Charlotte Mary ¥onge 

 
 
 I
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE
 
 CHAKLOTTK MARY VONGE. 
 By permission of Miss Bramston, fro.n a photograph taken in Elderfield Garden, i8 
 
 Frontispiece.
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 AN APPRECIATION 
 
 BY 
 
 ETHEL ROMANES 
 
 AUTHOR OK 
 
 'THE LIFE OF G. J. ROMANES,' ' THE STORY OF PORT KOY.U.,' 
 
 'BIBLE READINGS,' ETC. 
 
 A. K. MOWBKAY k CO., LTD. 
 LONDON: M GREAT CASTLE ST.. OXFORD CIRCUS, W. 
 OXFORD: 9 IIIOTI STREET 
 
 1908
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This little book is not intended to rival or super- 
 sede Miss Coleridge's larger Life, 
 
 What the writer set out to do was to show that 
 Miss Yonge was indeed a leader of religion, and 
 that she had a very great share in that movement 
 which we know as the Oxford Movement. 
 
 I have therefore tried as much as possible not to 
 repeat anything which is found in Miss Coleridge's 
 Life, and have sought to make the book what I 
 have called it — ' an api^reciation.' 
 
 My best thanks are due to Miss Coleridge and 
 Messrs. Macniillau tor permission to quote from the 
 Life and from the works of Miss Yonge ; to Messrs. 
 Parkei' and the editor of Mothers in Council foi- a 
 like permission ; to Mrs. Knight, Miss Cazenove, 
 Miss Ireland Bln(kl)uine, and Miss Patteson for 
 letters ; to Miss Wordsworth for her delightful 
 reminiscences; and, linally, to Lady Frodeiick Ca\ on- 
 dish for her interestinj' contribution. 
 
 E. R. 
 
 I'lHAL/KAN, 
 
 I IK)!!.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAITKR PACK 
 
 I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH - - - - 1 
 
 II. THE EARLY BOOKS - - - - - 28 
 
 MI, THE 'MONTHLY PACKET* - - - - 45 
 
 IV. 'the heir of REDCLYFFE ' - - - - - 63 
 
 V. 'conversations on the catechism' ' DYNEVOR 
 
 terrace' A VISIT TO MIELAND - - - 78 
 
 VI. LIFE AT ELDERFIELD — 'THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER' 
 
 ' THE TRIAL,' AND OTHER BOOKS - - - 8(j 
 
 VII. MR. KEULe's DEATH THE HISTORICAL TALES BISHOP 
 
 I'ATTESON - - - - -103 
 
 VIM. 'THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE,' AND OTHER lAMILY 
 
 (HRONKLES — CHANGES - - - - 128 
 
 IX. .MISS Wordsworth's visits - - - - 1.S7 
 
 X. books for children RELKMOUS BOOKS — LATER 
 
 YEARS .-..-. !(){) 
 
 THE SECRET OF MISS YONGe's INFLUENCE - - 1 <)f) 
 
 £1/ Lady Vrcihrkk Cacciulish. 
 
 VII
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE _ _ _ Frofltispiece 
 
 FACING PAOE 
 
 HUUSLEY CHURCH - - - - - 10 
 HURSLEY VICARAGE : THE FAVOURITE CORNER OK JOHN 
 
 KEBLE - - - - - - SI 
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE - - - - 38 
 
 HURSLEY CHURCH AND VICARAGE - - - 51 
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGe's WRITING-TABLE AT ELDERFIELD 63 
 
 OTTERBOURNE VILLAGE, WITH ELDERFIELD ON THE RIGHT 78 
 
 THE LIBRARY, ELDERFIELD - - - - 88 
 
 JOHN KEBLE, AFTER THE PAINTING BY G. RICHMOND - 103 
 
 BISHOP PATTESON - - - - - 118 
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE _ . _ _ 140 
 
 OTTERBOURNE CHURCH - - - - - 152 
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE IN HER GARDEN AT ELDERFIELD 172 
 ROOD SCREEN IN OTTERBOURNE CHURCH - - -180 
 REREDOS IN THE LADY CHAPEL, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, 
 
 ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 186 
 
 THE GRAVE OF CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE - - ip-i 
 
 VUl
 
 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 \}^ CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 (1823—1843) 
 
 Charlotte Mary Yonge was born on August 11, 
 1823, and died March 21, 1901. 
 
 She was of a good and honourable Devonshire 
 family. Her father, William Yonge, served through 
 the I'eninsular War, and was i)i'esent at Waterloo 
 —a great and lil'doug joy to his daughter. He had 
 fallen in luve with a certain Miss Fanny Bargus, 
 but llie ((Mirse of true love by no means ran smooth, 
 and t'oi- live years the attachment between the 
 young peoph; was unacknowledged by the stern 
 l)ai'('nts. William Youge's fatlicr, Mr, Duke Yonge, 
 Vicar of ( oniwoftd, in Devonshire, reas()nal)ly 
 enougb, deniunt'd to bis son, a 3'oung man con- 
 siderably under thiily, throwing uj) his profes- 
 sion, anil Mrs. liargus, unreasonably, (at least, so it 
 seems to modern pe(jple), would not lot lier only 
 daugliter marry a soldier. A( last, in 1S22, these 
 dillifult i(vs were remo\ed. William Vonge r(\sign(Hl 
 his commission, an<l set t led down on a t iny pro[)erly 
 at Otterbourne, near Winchester, which Mrs. liargus 
 
 1
 
 2 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 had bought, and where it was arranged that the 
 young people should live with her. 
 
 It must have been a very great sacrifice, for 
 Mr. Yonge loved his profession and Devonshire, and 
 was an active and vigorous man. To us in these 
 days, when it is more the fashion to consider 
 children than parents, the idea of an elderly woman 
 insisting on what seems likely to spoil a man's life 
 is absolutely monstrous ; but Mr. Yonge took it as 
 a matter of course, and was always a dutiful son to 
 his somewhat difficult mother-in-law. It is curious 
 to see how strong Miss Yonge's views always 
 were on the subject of duties to the old. 
 
 In Hea7^tsease, for instance, Helen Fotheringham 
 is allowed to spoil not only her own, but also the 
 life of her betrothed lover, John Martindale, by 
 taking care of an imbecile grandfather. Helen 
 was a very beautiful character, and possibly the 
 sacrifice of not merely the best years of her own 
 and of John's life, but of her health, was necessary. 
 What is odd is that Miss Yonge has no doubt or 
 suspicion that Helen could have done anything 
 else ; there was no clash of duties. The grand- 
 mother in Henriettas Wish, we are sure, is a recol- 
 lection of Mrs. Bargus, but we will return to this 
 book later on ; it is such a perfect illustration of the 
 change in ideas of the relations between young and 
 old which has come since 1823. 
 
