to House, & get the benefit of your dark chamber. I will come after luncheon - in about 3/4 of an hour

C M Yonge

My dear Anne, As Sir William Heathcote is coming here this evening I take this opportunity of writing to you, I hope, to thank you beforehand for the letter I am to expect on Saturday. I think your Coronation Festival must have been most splendid, especially the peacocks’ feathers. You must have wanted Duke to help you arrange it all, I think. I know he always used to be famous for arrangements. ... continue reading

My dear Anne, You must not expect a very continuous letter from me as Mary Davys is here but I believe the best chance is to begin a long time beforehand to thank you for your charming long letter which we were delighted to see on coming back from school on Sunday. You said when you were here that we should sit in the drawing room gasping for a drop of water but last Sunday ... continue reading

My dear Anne I know I ought to have written to you weeks ago, but really I cannot tell how to write, and I do not think you feel as if you could either, I am afraid there will not be the same freedom about our letters till we have met once more and as it were come to a little more understanding of each other as is only done by speaking. I can hardly enter ... 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

My dear Anne It is enough to frighten one to see all one’s words taken so seriously, not that I did not really mean them, but perhaps I spoke more freely from not thinking you would attach so much weight to what so young and so flyaway a person might say. However it is quite right to feel that words have weight. I think I must begin from henceforth to assure you that you ... continue reading

My dear Mary, My letters must seem to be very few & far between but sudden revolutions happen now & then, wh disorder my private arrangements, such as yesterday, when I was just seated to write to Alethea & Uncl Wm proposed driving Char: & me to Southampton, & before we came back the visitors were arrived. You will see how much I enjoyed your very long letter presently when I tell you how pleasant ... continue reading

My dear Anne A great many thanks for the news yesterday, and the Barnacles today, if Alethea gives her son the 2nd name of Bargus it would be applicable considering the story of the Gentleman who took up the spoon with the stork crest and said ‘This confirms it, I always thought your name was derived from Barnacle Goose, and now I see it.’ What a capital picture too, and the old gentleman seems so ... continue reading

My dear Anne Many thanks for the further particulars of Tern, I am glad they are allowed to be Arctic. Alethea’s children seem chequered in and out, brown and fair instead of being divided into boy and girl, how very amusing the others must be, I think Edmund must be remarkably clever to be doing lessons, and joining so much in the play of the others. Alethea Mackarness’s daughter came as unexpectedly as Frank ... continue reading

My dear Anne How sorry I am to hear that Mary has a cold to pull her down just as she was getting better. I hope it will not last, but this is bad weather for shaking it off. It signifies rather more than my nose. I have been laughing much at the sensation that made two months after it had quite recovered. And after all it was not in consequence of ... continue reading

My dear Anne I was very busy yesterday or I should have thanked you for your two notes, I thought it was a long time since we had heard from Deer Park, and had written to Cordelia the same day I wrote that scramble to you, though without any notion that there was anything the matter, I wonder whether Edmund had at all over done the cold water system, one is so very sorry to think ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I enclose a paper sent by my archaeological acquaintance with all the information he could gather respecting the Ragged Staff, I hope it is what you wanted.

I am sorry for your want of success with the Garland. My father is going to London for a day or two early next week, and will see Parker, He says if you would trust us with a specimen of the illustrations and explain your plans as ... continue reading

My dear Anne Mamma is writing to Uncle James so I think Puslinch must hear at the same time otherwise I should like to save Uncle Yonge the anxiety.

Papa has been over working himself with spending whole long days without dinner upon Julian’s preparations, and yesterday after going to Portsmouth to take leave of him, and coming home very late, a sort of seizure came on like an exaggerated headache. We sent for Mr Lyford ... continue reading

My dear Marianne I thought often of your saying papa would be the worst of us, for we have had a terrible night. After the long day at Portsmouth he came home, and about 10 o'clock at night a sort of attack came on that frightened us very much, and we sent for Mr. Lyford who cupped him, which relieved him much, and he has been getting better since, though still with very bad oppression and ... continue reading

Dear, good old slave, How nice and kind and understanding your letter was, and how thankful one should be for such friends! ...

The worst will be over when we hear from Julian, poor boy! Till then it seems like bearing the first stroke. But I am sure it fell mercifully as far as we were concerned, and the flow of feelings that meet us from all is very gratifying.

