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 Mrs Johns, I am very glad there is a prospect of our seeing Miss Keary. Would you or Kate be so kind as to let us know when she comes, and how long she is likely to be with you, and then we may fix a day for meeting or trying to meet. Next week and the week after too we have friends coming to us just so invalidish that I dare ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, The Clever Woman of the Family as far as she goes will be sent you in a day or two from a friend who had had her to read.

The illustrations are decidedly not successful and I should not wish to perpetuate them. They are not half so good as what Miss Keary’s young cousin does.

There is about a fourth more of the story to come.

I have nearly finished the Golden Deeds, but ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, I send both title page and the proof of the statuette, which is indeed most beautiful and suggestive. I wrote yesterday about the title page. I could not do so before as I only came home late on Saturday and the Sunday post goes early. I enclose the list of presentation copies

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Will you be kind enough to send the sheets of the Golden Deeds to Messrs Williams & Norgate for ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns, Thank you so much for letting me [see] Mr Ruskin’s very characteristic opinion of the beautiful Griselda work. I have thought and talked it over with my mother, and certainly it is a complication, but would not the most satisfactory course be to ask some opinion of a person such as Richmond a thorough artist, and also a religious man, a gentleman, and father of daughters whether it would be his judgment ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I think Miss Sewell and I pretty well came to this conclusion that the first of our periods should begin with William the Conqueror and end with the absolution of King John, so as to make its leading idea the great strife for supremacy between Church and State. I believe we have plenty of materials for a volume. She under takes the compilation of the materials, and I am to write the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge Your scheme as decided by Miss Sewell and yourself seems to me very admirable. The one question is the compactness and vivid unity, which will be hard rather in an [illegible] such as you propose. But with artists like yourself [and] Miss Sewell there should be no difficulty[.] the thing ought to be very interesting indeed.

I have read all the Prince and the Page down to the present month. I think it ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge I have seen the lithographer this morning and shown him Miss John’s drawing. He, I am sorry to say, was more emphatic against it than even I felt. Would you mind my going to my friend Mr Farren I do not like seeming to slight your friend but indeed I doubt much whether Miss Johns could do justice to the charming story. Mr Farren has greatly improved since he did the [[cmybook:20]Little ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge Mr Maclear’s address is

Rev G. F. M. 24 Elgin Crescent Kensington Park Gardens[[footnote:1]

Many thanks for your kind [illegible] about the illustrations. I think on the whole it would be dangerous to employ an unpractised pencil. On some future occasion I shall be very glad indeed.

My people at home have been reading your cameos, and think they would make a nice book. I am inclined to think so too - in a cheap form

Yours ever ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns, I suppose you are enjoying a Christmas rest, indeed I almost expect to hear that Mr Johns is spending his holiday on a visit to Katie. The business of my note is however to tell Katie or ask you to be so kind as to tell her, that we are having a great revolution in the state of goosedom. Some goslings having grown lazy and some outgrown it, there is to be ... continue reading

My dear Florence The constituent parts of the New Barnacle don’t come in fast, but I know there are a few more to come for vol. xvii. If enough do come in to be worth binding, I think I must leave it in your charge. I send you what I have already come in for it, and please keep it to see whether there comes enough in addition to use. If there does, I will write ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here are the answers but I really have no time to do their Cackle. The two months holidays come now, and would you kindly tell the brood that I think they had better not send me any questions after the holidays till I tell them. I hope by no means to give up Goosedom in the end, but Mamma is so sadly failing that I must for the present drop all unnecessary claims ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I shall see Miss Johns on Saturday and have a consultation with her.

I have been prevented from setting about the Storehouse by the almost sudden death - the first day of this month - of one of my dear cousins - the one on whom I relied for looking out the copies of the books that I was to have from Puslinch. I have not been willing to trouble her sister to ... continue reading

My dear Florence I am very glad to hear of you again, and I hope the touch of frost will not be felt at Bournemouth; it has spared all our flowers as yet. I waited to write because Christabel was coming to make up our plans for the new volume. We will try to put in 'Purification' poem for February, but I am afraid poems do not get much payment. I wish ... continue reading

My dear Christabel, The Humberts are very nice people, Florence Wilford is very fond of them and he was an immense comfort to the two old ladies. He was the making of St Cross, as first Master after the reformation there, and did an immense deal both for the Church and parish, but when his wife got softening on the brain, he lost his delight and love in the place and became anxious to get away ... 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 Christabel

Don’t answer till you have time, and the fascinations of the twins are withdrawn, but I am moved to tell you first that Katie Lloyd has sent me a most exquisite oil picture of Fotheringay Church with such a look of sunshine, such reflections in the water, such trees. I am sure she has improved much – and she has put it in a frame that I fear must have cost her ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns Thank you warmly for your kind note. I can see that both as daughter and as mother you have more than a common fellow feeling for the sorrow. In fact, I think the present loss is softened by the long weaning as it were which the slow dimming of the faculties led to, with quite as much affection and clings, but without the power of response - and latterly the weariness of ... continue reading