 The numerous cousins; the associations with good, 
 pious, cultivated forefathers and contemporaries ; 
 the chivalrous ideals among which she was nur- 
 tured ; the sweet English scenery, so quiet and sooth- 
 ing — the landscape, in fact, of the Christian Year
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3 
 
 — together with the Devonshire rocks and moors 
 and sea, all made up influences which had much to 
 do with making Charlotte what she became. She 
 was a child of the English Church ; she was a 
 thorough Englishwoman. Loyalty to Church and 
 Throne, an absolute devotion to duty, a love of what 
 was good and beautiful, a deep reverence for sacred 
 things, a certain reserve which resulted in an awk- 
 ward shyness — all these are so truly English. It is 
 probable that much which helped to build up her 
 character is passing away, or has passed away. 
 But so long as the Church which she loved so much 
 and served so well exists, so long will good and holy 
 men and women be trained up to work, if not on 
 the lines she thought best, at least in her spirit and 
 for the same cause, under the same Captain. 
 
 Through all the years of her long life she did a 
 noble W(jrk, and it was nothing less than this : she 
 showed in all her books how intimately Creed and 
 Character are linked ; she taught in every book tliat 
 there was one thing, and one only, which everyone, 
 from the crowned monarcli on lu's throne to the 
 litll<! servant-girl in lier scullery, had to think about: 
 ' What ought 1 to do? What is it Cod requires of 
 me?' Miss Yonge shrank from overmuch talk about 
 religion in her books and in daily life, but in reality 
 she aii<l lirother Lawrence were absolutely agreed. 
 8he lived uikI iiKJved in the I'roseiico of (Jod, and 
 hHc made the sense of that living i'resencea motive 
 power in the lives of her best people. 
 
 She Hhowcil how (ivcry Article in I In- C^rced was, 
 notHoiii'' I Ji('ologic;il (joj^Mii.i expressed in technical 
 languagr, l»iif \v;is .1 li\iri;^ liiitli wliidi would act 
 
 i-Z
 
 4 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 on the lives of those who assimilated it, and make 
 them fruitful. 
 
 Charlotte Yonge has been sneered at more than 
 once for exalting the domestic virtues, yet it was she 
 who was almost the first story-teller who dared to 
 write of the Religious Life as a normal development. 
 It was she who wrote the life of our great missionary 
 Bishop Patteson, who certainly 'left father and 
 mother and all that he had for Christ's sake and 
 the Gospel.' It was she who, in the magazine she 
 edited for so long, set forth the ideals and the lives 
 of the faithful in the Western and Eastern branches 
 of the Church. 
 
 But she was absolutely loyal to the English 
 Church, and recognized that in this much-despised 
 communion there are possibilities of sanctity, and 
 privileges, and peace and joy and access to God. 
 
 She has influenced many people who are now 
 themselves old ; she has held up to them an ideal of 
 goodness ; she has made them know the possibilities 
 within their own Church ; she does indeed deserve a 
 place among the leaders of religion in the Church 
 of England. 
 
 Of course, as a writer she has limitations : she is 
 not a Jane Austen or a George Eliot ; but in her 
 own degree she has a place among the great ones of 
 literature, if it were only for the Little Duke and for 
 creating Dr. May. But of all this we shall say more. 
 
 But no one who cares for the Church, no one who 
 really wishes to know something of the history of 
 that extraordinary revival of life and of devotion 
 in the Anglican Communion, ought to ignore Char- 
 lotte Mary Yonge, or think of her as a mere writer
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5 
 
 of domestic tales which possess a High Church 
 flavour, and are rather tiresome and prohx. They 
 are much more than this, and some of them deserve 
 to be remembered, and probably will be held in 
 affection, for many a year to come. 
 
 Charlotte Mary Yonge was for more than six 
 years her parents' only child. Her brother was born 
 on January 31, 18.30. She has told us a great deal 
 about her childhood, which was a happy one, 
 although it lacked much of what is now considered 
 essential to a child's happiness. Companions of her 
 own age she had notmanj^, except during the joyous 
 times of the annual visits to Devonshire to the 
 cousinhood there. 
 
 She was taught by father and mother, and they 
 were undoubtedly intelligent and clever people, 
 much inclined to the bracing system which the 
 I'^dgeworths had introduced, and to overmuch re- 
 pression and snubbing. Possibly a good deal of her 
 awkwardness and shyness might have been over- 
 come had she lived among people with real country 
 tastes and more powers of gratifying them. She 
 never seems to have becTi taught to ride or drive, or 
 cncouragiMl to do anything except take moderate 
 walks. But it was t he fashion of tlu; day that women 
 should bo incapable of bodily exertion. 
 
 At home there were regular lessons ii) (lie iiioni- 
 ing, walks or play by hei-sf^H" in llu^ aricniooii, and 
 not vei'v iniifli iiiorc. As u lilll(> girl Ihc only 
 childr«'M near al liund were 1 lu; Sliiplcys of Twyi'ord, 
 but, nias ! tlu^y did not like ' pretend games.' 
 
 It is surely herself whom Miss Yonge (l<>scribes in 
 Counters h'd/r. Kale, that most delightful and
 
 6 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 natural of little girls, who had no control over a 
 squeaky voice, whose greatest joy was to play at the 
 Lady of the Lake, or at ' Hermione descending to soft 
 music ' ; Kate, whose clothes tore of themselves, and 
 to whom dirt and brambles attached themselves, 
 who was warm-hearted and loyal, and loved a stern 
 but just rule, and was too shy to do herself justice, 
 seems a description of Charlotte. 
 
 Miss Yonge, especially in her earlier books, was 
 fond of describing fathers and uncles who were 
 stern, upright, rather awe-inspiring, but withal the 
 most delightful of playfellows and the most sym- 
 pathetic of friends. Uncle Geoffrey in Henr'ietfas 
 Wish, Colonel Umfraville in Countess Kate, are, we 
 feel pretty sure, suggested by Mr. William Yonge. 
 
 There is also a charming story. The Sea Spleemvort, 
 which first appeared in a set of tales called The 
 Magnet Stories. These volumes charmed not a few 
 little people fifty years ago. The Sea Spleenwort is 
 surely a bit of autobiography, with the delightful 
 account of the seaside home and numerous cousins. 
 