I believe my uncle, always living in his ... continue reading

My dear Mr. Yonge Incapable as I am of doing any thing today, to do nothing is worst of all, so I will try to thank you for sending me two comforters and for enduring for the sake of those who are anxious about you, the great grief and sorrow I know it is to you not to join the family and friends tomorrow

I have many obligations to you, and amongst them that of having given ... continue reading

My dear Mr Yonge, Such an outpouring as your letter which I had last evening was, gives me great pleasure, and I hope you will continue to write to me when you feel inclined. What I most dread is the want of companionship for Charlotte She had been used all her life to discuss with, and refer to her Father everything that pleased and interested her, and these happy evening when he came hope ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope this mild day is doing every thing for your father’s cure, I wish more for his own sake than mine that he could have been here, but the necessity of allowing half the county to shew their respect made it much more trying to the family.

I seem to be out on a visit, and I do not know how I shall get on when we resume our old habits. Anne ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I do not like to leave you longer without a few words of thanks for your kind letter. We were indeed most mercifully aided and supported in our time of greatest need by all the help the Church affords, or rather the Lord of the Church. It was not one of our least blessings that our Church (of which my Father was almost the sole architect) is so close to the garden that ... continue reading

My dear Papa, I feel greatly obliged to you for writing so often. I fear your leisure will decrease rapidly now, that you are able to resume your out of door occupations, to say nothing of all the Confirmation Children, and also such an increase in the colony within doors. I hope you will not find yourself quite overmatched by the half dozen grandchildren, and obliged to retreat to the top of the House, ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn I have bought myself a Grimm, and studied all the Thumbs that have come in my way, and have come to the conclusion that the way to make him pretty will be after all as you suggested, to begin with King Arthur. The unmitigated nursery legend with all the swallowing and the tricks is not poetical, and must have been vulgarized. So I will take what of Round table stories will suit, ... continue reading

My dear Marianne . . . But all this time you have not heard how I had three walks between College and St. John's house arm-in-arm with the Bishop! Don't you call that preferment?

We went to the Cathedral with the troop of Moberlys, and I am glad my first sight of him was in his lawn sleeves. I never saw a face of which one would so much say it was inspired. ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, Herewith is a ‘Heartsease’ which I don’t expect you to like much except one character in it. I wonder if I judge rightly which of them you will tolerate, not that I shall tell you beforehand.

The time for the Little Duke’s second edition is come, so would you be so kind as to give directions to have another 2000 plates struck off. It is to be a cheaper affair this ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts,

Many thanks for the paper on Gloucester. It came in a good time for a cousin was staying with us whose home is close to Gloucester, and her brother a minor canon who has all its antiquities at his fingers ends. She set down the yew tree to ask him about, but as she went home in haste to prepare to set off in a week to spend the winter in the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts, Here is the first part of your Cathedral sketches. I think I must put them in every alternate month, as there is a ‘press of matter’ and they will better bear a long interval than would any continuous narrative. I waited for them to reply to your last letter, I always feel it a kindness to be written to as if I was a personal acquaintance, so pray do not apologize for ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Harris We have had a long time to wait before I could write to tell you of my brother’s arrival.

The British Queen was so slow in her progress that all her coal was exhausted and they were obliged to burn their top masts as they put into Falmouth.

His arrival at eight o’clock last night, thin but not otherwise looking ill, though he is not fully recovered, the climate entirely overpowered him even before ... continue reading

My dear Anne It is a relief every time your letters are opened to see the [sic] at least not worse, and it is cheering that they go at the best time of the day, but one feels half sick to know that the afternoon did not bring a return of that terrible suffering. Julian is intending to go and get the letters today, but if the terrible weather lasts he cannot attempt it, as ... continue reading

My dear Anne I must write a word or two before Church. I do not think I dared to expect better than this, and I do hope that at least the suffering is not what it was the day before. It is the Cross at least, and she has been bearing it so in patience and meekness all her days that one thinks of her as one made meet. I am glad that ... continue reading

