My dear Alethea I have begun on this great piece of paper because I really have a great deal to say both to you and Anne, but I believe you wrote first, so I make the letter to you. I am very much & sincerely obliged to you for sending me the opinions so frankly, & I really believe the best way of proving it, is to try to defend myself as well as I ... continue reading

My dear Anne Thank you for your letter. I am very sorry you feel so deplorable and still more sorry that our last conversation should have been such as to leave an uncomfortable impression on your mind I am afraid it was all my fault and I am particularly sorry to have talked in such a manner as to make you think I meant to set myself up for an example which was far ... continue reading

My dear John I hope the untoward task you had to perform on Monday may turn out better than there seems reason to expect, for really one has no right to look for happiness from such a marriage. As the little man was going to Gibraltar, she had better have left him to take a wife from among the Monkeys of the Rock. He might have matched himself from among so many. Delia ... continue reading

Mamma told you of the wonderful début of Violet. I only wonder whether she will thrive as well when the critics have set their claws on her; the home critics are very amusing in their variety and ‘characteristicalness’ (there's a word!).

My Colonel correspondent complains of the babies . . . .Sir W. Heathcote says the will would not stand; Judge Coleridge falls foul of the geography of the Lakes; and so ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne,

In the first place you will be glad to hear that it was a very nice quiet Sunday & Monday at the Nest. Mrs Dyson cheered by the return of “her son,” and both glad of finding that his family really consider it a boon that they should stay and take care of him while their house is building at Crookham. I hope that Mr Keble’s suggestion will take effect, and the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Sewell, I ought to have answered you long ago that I am very glad that you are as Hampshire people say 'tackling' that beginning of mine

I suppose Carter’s history was the other authority for Hereward that I proposed, I have however a great mind for Thierry, as the place where I fell in love with him first. Perhaps I had better send you the book, or shall I translate it, I think I ... continue reading

And so, my dear Cousin, the blow has fallen upon you, and dear Mr. and Mrs. Keble have passed away to their eternal rest. I found letters at Norfolk Island on October 2, not my April letters, which will tell me most about him, but my May budget.

How very touching the account is which my Uncle John sends me of dear Mrs. Keble, so thankful that he was taken first, so desirous to go, yet ... continue reading

Dear Sir I have been so much interested by the book you have kindly sent me, in common with rest of the Author’s Society and, having had a little correspondence with you many years ago, when you were editing the English Plutarch, I venture to write, thinking you may care to hear some experiences of a long life of writing, not from necessity but because I had something to say.

The passion for telling a story developed ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- Here I am in the heat of the weather, with a copse before my eyes where the "grey blossoms twinkle" more like “a bright veering cloud" than I ever saw anything do before, but they are the silver buttons on the withies. Maria had a talk with Mr. Siddon, who expressed the most unqualified delighted approval of the book, but in general I think people regret that it is more the history of ... continue reading

My dear Arthur Your letter and the book arrived together yesterday just as I was setting off from home so that I could only glance at it, and see that ‘Polly’ is likely to be very much edified by it, and to thank you very much.

Pray excuse my having written the wrong way of my paper, I have only just found it out. Here is a chapter of Polly come, which I enclose. Being away from ... 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 Miss Poole I suspected that you would have to change to Monday. I wonder if the enclosed will make any further change. We shall be very glad to have you here on Sunday, and the carriage with Miss Mackenzie in it will meet you at Bpstoke at the same time.

I suppose - as you do not say so - Miss Dyson has heard no more from Heaths Court

yours affectionately C M Yonge

My dear Mary,

So the dear old Sir John Coleridge is gone, except Aunt Jane, I suppose [paper torn off]

[the reverse reads]

the most conscientious of natures, and all throughout guarded and raised by his deep religiousness I always think the tender

My dear Madam

I well remember the warm interest that Mr Keble took in your poem, indeed one sentence in the notice was his own. The illustrated edition to which you allude of the Christian Year, must I think be either one with some photographs or else one with illuminations both of which were got up with little or no sanction from Mr Keble

Parker of Oxford is the only publisher to whom you could apply, but ... continue reading

Dear Mr Liddon Thank you for your very kind answer. A letter will be an excellent way of conveying your recollections. I think considering what Hursley Vicarage was, it would have been perfect treason to have made notes of the daily life and conversation - What seems to me most wanted is something to give an idea of Mr. Keble’s greatness and his championship - and this Sir J Coleridge writing from an equality and without ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Mozley, I answer your kind letter at once, without waiting till after to-morrow because I have promised to write to many then. We did feel stunned indeed all the Good Friday though we had known the day before that there was nothing else to look for, and we were (and are) most thankful that he is spared the solitude that she so much dreaded for him, that she had always wished that she ... continue reading