 To her father Miss Yonge looked up with un- 
 questioning love and loyalty, but he was a rather 
 impatient and exacting parent. He was an exceed- 
 ingly handsome man, and Miss Yonge speaks of his 
 
 ' dark keen eyes, with the most wonderful power 
 both for sweetness and for sternness that I ever 
 knew. ... I loved their approval and their look 
 of affection, and dreaded their displeasure more 
 than anything else. 
 
 ' Even now (1877), when for twenty-three years 
 they have been closed, to think of their beaming
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 
 
 smile seems to me to recall my greatest hapijiness, 
 of their warning glance my chief dread and 
 shame.'* 
 
 The description Miss Yonge gives of her mother is 
 very charming, and shows how bright and intelligent 
 a person Mrs. Yonge must have been ; her married 
 life so much happier than her childhood. Her letters 
 are delightful. 
 
 When Charlotte was five years old, Mrs. Yonge 
 took her to the Sundaj^-school which had been set 
 up by Mr. Yonge in a small cottage in 1822. On 
 week-days the school was taught by a Dame, who 
 certainly did not know much, but could at any rate 
 teach reading, needlework, and — manners. Surely 
 Chantry House and its descriptions of what the 
 Wiiislows found in their parish was a tolerably exact 
 account of the funny arrangements the Yonges dis- 
 covered at Otterbourne, where a rather odd indi- 
 vidual Mr. Shuckburgh, was curate to Archdeacon 
 Heathcoto, who was Vicar of Hursley, to which 
 Otterbourne was united. 
 
 In 18:31 the Kev. William Henry Walter Bigg- 
 Wither came as curate. He remained there for 
 thirty-seven years, and was Miss Yonge's friend until 
 the day of his dealii. He was a type of the well- 
 boiii, old-fashioHf'd, devout Churchman of that day, 
 .'i Wiiiclicster man, and a Fcillow of Ncnv C/ollcgo, 
 with tlMM'ompIctc cljissical i i-aiiiiiig ol" both ; and he 
 also b«!loiig(Ml to. Ill old I l.imp^hirc r.'imily. Ho was 
 strongly iidluincfd 1,\- Kcldi- mid Oxfoid. hut was 
 always old-fashii iMiii in piact icf, ;iinl h.-ilcd iimova- 
 
 * Autohin(frtift/ii/, ji. .M, in MisH ( olr'ridj^f'H Life.
 
 8 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 tions. He is not forgotten even now, and his nieces 
 (he was never married) were some of Miss Yonge's 
 dearest friends. 
 
 It is delightful to read of the changes he intro- 
 duced, and of the boys' school with a master who 
 probably was not up to the ' third standard.' Cer- 
 tainly for enthusiastic Church-people, who were fond 
 of school-teaching, those were happy days. They 
 could, if they had the money or could raise it, set up 
 a school, and work out all their theories on the 
 children whom they collected, with no Inspector or 
 County Council before their eyes. And it is a rather 
 curious fact that it was on schools that the energy 
 of Mrs. Yonge and of Charlotte chiefly concentrated. 
 They never seem to have visited the people very 
 much or made friends with them individually, and 
 to the last days of her life Charlotte hardly ever 
 seems to have visited the school-children when they 
 in their turn had become fathers and mothers. The 
 strict and, for a young girl, wise rules of her parents, 
 which prohibited ' cottage visiting,' were kept to by 
 her when she was a grown-up woman, and her shy- 
 ness prevented her from expressing the affection 
 and interest Avhich she really felt. This was un- 
 doubtedly a great pitj^ 
 
 The chief events up to 1835 seem to have been a 
 visit to Oxford in 1834 in order to see the Duke of 
 Wellington installed as Chancelloi", and the death 
 of a favourite cousin, James Yonge, a Winchester 
 boy of eighteen. There again comes out the like- 
 ness to Countess Kate. Charlotte says of herself 
 how she fell into disgrace for appearing unfeeling, 
 and hoAV glad she was to remember ' the cats must
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9 
 
 be fed.' Kate liad an impatience of grown-up people 
 in affliction. 
 
 Latin and arithmetic were added to her studies, 
 and tears were often the consequence of the lessons 
 given her before breakfast by her impatient father, 
 whose approbation was, however, delightful, and 
 who bestowed on his little pupil a ^vatch as a prize 
 during the winter of 1834, to her unbounded surprise. 
 A French master gave her lessons in his own tongue 
 and in Spanish, and Charlotte's first beginnings of 
 story-telling arose. For her French master she 
 composed a story of the adventures of a family 
 — Emilie, Rosalie, Henriette and Pauline Melville. 
 Some years afterwards she worked this up into a 
 little book, which was sold at a bazaar for Otter- 
 bourne Church, and called Le Chdteau de Melville. 
 
 The Coleridges became friends when Mr. John 
 Taylor Coleridge was made a Judge, and brought 
 his girls to Winchester and Otterbourne when he 
 went the Western Circuit. With both his daughters 
 Charlotte made great and lifelong friendship. Sir 
 John Taylor Coleridge, the brother-in-law of Mr. 
 Justice Fattoson, and biographer of Keble, was one 
 of the }>est of men. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Keble, Sir William Ileathcote, 
 were all friends at Oxford, scholars with kindred 
 tastes. No wonder Charlotte, with her father and 
 her coiisiii, Loi-d Scaton, and some others, notably 
 W,'n-d('ii liartcr, constantly in licr viow, gr<nv up 
 with a high idciai of what men might Ik^ and wei'e. 
 She saw good men in <l.iil> lile -men with faults 
 and rpiick t<!in|)(M-s, l)ut with nol)l«' ideals, high prin- 
 ciples, ati'l lives guiilfd .•nid iiiI<m| by a vrvy ileop
 
 10 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGP] 
 
 and practical piety. And in 1835 Dr. Moberly came 
 to Winchester, and Mr. Keble to Hursley. 
 
 Mr. Keble was, as Miss Yonge says, the great 
 influence of her life. With Mr. Yonge he formed a 
 deep friendship, which Miss Yonge says reminded 
 her of the bond between Laud and Strafford. 
 
