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 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

Thanks for your letter, and Mamma’s thanks for Mary’s. I am very glad indeed that you like Amy Herbert though I was sure you would enjoy it, her brother comes here today and I am sure he will be glad to hear of its being such an amusement to aunt Yonge. I am curious to know what you say about certain things I have heard objected to Some people especially ... 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 Driver Thank you for all your encouragement with regard to Henrietta; I assure you I mean to have my own way, and if the Churchman finds he has caught a Tartar, he must make the best of it. I am very angry with Sister’s Care, for it has done the very thing I wished not to have been done, that is to say, in one way I am glad of it, for I ... continue reading

My dear Madam, Thank you very much for your interesting account of your expedition, I am sure you must have enjoyed it very much, and brought home a great many recollections which after all are the best part of pleasure, they last so much longer than it does. We have just wished Mr and Mrs Keble good bye before their departure for their summer holiday to the Isle of Man to study some of Bishop Wilson’s ... continue reading

My dear Marianne Your letter was the pleasure of sympathy that I knew it would be. We have been going on what seems a long time, with a great deal of severe pain in the head, which gets better late in the afternoon, then he sits up, overtires himself, and makes it worse again. Yesterday mamma had one of her worst varieties of headache, as might have been expected, but it mended in the middle of ... 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

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 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 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 Charlotte, I have sent the MRS. off to repose, and here are two lines in her name and mine to say that though the new ending has its amusement and interest, we much prefer the old one, which to me seems remarkably felicitious. The new one is liable, I think, to one or two criticisms. There is rather an excess of poetical justice, almost as in a child’s book; and the episode ... 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

My dear Mr Coleridge I am very much obliged to you for so kindly undertaking the enquiry at Goslings which must be the preliminary to any undertaking in the cause of the Bells. I would not however have given you the trouble of reading my thanks had I not been charged with a message to you from Mrs Keble She obtained a promise from Mrs Selwyn when in England that little John might ... continue reading

My dear Miss Moorsom I wrote to the author of the Garland of the Year in case she should be able to help you to any authorities for the Oxalis, but I have an answer from her this morning saying that it was one of the very few flowers which she described at second hand, but she has written to the person who helped her to try if she can recollect what book she found it ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Butler Please to consider this note as coming from Mr and Mrs Keble, as they are very anxious to get this woman’s petition signed as universally and numerously as possible before the end of next week, when it should be returned (with a tail of names on the ruled lines, and on further sheets gummed on beyond if necessary) to Mrs Keble. The name of the place to be written at the ... 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 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

My dear Friends,

Forgive us for not having remembered to write to you yesterday. Our dear Sister departed like a babe from its mother’s arms with hardly a shudder, seemingly in the midst of a sweet sleep which had lasted a great many hours. God be thanked for her, and may He pour His rich blessings on you and all who love her.

It was at 9.30 yesterday morning; my wife was poorly, but ... continue reading

My dear Alice,

I trow you are not expecting me to-night, and a great pity it is, but it will be mitigated if Dr. Moberly will only be so kind as to lend us the lecture to read at home, in which case the Institution shall honestly have the price of our tickets. If you will tell the cart to call we will send in Froude, vol v., and ‘Cornwallis.’ I am afraid you are not ... continue reading

My dear Fanny,

I thought it might be more comfortable to you not to hear from me till the great stress of letters was over at first, and so that I would wait to write till I could send the precious letters. We took our turn the last, and so read them upon Friday, the very day one would have chosen above all others for it, the girding to the battle in that calm and self-devoted ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- We were at Hursley two days ago, and Miss Best looked so melancholy about Mrs. Keble that we were quite frightened; however, she came home from a drive and seemed to me much better than when I saw her last. I wish Queen Emma was over, but there had been some cross purposes of letter-writing, and they were not sure when her four days were to be. I have just seen that Miss ... continue reading

My dear Child, I am sorry to say that my dearest wife is unable to write you a little Christmas greeting as she had hoped, and as you simply have earned by your better than best behaviour in writing to her so regularly, for which we can never love and thank you enough. I wish I could say that she is at all better, but her breathing and palpitations become, I fear, more and more troublesome, ... continue reading

My dear Anne- Thanks for your note in your haste. Of course we each meant 5s., I only wish it was more, though I don’t know that I should be writing to-day to say so if I did not want to tell you of what our hearts are so full of, namely, Mr. Keble’s state. He had seemed well and cheerful through all the fluctuations of her state, and had written a comfortable note to [[person:930]Miss ... continue reading