My dear Anne I do not like that you should not find a note at least to greet you on your return home on Tuesday to tell you that we are thinking of you and feeling with you and yet I hardly dare to say the last. Julian will write to Uncle Yonge on Monday, he had fully meant to set out on that day to be with you, but he got a chill at ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, The price of the binding was /6½ per volume, as that blue is an expensive cloth, and the binding of an illustrated book is always more expensive, because the plates have to be sewn in separately. I must say that I have a suspicion that you had divided the sum total by 1000 instead of 2150, for certainly 1/4 would have been almost enough to bind a quarto. The paper is included ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne I waited a few days to see if time would come to make something like a drawing, but waited in vain, so now I send a mere tracing of what my notion is, as well as the size of our letters and Numerals, the Exodus in red with blue border, the figures blue with red, and white patterns on all. I wish they would look as pretty in the sketch as ... continue reading

Dear Miss Smith I am going to ask you in my private capacity to do me a kindness. My brother is just setting out on an expedition to Norway, and we are ignorant whether we can write to him there in the ordinary manner for the Continent. I mean whether poste restante is the usual form, or if there is any other mode more congenial to the north, and also whether we should spell Drontheim ... continue reading

Dear Mr Owen Your pretty present arrived quite safely this morning, and I am greatly obliged to you for the kindness of the thought in bringing me a memorial from a part of the world where my imagination at one time tarried so long. The bracelets will be great friends of mine for many reasons, among which their smooth touch and pretty grain may well be reckoned.

My brother is as usual in the depths of Norway, ... 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 Mamma- Yesterday made my news run into arrears, so I will only note that you must ask me about the College, and the three black Graces perched round the bell, with Science to make a fourth, and how we took them for Faith, Hope, and Charity, and Graham said Irish divinity had not much to do with faith, and the beautiful embodiment of Ruskinism in the new museum with green Galway marble columns, and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler With all Christmas wishes, and with my brother’s thanks, I return your catalogue, he has taken the address of the bookseller and means to write to him as soon as the Icelandic fervour returns. At present he is more occupied with his turning lathe. I wish some critic would laugh at the endless repetitions of Thor’s visit to Loki, as if it were to Sagas what Harold’s body is to ... 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 Mr Coleridge I send you a Post Office order for £2 which is all I can very well do for this most melancholy case, as just before Christmas is not the time for my galleons to come in. If you will send me another paper, I will forward it to some of the Gibbses who might perhaps be able to do something for the poor family. I do not know of any one else ... continue reading

My dear Caroline I find mamma is answering your questions and leaving me to tell you what I know you will wish to hear about our loss. I do so wish you could have seen our dear little William, with his large dark, soft eyes, and his merry smile, he was such an unusually intelligent and pretty creature, I suppose too much so, as if marked from the first for a brighter home. Somehow I ... continue reading

chapters in the little Pink magazine. You may be interested to hear that when my brother was in camp at Madyn, he saw the Legionary Ants in the act of stealing their slaves, and found the neighbourhood of the nest of the negro ants strewed with the bodies of the slain. He had a praying mantis for some time in his tent which devoured 18 flies in an hour, I think its name ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Thank you, I think this is very satisfactory, and that all the part about old Mr Webster is quite in your best style - and the contrast between the brothers excellent. Mr Webster certainly has his deserts, and one is comforted by his tardy appreciation of George. I am glad Harry’s Confirmation did go off, though by the by, you have not made the corresponding alteration in the account of his death[.] ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne,

If you ask what business have I to write, I can only answer that I do so out of the abundance of my heart which wants to speak out on great and little matters.

We wish you would, or let Charlotte make a P.S. to the review of My Life, out of your letter, it says so many things that have not been said, and should be said on that endless subject – ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne

Mamma’s letter to you was a surprise to me when she shewed it to me, and I did not answer it till we had heard from you again, in hopes we might see you. The matter with Winchester is overbuilding - the Itchen supplied all drainage while the place was of moderate size, but it is now too big for that, and the dear Warden, Dr Moberly and the Cathedral people have ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, I was very glad of a letter from you, it is so pleasant to keep up our intercourse that I am always wishing to invent some cause for writing. I wonder if I shall ever arrive at writing the Siege of Waspburg, it is a thing I cannot do till the spirit of wasps seizes me and I suppose it will do some time or other. Your birds must be delightful, except ... continue reading

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 dear Miss Smith,

I have at length obtained the account for the Biographies and am glad to be able to send you the enclosed as your share of the proceeds. Your account of the Procession was in time, and is going in this month with an Illumination story of the last time London was in a blaze.