 The views of the early Tractarians were not in 
 any way alien to the right-minded Church-people 
 of the day. That the Church of England possessed 
 the Apostolic Ministry and the power of the Keys, 
 and that Sacraments were indeed outward signs 
 of God's favour and grace, were simply neglected 
 truths, which not a few Church-people had always 
 held. There were not a few who, like the Mr. 
 Bowdler of whom Miss Coleridge speaks in her 
 Life of Miss Yonge, were ' High Churchmen before 
 the High Church movement.' Alexander Knox 
 is one of the most conspicuous of these, and with 
 his writings Mr. Keble was well acquainted. 
 
 It is forty years since Mr. Keble passed away, but 
 his holy and blessed memory still lingers around 
 Hursley, and bestows on the little village and on 
 the Church an atmosphere which is impossible to 
 describe to those who do not love Keble and the 
 Christian Year. There is still that peculiar sense 
 of peace, of confidence, of hope ; it is still a place 
 where one realizes the possibility of lives which 
 may be in no way outwardly remarkable, but which 
 are blessed for evermore. 
 
 It is an essentially quiet English village, with the 
 traditions of Church and State strongly impressed 
 on it. The village school, where the old Dame who 
 made the children ' so good ' taught, is still there.
 
 D
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 11 
 
 Will it really benefit anyone when all that made 
 Hursley what it is has been swept away ? 
 
 Church-building had become Mr. Yonge's passion. 
 Otterbourne village was no longer near the old 
 church, and he and the clergy set to work to build 
 the present church. Mr. Yonge, his daughter tells 
 us, gave up quite quietly his much-loved expeditions 
 to Devonshire, and both he and his wife denied 
 themselves luxuries in order to have monej'^ for the 
 church. 
 
 Otterbourne Church is the result of pioneer work. 
 Miss Yonge says : 
 
 ' It is cross-shaped, but with a chancel purposely 
 shallow, because both [Mr. Keble and Mr. Yonge] 
 felt the ini])ropriety of using it for sittings, and 
 choirs in the countiy were undreamt of, and 
 altogether it is an cflort towards better things.'* 
 
 Charlotte had begun to study the Cliristian Year, 
 and knew that Mr. Keble was a great man when he 
 came into her life, and one can imagine the mingled 
 awe and ecstasy which must have filled the enthu- 
 siastic girl's heart when she was allowed to become 
 his puj)!! and l)e prcpai'cd by him for her Confirma- 
 tion. Ii(!r own account ol" it is delightful. 
 
 She was aw(Hl at first, but he was so tender and 
 gentl(! with Inn- that she lost nervousness and 
 became pei'ffMtly b.i|»l>y. Indeed, Mr. K('l)le'H in- 
 fliifnf'(! and clinractiU' were, it ^^'()^ld seem to us, 
 just what (Imrlotte needed. Tlu! atmosjihore of 
 her home was bracing nnd ratln^r stern, .mikI it had 
 
 * MuitiugH on the Christ i<iu Yiar.
 
 12 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 made her loyal and iiprioht and dutiful ; l)ut now 
 she encountered loyalty and uprightness, and also 
 that gentleness and sympathy which we find in the 
 real saints, those who most truly reflect our Lord. 
 We are grateful to Mr. Keble for many, many 
 reasons, and the part he had in developing Charlotte 
 Yonge is not the least of these. 
 
 He taught her carefully the true value and 
 meaning of Confirmation, and took her through 
 the Catechism, dwelling, she tells us, on what was 
 a favourite thought of his own : that the Jewish 
 nation and all its training, and all that it under- 
 went, are types of God's dealings with each Christian 
 soul. 
 
 He also took her through the services of Holy 
 Communion and Holy l^aptisra as they are set forth 
 in the Prayer Book. William Palmer's Origines 
 Liturgicce had not long been published, and Mr. Keble 
 used this and himself translated from the older 
 liturgies, thus teaching his ardent pupil the true 
 nature of these Sacraments, warning her, she says, 
 at the close of the x^reparation against ' much talk 
 and discussion of Church doctrines,' and against 
 ' loving these things for the sake merely of their 
 beauty and poetry.' Perhaps if Mr. Keble's ways 
 had been more followed, and doctrine and teaching 
 of the need of holiness rather than ceremonial had 
 been the chief points of attention by the leaders of 
 the Catholic Movement, England might have been 
 more truly Catholic and Christian than she is at 
 present. Those days before Newman's secession 
 were full of vigour and of hope, and the true mean- 
 ing of the Church was grasped by many who had
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 
 
 no outward helps at all. But, of course, it had in 
 no way reached the people, and perhaps the Move- 
 ment needed something more before it could do so. 
 In fact, the people, the vast heathen poj)ulation of 
 our large towns, will never be reached until Catholics 
 and Evangelical unite, and cease to teach and to 
 preach what is, in fact, only half the Gospel. The 
 truths on which either school insists are all equally 
 valuable, and it is, perhaps, the work of this gener- 
 ation to grasp this truth. 
 
 But no training could better have fitted Miss 
 Yonge for the work she was called to do. And we 
 have dwelt a little on her Confirmation teaching, 
 because we see that out of it grew much of her later 
 work of which we shall speak. 
 
 A little later on she was allowed to j)ay a visit to 
 the Kebles, and we can imagine what the peaceful, 
 cultured atmosphere of the Vicarage must have 
 been to her. Mrs. Keble was a perfect wife, full of 
 sympathy and understanding, very gentle, accom- 
 plished in the quiet, ladylike manner of those days, 
 and gifted with everyday common sense and ability. 
 She had very frail healtb, which seems to us to 
 have been extraordinarily usual among the ladies 
 of the early Victorian age. 
 
 It was undouht(Mliy very good for tbe eager, 
 enthusiastic, and gifted girl to share in tbe plea- 
 sm'es and interests of Hiii'sley. Hei* homo was a 
 V(^ry haftpy one, but Ibe bust ling and luuloubtedly 
 narrow minded grandmotlicr must every now and 
 then have been a trial lo li<i- nerves and ti^nqier, 
 and Ilursley was just the [jlace to send her back, not
 
 14 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 spoilt or inclined to think herself ' misunderstood,' 
 but braced. 
 
 It is one of Miss Yoiigc's characteristics that she 
 never had undue synij)athy with ' misunderstood ' 
 children — that is, children who could not ' get on ' 
 with decently behaved parents and guardians. She 
 saw the difficulties of these children — as, for in- 
 stance, her beloved Countess Kate, Elizabeth in the 
 Stokesley Secret, Geraldine in Pillars of the House ; 
 but she always taught by inference that Christian 
 people must use their circumstances, not misuse 
 them, and that a child who tried to be loyal to 
 authority and who struggled against temper gained 
 more than it lost. And here some pages of her 
 article in Mothe7's in Council — ' A Real Childhood ' 
 — may be inserted : 
 
 ' I should like to give a few pictures of real child- 
 hood. Perhaps if I begin with my own recollec- 
 tions, others may follow, and I will try to be per- 
 fectly truthful. 
 