My dear Anne As we fully expected, the holy and blessed spirit went to its rest at one o’clock on Thursday morning; the other gentle spirit is placidly waiting her call to be with him. She slept quietly after having given thanks after it was over, but was much overcome on wakening, and this is the last we know of her. I should feel comforted to know the rest had come, which cannot be far off ... continue reading

It is quite a comfort, my dear Mrs. Moberly, to have your letter, and to answer it immediately. And it is better to write than to see you; our hearts would be too full for speech. Charlotte and I can only trust ourselves to talk at times. It comes at the best possible time for us all; these services are so especially full of Mr. Keble. At the same time we are quite alive to ... 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

My dear Cousin, You know why I write to you on this day. The Communion of Saints becomes ever a more and more real thing to us as holy and saintly servants of God pass beyond the veil, as also we learn to know and love more and more our dear fellow-labourers and fellow-pilgrims still among us in the flesh.

Such a day as this brings, thanks be to God, many calm, peaceful memories with it. Of ... continue reading

My dear Cousin, One line to you to-day of Christmas feelings and blessings. Indeed, you are daily in my thoughts and prayers. You would have rejoiced could you have seen us last Sunday or this morning at 7 A.M. Our fourteen Melanesian Communicants so reverent, and (apparently) earnest. On Sunday I ordained Mr. Palmer Priest, Mr. Atkin and Mr. Brooke Deacons.

The service was a solemn one, in the Norfolk Island Church, the people joining heartily in ... continue reading

My dear Cousin, I write you a line: I have not time for more in addition to my other epistle, to tell you that I purpose to baptize, on Sunday next, eight Melanesian youths and one girl. You will, I know, thank God for this. Indeed I hope (though I say it with a kind of trembling and wonder) that a succession of scholars is now regularly established from the Banks Islands.

These nine are being closely ... continue reading

My dear Mrs. Moberly,

Thank you for your kind, sweet, cheering note. It does seem to me truly that it is the burden of the flesh she is freed from, so entirely labour and weariness had the mere act of living been to her for months past; but with what sweet smiles! I am glad your dear Alice so thoroughly shared the peacefulness of the earlier watch, as well as that last trying day, which I ... continue reading

My dear Edith I should think that it was a case for Miss Twining’s Home at 21 New Ormond Street for Incurables, but I believe it is very difficult to get in, as she has only 27, and they are paid for to about half the amount of their cost, though I do not know what the weekly amount is. They also take Incurables at Clewer, for a servant of Mrs Keble’s is there. I think ... continue reading

Dear Mr. Awdry- I can quite believe that humble words of Mr. Keble might be misunderstood, misreported, and exaggerated, and if called on to defend every single line in the Christian Year, he might have spoken of it as a man, growing in grace, at sixty years old might speak of his utterances at thirty.

But I can distinctly declare that he never repented of the book as a whole, nor regretted its publication, and that it ... continue reading

Will you allow one who is almost a stranger to you personally, to express my deep sympathy and sorrow when I saw the notice in the paper of the awful blow that has fallen on you? I know from Annie Moberly of your great kindness on my birthday last year, and that leads me to hope that you will not feel a few words from an old woman an intrusion; though pray do ... continue reading

Dear M. E. C. I feel strongly impelled to write to you both to thank you for your letter and for St. Christopher's legend. A German lady once sent me a set of photographs of frescoes of his history, where he was going through all sorts of temptations, including one by evil women.

I think I must tell you that the Daisy Chain was written just when I was fresh from the influence and guiding of ... continue reading

My dear Miss Warren, Did you see in the Guardian the death of ‘Elizabeth Jane wife of the Revd Thomas Keble’?- my own dear Mrs Keble’s sister. She had but two days illness, and her husband is left feeble and broken. Nobody expected him to live through the winter but she was strong healthy person and it seemed as if her life was absolutely necessary to him - I have however written to the son, who ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I am exceedingly obliged to you for this kind gift of good old Mrs Pascoe’s letters. She was indeed a most amusing and clever correspondent and her letters were always a great pleasure to my mother and me. I never saw her, but I heard of her from two old neighbours, Mrs Keble, who used to see her at Penzance and Mr Arthur Johns who was an old neighbour.

Pray thank Mrs Rogers much for ... 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