After this week please to add Elderfield before Otterbourn [sic] in our address. It is a cottage in the ... continue reading

Sir,

I am obliged for your letter of the 23d, and the terms you propose. My brother will be in town next week, and will call on you to make the arrangements on any day after Tuesday. Perhaps you would be good enough to send me a line saying on which day he would be most sure of finding you at home. He would be with you at any hour of the morning you would ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I am almost certain to be free any day next week, and shall be glad to see your brother any time from 11 till 5 that he may mention. The only chance is I may be called to Oxford one day next week & do not in the least know which day. So if your brother would kind[ly] name one, with another as an alternative, I will let him know the moment I learn ... continue reading

Dear Sir,

My brother will call on you on Wednesday morning, the 2nd, unless he should hear from you to the contrary. His address is J.B. Yonge Esq

9 Montague Place

Bryanston Square.

I have just heard that there are 50 copies of the Lances of Lynwood ordered, and that there are none in stock.

I think a new edition should be put in hand at once, it is a childs book, with designs by Mrs Blackburn ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wodehouse

I shall be delighted to see another story of Miss Gordon’s. I am in hopes that her icelandic one will appear in the Packet in February or March, and indeed I was thinking of writing to ask where she was that I might send her the proofs, it is indeed a long time since we have met, and as my brother and sister have gone out and left us their cavalry, we are ... continue reading

Dear Sir,

I found the other day that Messrs Longman’s delay in transferring my books to you was rendering it difficult for the retail booksellers to procure them - I therefore wrote to them a day or two ago to urge on the completion of the arrangements and I hope you may soon be able to let me know that this has been done.

How soon do you think it would be advisable to begin printing the ... continue reading

My dear Kittiwake I am glad you are meditating a flight to us, but will you let it be on Monday the 14th this day week. I want the skies to clear up a little, as I hope you will allow time enough for a walk to see our daffodil copse of which we are rather proud, and which will gain by the week’s delay.

Do not be deceived into turning into the wrong house for ... continue reading

My dear Sir,

Your paper on Bridge Bracing has not come to hand. I am rather hesitant whether Mr Masson has any article on American affairs for the September number. If he has not I will ask him to see whether yours wd suit him. You know he is the chief who has authority. I shall be very glad if it does.

In the mean time I tell you that the paper has not reached ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, We are at home at last and in three days more I hope to send up the copy for the printer of all the ancient history Golden Deeds. Of course he will let me have the proofs. I hope the delay will not prove to have been of consequence. Are there to be any vignettes to the chapters, if there are, there is a story of the Coliseum which quite asks for one ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, This is a quick fire upon a busy man, but there are two or three things to say, and first that Mme de Witt has written to say that the Christian Names have not reached her, and asking whether you have sent them through any Paris bibliothèque where they could be enquired for. I also enclose a direction to which I should like to send a copy of the Golden Deeds. It ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Would you be so kind as to add your signature to this cheque. I never perceived the omission till I sent it to be changed.

My brother has been seeing Huntley and Palmers biscuit manufactory, and has written an account of it, which he tells me to offer to you, in case it should be supposed suitable to the Magazine, it is really very curious and entertaining.

I am afraid the earlier cameos want a ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Thanks for repairing the omission. I believe ladies always enjoy gentlemen doing what they are so apt to do themselves.

I enclose my brothers biscuits, much hoping they may answer the purpose.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Mr Macmillan, Most of these illustrations I like very much, they are full of life, and the King very dignified, if they are lithographed I suppose it is too late for alteration, but the faces of Eleanor in the second, and of the Page in the first are rather distressing, and I think that in the second the page is rather too short and stocky to give the notion of one who was to ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I have written a new preface and sent it to Spottiswood. If I did not send the former one to you I wonder what I did with it, I suppose it will come out of some strange corner.

I am glad you and Mrs Daniel think well of the Chaplet. I only wish I could give my French ladies more French grace. I have about four chapters more written but not re written, and ... continue reading

Dear mr Macmillan, The Prince and Page look very well, and I hope will thrive as well as they look. I think I sent the names for the copies - but I suppose the general mass of them are not ready yet.

If my brother’s M S about the Reading Biscuits is not available and can be recovered he would be very glad to have it again.