 ' Perhaps there were unusual circumstances to 
 lead to the coinj)lctc oneness l^etwcen my mother 
 and myself, for we lived with my grandmother, 
 who for nearly twenty years took the household 
 cares. Moreover, I was an only daughter, an only 
 child for six years, and the object of much more 
 attention and solicitude than I ever was allowed 
 to know. 
 
 ' It was an old-fashioned upbringing, with much 
 that would shock sanitarians now — only one nur- 
 sery, also the maids' workroom and the nurse's 
 sleeping-room (in a press-bed). However, I was
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 
 
 generally outside the nursery, though it was a 
 home, and all my meals were taken downstairs, 
 except supper — milk and dry bread, "nice crus- 
 tesses," as the maid used to say in a tone of con- 
 gratulation. I have been glad ever since of having 
 been thus taught to enjoy dry bread. The rule 
 was that those who could not eat dry bread were 
 not really hvnigry — a very good rule. Butter, as a 
 rule, I never had. I remember my indignation 
 when a naughty, good naturcd housemaid, in mis- 
 placed pity, brought slices with the buttered side 
 turned down to escape the nurse's eye. I don't 
 know that the absence of such nutritious food is 
 an example, but I am sure the prevention of dainty 
 habits was an advantage. However, dining at 
 luncheon-time, the fat trouble never was sur- 
 mounted, and certain joints recall it to me still. 
 But greediness was treated as despicable. We 
 were rebuked for casting sidelong glances to see 
 what pudding was coming, taught never to meddle 
 with fruit not given to us, and that gathering 
 strawberries was pleasure enough without eating 
 them till th(! i)roper time. Sweets we never 
 bought, and, if given, were administered one at a 
 time at bedtime. The denial was never felt as a 
 hardsiiij), and it has certainly l)een of no small 
 benelit in health and disciplines 
 
 'As to tlu! maids sitting with the iujrsc\ 1 am 
 decidc'dly of opinion that it- was unadvisable. One 
 woman, though really voiy good-natured, used to 
 put rnr In ii j)assion loi* tlir pleasure of seeing me 
 roll oti tin- liorti-. TJic sure ^^'ly was to incite the 
 liui'.st! In i(|)cal th.'it ti';i;^n'c poem of .Tanc T.i ylor's
 
 16 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 on the melancholy adventures of Poor Puss, which 
 tore niy heart. I remember matters unsuitable to 
 " little pitchers' " ears being discussed, and a cousin 
 of mine heard Pamela being read aloud after she 
 was in her crib. 
 
 ' The above anecdote shows that I was not too 
 good a child, though naughtiness was never tole- 
 rated for a moment. I think it was chiefly noisi- 
 ness, disobedience, slovenly carelessness, and quick 
 temper, with a certain provoking levity, since I 
 have heard a story (though beyond recollection) 
 of having been put in the corner, and there begin- 
 ning to sing in a high squeak : 
 
 ' " Begone, dull care '" 
 
 ' The only flat falsehood of those early days was 
 so seriously treated that it is a pain to me to re- 
 member it now. One other, some years later, hung 
 on my conscience so heavily that I voluntarily, 
 with many tears, confessed it, after what now 
 seems a long time. Equivocating was shown to be 
 equally heinous, the occasion of my being so taught 
 being that my father detected me making a sort 
 of accompaniment to the responses in church 
 instead of following the words. His displeasure 
 at my thus acting a falsehood was not to be for- 
 gotten. Perfect truth and honour seem to me to 
 have been the strongest of all my early impres- 
 sions. 
 
 ' My father, a Peninsular and Waterloo soldier, 
 was the hero of heroes to both my mother and me. 
 His approbation was throughout life my bliss ; his 
 anger, my misery for the time, though my elastic.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 
 
 frivoloufi spirits so soon recovered that I was 
 thought not to care. No hberty was ever taken 
 \vitli either parent ; the half-saucy, half -petting 
 terms of children to their parents were never 
 dreamt of. My father could be very stern, but 
 also very gentle, and he took great pains with me. 
 The stories he told me and those first books he 
 read to me are still glorified. One needs no glory 
 of association, with Joseph's history; but Bel and 
 the Dragon will always be linked with the scene in 
 tlie long journey which he beguiled with it. Then 
 the Pihjvims Progress he began when I had the 
 measles, and Aladdin s Lamp and the Peramhula- 
 tions of a Mouse alway recall the delight of hear- 
 ing them from him. Such kindnesses from an 
 intensely respected father dwell -with one for ever. 
 
 ' He taught me to write, after an idea of his own, 
 in larg<' letters in chalk, done without resting the 
 hand, thinking this would conduce to freedom of 
 hand in drawing. I fe was not always patient at 
 the time with childish carelessness, but he was 
 most persevering, and most warmly fostered all 
 real att(n>ij)ts to do one's best. 
 
 'Daily, before breakfast, ho read the liiblo with 
 us, from Mant's edition. Nor can I rennnnbor a 
 time when I did not say prayers, repeat f hci Cate- 
 chism (^V(M'y Sunday, and go tochuich, b(Mng taken 
 oiirly that no one nn'glil l»c kcpl at hoin(\ There 
 w/iM leaching of tho meaning ol' t h('s<> things and 
 of Sci'ipturc history, bnt t he manuals of t hose days 
 wore not ninny nor very hejpl HI. I l<)wev<>r, a great 
 Dutch Script nn^ history, wit h an innnonse mnnber 
 of prints, inipiesHod Si-iipluro events; and i'loin
 
 1« CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 seven years old my mother took me to the Sunday- 
 school, first to learn, and then to teach, when, how- 
 ever, I was much too young to be put in authority. 
 I was more a conscientious than a religious child. 
 Except a vehement pleasure in the Sunday-school 
 — which was not so much for religion's sake as for 
 the love of teaching — I felt these observances a 
 weariness, though I should have been ashamed to 
 say so, and felt that it was my own fault. 
 
 'It was a strict Sunday — two services, two 
 Sunday-schools, books always of a religious cast, 
 (and not too many of them), hymns and Catechism 
 in the evening ; but I grew gradually up from the 
 sense of lengthiness to actual enjoyment, at first 
 through the Sunday-school. Lax Sundays would 
 never have had the same effect. 
 
 ' Intellectually the religious teaching interested 
 me, but my parents were of the old reticent 
 school, reverent and practical, so as to dread the 
 drawing out of feeling and expression, for fear of 
 unreality, and I do not know of much awakening 
 in me to religious warmth, unless it may be im- 
 pulses of thankfulness for a beautiful day, and an 
 extreme terror of the Last Judgment. Fancying 
 it would only come when nobody was awake, I 
 remember trying to keep off sleep by pulling out 
 the hairs in my mattress. This, however, was only 
 like other terrors that haunted my bedtime, such 
 as wolves in the dark hall, gunpowder plots, and 
 the fate of the Princes in the Tower. These are, I 
 believe, the lot of all imaginative children. My 
 parents were my practical religion and conscience. 
 
 ' My mother had read and imbibed the Edge-
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 
 
 worth books. She was perfectly regular in her 
 teaching, and never gave holidays unless there was 
 a needful occupation, but there were no lessons 
 after one o'clock. She had the old London school 
 education, and was very thorough, but she had the 
 art of making her teaching pleasant with playful 
 observations. At four years old I could read. The 
 discovery that I was cajiable of reading to myself 
 was too delightful to be forgotten. It was made 
 over a quarto illustrated Robinson Crusoe, beside 
 a print of him contending with the breakers. 
 French in children's stories Avas easy to mo at 
 seven or eight years old; also the order of Kings 
 of England, and their histories in Bishop Dav3^s's 
 little book ; nor do I think there was the slightest 
 damage to health or brains from what people now 
 call over-forcing. 
 
 ' It was a happy, healthy childhood, with much 
 joy in play, running aljout lioisterousl}- in upper 
 rooms and out of doors, delighting in dolls and 
 in live creatures, and in all (piiet games, having 
 the best of jjlayfellows in my mother, though her 
 lioalth would not ])('i-niit hor (o walk out far with 
 me. Sli(! was nuicli afraid of my ])eing vain. 
 Once, on venturing to ask if I was pretty, I was 
 answered that all young animals, young ]>igs and 
 all, were pi(!tty. It would pro])ably have been 
 wiser to (ell mo her true opinion, for the (picislion 
 of my bi'anty was a probl(Mn to ^^\o all niv cai'licu* 
 life. My liaii- in tlios(! days was of a rich clicst- 
 nut colour, in wavy cni'ls; but it (Icliglitcd her 
 thai I answcrcfl .-i l;i(i\' who .Khiiiicd il (oiil ol" 
 Mi-^M I'Mgcwoith), " You lla(t('i- mel" 
 
 2-2
 
 20 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' There was hardly any companionship with 
 other children, except in an annual visit to a large 
 family of consins, whose company was perfect 
 felicity, but who were brought up on the same 
 lines, x^erhaps even more plainly and strictly. 
 These recollections reach to about seven or eight 
 years old. 
 
 ' The special point experience would lend me to 
 remember is that justice and strong displeasure 
 at wrong-doing, severe criticism on carelessness, 
 and no weak indulgence promoted the most fervent 
 love and honour to my father, and that my 
 mother's perfect loyalty to all his opinions and 
 measures, and her unfailing tenderness, sym- 
 pathy, and playfulness made a life of happy affec- 
 tion and lasting reverence. 
 
 ' The Teens. 
 
 ' Looking back, it seems to me that childhood 
 proper ended with me at thirteen. In that year 
 we made a visit to the cousins, which was especially 
 delightful in games and expeditions and other 
 charms, and for five years we did not go again en 
 famille or for a long time, and I remember wonder- 
 ing how it would be when we had passed the stage 
 of romping children and had become mannerly 
 young people. I need hardly say that we were as 
 happy as ever and as playful, for change and 
 death had not yet begun to cast their shadows so 
 as to be felt by our joyous young spirits. Even by 
 the time I was thirteen I had begun some of the 
 pursuits that have been a solace to me all my life 
 — those of flowers and of shells.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 
 
 ' Rousseau's six letters on botany, translated by 
 Martyn.and with excellent illustrations, were read 
 with my mother, and introduced me to the wonders 
 of a lily, a stock, and a daisy. A former genera- 
 tion had been botanical, and had subscribed for 
 Curtis's Flora Londinensis and his Botanical Maga- 
 zine. The hand - coloured ])lates are infinitely 
 better than modern chromo-lithographs, though 
 we may be very grateful for these. Though the 
 continuations by Martyn and Priscilla Wakefield 
 had not the touch of genius that made Rousseau 
 chartiiijig, still, on the Linnavm system, I knew 
 well all our wood and river flowers in a way that 
 docs not seem to occur to the girls who arc sup- 
 posed to learn scientifically botany in classes — of 
 maidens, I mean, not plants. It is the fashion to 
 laugh at what used to bo called a hoi'tus .sirens, 
 and cci-taiiily the ])()or plants do Ix-como melan- 
 choly niunuiiies ; but it really oilers the only mode 
 of being sure of one's discoveries, and, moreover, 
 is a most innocent means of gra( ifying the instinct 
 of <'ollecting without sacriUcc^ of animal life, and 
 withoul needing much spac(> or being lial)l(^ (o bo 
 discarded on i-emovals. JJotany gives s|)ii-it and 
 object U) ouv walks, and o[)ens new fields of 
 interest in every now place. It has been one ol" 
 my greatest i)leasures. 
 
 'Ho have sln-lls. An old g(Mi(leman of ninety, 
 noted as a naturalist in bis day Dr. Latham, 
 aut lior of a hook on ornit li<»logy, (exhaust ive in its 
 t MUii lent nie Wood's (^a/a/offiic of Shells, coloured, 
 an<l \-ery (expensive, and lo (tht.iin tlie same was 
 one of those ambitions the accomplishment ol"
 
 22 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Avhich verified that everything comes to one who 
 waits. Conchology is not a pursuit quite so desir- 
 able as botany, for shells require space, and are 
 inconvenient in changes of residence. Besides 
 that, beyond the British species, the collecting 
 them, except under special circumstances, is ex- 
 pensive ; but, on the other hand, their beauty is 
 imperishable. My taste was encouraged because 
 it was a sort of inheritance from my father's 
 favourite sister, and my shells were keepsakes, or 
 old treasures from chimney-pieces, or purchases 
 with my own pocket-money, or brought home by 
 a naval relation, and all have a special value and 
 history. My parents shared the j)ursviit with me, 
 and fostered it by sympathy, but did not stifle it, 
 as ijeople often do, by overdoing encouragement. 
 Many of my treasures still bear the labels my 
 mother wrote for them half a century ago, before 
 my handwriting was neat enough. 
 