With all Christmas wishes to the Elms party

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Marianne Things have gone on well and quietly; I only wonder what I am that I seem to have no breakdown in me, but cannot help feeling for ever that the ‘Ephphatha is sung’when I think of the frowning look with which she would try to make us understand her, and that struggle to say words of praise, ‘glorify’ so often coming. You cannot think how her work, the illuminated ‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’ and ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Thank you for your kind note and expressions of sympathy. It is the beginning of a lonely life to me, but I have my brother’s house very near, and full of kindness.

I write now about that unfortunate Cameo which was missed out. The proof of it came to me first numbered XXXVI, which is its proper place, but the revise is XLII, so as to make it seem as if it belonged ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, Thank you for your kind, warm hearted letter. I know you too know what a great grief is, and how close one clings to the last surviving parent, and the sense of being still a child at home. May you long preserve that blessing.

I should be very lonely but that my brother and his wife are only a garden’s length from me, and most kind, and just at present I have a ... continue reading

My dear Marianne Here we are, after having, I think, done very well on our journey. We met Miss Martin on board the steamer. I forget whether I told you that she had begged to come at the same time for the benefit of our escort, and though we had rather have been alone, she was very helpful and pleasant. She is the editor of the Sunday Library, which is the way we fell in with ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- The day went in this way yesterday---towards eleven o’clock there was a bell, and we all went down and wandered in the garden till everybody was assembled, then we went to M. Guizot’s study and had prayers, he reading a chapter of St. Matthew, and Mme. de Witt making a short prayer of it, ending with the Lord’s Prayer. Then came the post and breakfast, upon rissoles, fried potatoes, fruit and vin ordinaire, ... 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 Marianne- This last day will be a very quiet one, for M. de Witt is gone to a horse-fair at Falaise, and Julian, Frances and Miss Martin are gone with him, starting at eight this morning, and coming home at eleven at night; unluckily I could not go, and Mme. de Witt caught a bad cold yesterday and I fear will not be good for much to-day. Caen had to be given up because ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan You will think there is no end to the irons we have in the fire. But the Population of an Old Pear Tree would be finished if we had not lost a number, and had to renew it. I send you the earlier chapters. The places for the woodcuts are marked in the margin.

But my chief reason for writing is to ask if you have heard of Beugnot’s memoirs - he was ... 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 Helen Mr. Brock brought me in both the telegrams and was very kind. Of course what all knew must be sooner or later could not be a great shock, but all my letters were going with accounts of his having borne the journey so well. It is better for mamma and all of you to have had no lingering, and no associations for the new house. I hope she is keeping ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge

My brother told me that he had arranged all the Insurance with you, so I never imagined that it did not include this house. I suppose it was only the freehold property. This house belongs to Magdalen College I do not know at all what it is worth, as I only pay £3 a year for it under the Copyhold. I suppose it might be about £800, the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge You have the deed of gift executed from my brother to me of Hicks’s cottage therefore there can be no doubt that it is my property and he certainly told me that he meant to make it over to me but he never seems to have told any one here, and Hicks has been paying rent to him and Mrs Yonge ever since.

The accounts have been so mixed with repairs for cottages that ... continue reading

My dear Ellie I am delighted to hear of the Medallion!

Have you seen Sir Herbert Maxwell’s book of the months-? He disbelieved the rod and someone ought to write to him. He watched Mullins - and fancied he had discovered the places before. But Lady Crawley, the mother of Mrs William Gibbs, who had the power only in that generation of the family laughed at it as imagination, and I believe Mrs Gibbs inherited it, but ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Warburton, I am sorry to say I have to dine with a great wedding party on Monday at my brother’s, as Miss Walter’s wedding is to be on Tuesday, so that I am obliged to miss the pleasure you kindly propose to me

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

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

My dear M. Guizot My brother begs me to convey his best thanks as well as my own to you for so kindly sending us your pamphlet. I am afraid the sky has darkened even more in the short time that has elapsed since its conclusion, and that the enemy are nearer to you. It seems to me that English sympathy has been greatly gained by this gallant resistance. I hear so many ... continue reading

My dear Miss Cassell I find it will be convenient to Goosedom generally and it certainly will be so to its Mother if the answers wait to the end of January, so I have desired Chelsea China to send home a note to that effect. The last answers were unluckily lost in the frost when I sent them off to her, and as she had gone to Hanwell we did not at once discover the loss. ... 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

Dear Mr Craik

Could you give me any idea what is the value of my copy rights, I do not mean that I want to part with them, but it would be convenient to me to know what is likely to be the full value of my property, and what I could raise by them in case of need

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Mary,

Mary Woollcombe tells us that Alethea Hickes has mentioned some of the reports that have been going about as to Julian’s troubles, so I think I had better tell you all. I was very near doing so on Saturday evening only I thought I would wait for the great settlement.