 ' Daily life went on much as when I was younger. 
 There was early rising at six, or soon after, to 
 work at arithmetic and Latin with my father, 
 going on to Euclid. We got as far as the first six 
 books, and then went back again. 1 had to draw 
 the diagrams with the utmost neatness and pre- 
 cision, and then to write out the proposition from 
 memory in a book without blot or erasure, which 
 I still possess. My father was one of the most 
 accurate of beings, I one of the most slovenly, and 
 my entire life and doings have been a struggle 
 between my conscience, trained to iiccuracy, and 
 my inclination to slurring my work. How much 
 worse I should have been without the drilling 1
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23 
 
 went through I cannot guess ; but I was never 
 disheartened, his approbation was so delightful, 
 and such an object to look forward to. 
 
 ' Breakfast, feeding of chickens, cats, and other 
 animals, then studies— French or Italian exercises, 
 Latin ones to prepare, geography, grannnar of 
 one or other of the languages, or else work with 
 the French master, who by-and-by taught me 
 Spanish. Then came historical reading in English 
 or French, and drawing. My mother had been 
 taught by a London master — and drew very well 
 in the old style — exact and minute copying of line 
 engravings, and also of water-coloured drawings 
 of figures, and this she taught so that I could draw 
 about as ^ve\l as she, perhaps less neatly, but more 
 boldly. There were no schools of art, no good 
 masters within reach, or I think I had talent 
 in that line enough to have gone farther. My 
 father had a real love and appreciation of art, 
 delighted in lim^ [)ictures, and accumulated ex- 
 quisite books of prints and engravings. These 
 were my extreme delight as far back as I can 
 remember, anil a visit to a gallery or print-shop 
 with him was a memorable [)leasure. He took 
 great interest in my drawings, but criticized 
 every defective outline and quizzed failures. I 
 once set to work to copy the likenesses of all 
 th»^ "tiMie kuights" to b(5 collected, some of 
 whom icmain t<j t his day in i)ortfulit)s. Montrose, 
 elaborately copied in i)encil from Lodge's portraits, 
 but too roughly shaded, was roceive<l with, " What! 
 luis he bet;n s<*raped with u small-toothed comb?"' 
 Ijjuighter took out t Ik; sI ing, and ( here was always
 
 24 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 hope of approval. My mother and I went through 
 many a tougli vohime while one read and the 
 other drew or worked. 
 
 'The actual studies ended with luncheon, and 
 then came the time spent out of doors. My 
 mother could not take long walks, and to go far 
 beyond the garden with my father, or even with a 
 maid, was always something of a treat ; but there 
 were endless occupations out of doors, except 
 on the damp days, when three times round the 
 gravel walk which bounded what grandmamma 
 called the i)remises was reckoned as equivalent to 
 a mile, and made my required exercise, enlivened 
 by many a fancy. There was not cottage-visiting, 
 save within my mother's short tether, or when 
 sent under escort on a definite message. I was a 
 great chatterbox, and my parents had seen evil 
 consequences from carelessness about young 
 people's intercourse, so that all gossip and 
 familiarity with servants, as a rule, and poor 
 people, was decidedly checked. I have often 
 wondered how far this was for the best. 
 
 ' The elder villagers were much less cultivated 
 than in these days, and would probably have been 
 unconsciously much more coarse, and my tongue 
 would certainly have run away with me, and have 
 been mischievous in every way ; yet, on the other 
 hand, the shyness of other classes that was 
 engendered has never left me ; and though I have 
 been working for my village neighbours all my 
 life, I have never been able to converse with them 
 with any freedom, nor so as to establish mutual 
 confidence, even where there is certainly mutual
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25 
 
 esteem and affection, and this has become a serious 
 drawback to helpfulness, though old use and 
 loyalty diminishes the evil effect among the native 
 inhabitants. 
 
 ' After the daily constitutional, there were divers 
 delights and pursuits besides the pleasure of read- 
 ing the twenty pages of history (Goldsmith's Rome), 
 and then one chapter of Scott, and no limitation 
 to the varieties of chosen story-books or the books 
 of travels. Franklin's Voyages, and an abridg- 
 ment of Waterton, with a charming picture of 
 his ride on the crocodile, stand out in memory 
 among those. I was also free for Bowdler's 
 Sh(ikes}Mare and Potter's translations of the Greek 
 tragedies. 
 
 'I was early promoted to what was then con- 
 sidered as late dinner, at half -past five or six, with 
 a long cv(!ning aft(>rwards, spent in reading aloud, 
 needlework, sometimes in games, chess, back- 
 gammon, or even " twenty questions," which, be it 
 observed, is a very useful diversion when ration- 
 ally conducted, so that it is not held fair to guess 
 too soon or without r(!al grounds. It is the way 
 to loai'Ti comnion tilings, such as what glass is made 
 of, and tli(' liki', for il causes the reilecting on what 
 things are "animal substances," "vegetable sub- 
 Htances," or "mineral substances," " comi)oun(l oi* 
 simple," and a person who was usetl to the exer- 
 cis(r would n('\('r maintain that salt lisji came 
 ready salted out of the sea. 
 
 'HomctinKSH my Latin construing had to be 
 r(^l(!gat<Ml to th(! <!\<'ning, l)iil not as a rule, for it 
 inailc my grandmother unhappy. I think that
 
 20 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 here a story of those days mvist be pardoned, as 
 ilhistratinsj^ both faults and conscientiousness. 
 
 ' Tea used to come in at eight o'clock, and at the 
 critical moment of an interesting employment 
 grandmamma bade me go and call my father. I 
 rose unwillingly, giving what my mother called 
 my black look and used to say was like Cain. She 
 reproved me sharply, for she had a horror of any 
 disrespect to her inother. Immediately after, on 
 going into the dining-room, my father presented 
 me with two beautifully bound volumes of Mrs. 
 Jameson's Female Charactei's of Shakesxyeare as a 
 reward for diligence and good conduct. 
 
 ' I burst into tears, and sobbed out that I did not 
 deserve the book, as I had just been very naughty 
 to grandmamma. 
 