I fancy speculation is strong in our nature and from joining in a cooperative company when coals were so dear Julian came on ... 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 Mary

A great deal seems to have happened since I wrote to you last, but before I tell you about Oxford, I must come to what is uppermost in my mind, about Julian’s affairs. He fully expected a compromise to have been made which would not have brought such difficulty, but that has failed, and there is the whole debt of the company, about £12,000 come upon the 5 directors – of whom ... 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 Mary

I know you will be wishing to know about us, but I am afraid there is nothing very cheering to tell except that I think the worse must have come to the worst. The five banks that were creditors would not take any compromise though they were offered more than Julian’s proper share of the deficit but it seems that by the law each single director can be made responsible for the ... continue reading

My dear Mary

All thanks for your letter, I think matters are looking better and that something less than £2000 will clear it all, but we cannot be sure till after the 24th, at any rate Julian is in much better spirits about it. Maurice must have gone to school any way, so that is the least part of the trouble, and I do not think Anne Parnell much to be regretted for she had ... continue reading

My dear Mary,

I did not like to write to you all this time because we were in a a great state of uncertainty. However Julian got a letter yesterday from the ‘liquidator’ to say that the creditors will take £2000 now and £500 six months hence which will cover everything, and is much better than at one time we expected I do think it is a comfort ones fears go too far for ... continue reading

My dear Mary

I hoped to be able to tell you by this time that Julian was quite free and had had his discharge but though the money is paid, the forms take a long time owing to the wearisomeness of lawyers however all the real trouble is over now. I do not think it has every been in any but the Hampshire papers which had a kind little paragraph about a Gentleman much respected

Fancy ... continue reading

My dear Sir

Your were so kind to me when I was at Cambridge that I am venturing to ask you to give your attention to the letters and testimonials you are about to receive on behalf of my brother, who is very anxious to obtain the Secretaryship of the Governing Body of Winchester. I think that from his experience in many ways, he is very well fitted for it, and that as an Eton ... continue reading

My dear Mr Price

I think I may venture to write to you upon Julian’s behalf in this matter of the Secretaryship for I am sure your old friendship for him would make you inclined to help him, and I think there are qualifications which he has in a high degree, and on which I can really be an unpartial witness - i.e. - I have always seen that his military training made him well able ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Harrison Thank you so much for my God daughter’s photograph. Alas! I have been a very bad Godmother to her, never having a chance to come in her way, but I go so little from home and when I do, it is always to my own people in Devon.

I have not been to London even for three years! Unluckily I just missed Mrs Bland when she was staying with the Bakers at Winchester. ... continue reading

My dear Mr Price

Mr Walter Smith took the Mozleys’ business when John Mozley died and Charles retired. He was trained at Macmillans and I think he knows his profession (or what ever it is to be called) thoroughly. He is a gentleman and pleasant to deal with in all ways. I do not know the present Parker, as my dealings were with his father, but I prefer Mr Smith greatly to J ... continue reading

My dear John

Thank you for your curious extract about names. I have one this morning from an Italian newspaper sent by Mrs Church, which beats everything. I translate it for your behalf- ‘The celebrated English Authoress of the Era di Ratcliffe is dead. Her name was Jong but in recognition of her talents, the Queen Victoria made her a Viscountess. She married the English ambassador at Constantinople but has continued ... 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

My dear Miss Ingelow

Your letter has just come to me here in the midst of the steep hills and narrow valleys of North Devon. I think I must have been 2 years old when I saw the baby in the blue shawl, as my birthday is in August, and we generally went into Devon in the autumn. I do not think I taught myself to read, as I was then an only child much looked ... continue reading

My dear Mary

In the autumn a Mr Yonge in America, an Engineer chose to send me the photograph of his little daughter whom he had named Charlotte and he sent a description of his arms, wanting to know whether he could be of the same family. They were not the same as ours, nor as those to which we failed to shew our claim but Julian thought they were the same as yours. ... continue reading