 ' He said it should wait for another time, and so 
 it did, till I was recovering from a feverish attack 
 in the winter, and was said to have shown much 
 patience and good humour. 
 
 ' My faults were, so far as can be remembered, 
 a strange mixture of indolent carelessness with 
 vehement eagerness, and the temper which was 
 evoked by rebukes, either for omissions and im- 
 perfect work and untidiness, or else for boisterous- 
 ness and noisiness, and losing all self-control in 
 excitement. 
 
 ' A boy cousin declared that I reminded him of 
 the description in Quentin Duricardoi Charles the 
 Rold, wliose laugh was a diabolical grimace. When 
 we met again long after I had learned to laugh 
 without making horrid faces, he apologized for 
 what, probably, had been a useful, if rather strong,
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27 
 
 hint. Such observations, if amusing, never hurt 
 my temper. It was not of that kind. But reproof 
 for idleness did make me very cross for a time, 
 and there were also moods, connected, perhaps, 
 with health, when nothing seemed to go right or 
 be enjoyable. Nor does it seem to me that I was 
 vain. I never knew whether I was good-looking, 
 though I tried to find out, and, having little or no 
 rosy colour, I did not admire myself. As to clever- 
 ness, I seriously wondered at one time whether I 
 was an idiot, knowing that no one would tell me 
 if I was so, and when one evening, something of 
 this wonderful notion having betrayed itself, my 
 mother told me that, on the contrary, if I took 
 pains, I might be a superior person, she said 
 afterwards tliat elation and excitement made me 
 disagreea])le from high spirits all the rest of the 
 evening, when someone was dining with us.'
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 
 
 (1843—1850) 
 
 Another influence came into Charlotte's life about 
 1843 — that of Marianne Dyson, the sister of the 
 Vicar of Dogmersfield. Mr. Keble used to call Mrs. 
 and Miss Dyson the Vicar of Dogmersfield's two 
 wives. Mr. Dyson was himself a remarkable man, 
 full of cultivated tastes and great knowledge. He 
 ought, Sir John Coleridge says in his Life of Keble, 
 to have been an ecclesiastical historian. He was a 
 very great and intimate friend of Mr. Keble. When 
 he died, Miss Keble said to Miss Yonge that she had 
 been thinking how little change he would need 
 * where he is gone.' And it was he who persuaded 
 Keble to publish the Christian Year. Miss Dyson 
 Avas a woman of considerable ability and enthusiasm, 
 and became a great friend of Charlotte and of Mrs. 
 Yonge. For it would seem that there was full sym- 
 pathy between mother and daughter, and not a little 
 joyous and harmless pride by the mother in her 
 gifted child. 
 
 From 1810 to 1850, Miss Yonge tells us in her recol- 
 lection of Mr. Keble,* the brightness and joyousness 
 
 * (Jkuningn Jrom Thirty Years' Intercoune with the Rev. John 
 Keble. 
 
 28
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 29 
 
 of the ' forward movement ' had a good deal died 
 down. Those years were in many ways most sad 
 and trjang. The great loss of 1845, and the sus- 
 picion and unkindness with which ' Puseyites,' as 
 they began to be called, were treated, the growth of 
 unbelief, the changes at Oxford — all these made the 
 years sad. These times come to every generation 
 which starts full of hope in some ' high emprise.' 
 Those who work in the mission-field kno^v it ; those 
 who give themselves to any new movement of 
 Church life at homo find it out — this sense of defeat 
 and disappointment. We all in our turn have to 
 learn the lesson Mr. Keble taught us in his poem 
 for the 11th Sunday after Trinity, ' Is this a time to 
 plant and build ?' 
 
 ' Of the defeated party,' Dean Church writes — 
 he is speaking of the time after Mr. Ward's book, 
 The Ideal of a Cliristian Church, had been con- 
 demned — ' those who remained had much to think 
 about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, 
 and the loss of dear friends, and perplexities about 
 their own ))osition. The anxiety, the sorrow at 
 differing and parting, seem now almost extrava- 
 gant and nnintelligible. There are those who 
 sneer at the " distress " of that time. There had 
 not boon the same KuflVn-ing, the same estrange- 
 niont, whon Chnrchnicn turnod Dissenters, likc^ 
 l>iilt(!(!l and iiaj)tist Noel. IJut the movement had 
 raisod tho wliolo scah; of f(H^ling about religious 
 niattorH ho bigh, the (piestions were felt to bo so 
 inomontouH, tho stake and IIm; issue so precious, 
 tlic " loss and gain" so ininiense, thai 1<> diil'er on
 
 30 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 such subjects was the differing on the greatest 
 things which men could differ about. But in a 
 time of distress, of which few analogous situations 
 in our days can give the measure, the leaders stood 
 firm. Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Marriott accepted, 
 Avith unshaken faith in the cause of the English 
 Church, the terrible sei3aration. They submitted 
 to the blow — submitted to the reproach of having 
 been associates of those who had betrayed hopes 
 and done so much mischief ; submitted to the 
 charge of inconsistency, insincerity, cowardice ; 
 but they did not flinch. Their unshrinking atti- 
 tude was a new point of departure for those who 
 believed in the Catholic foundation of the English 
 Church. 
 
 ' Among those deeply affected by these changes, 
 there were many who had been absolutely 
 uninfluenced by the strong Roman current. They 
 had recognized many good things in the Roman 
 Church; they were fully alive to many short- 
 comings in the English Church ; but the possibility 
 of submission to the Roman claims had never been 
 a question with them.' 
 
 Echoes of the storm of course reached Otter- 
 bourne, and Miss Yonge tells us herself how she 
 remembered a long walk by the river with Mr. 
 Keble, in which he \vent into the question of Rome 
 with her, and ended the talk Avith — 
 
 ' No doubt we could ask Roman Catholics many 
 questions they could not answer, and they could 
 ask us many which we could not answer ; we can
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 31 
 
 only each go on in our o^vn way, holding to the 
 truth that we know we have.'* 
 
 Mr. Keble was a loyal son of the Church of 
 England ; he felt that to leave her was absolutely 
 wrong ; but he grew to see how much she had lost, 
 and how impossible it was to say that either Rome 
 or England was wholly right or wholly wrong. 
 
 Charlotte was certainly established by him. She 
 never seems to have felt any doubt after those first 
 questionings, and one of her latest books is Why am 
 I a Catholic, a)id not a Roman Catholic ? Yet she 
 was never blind to what was true. Many years after 
 she wrote to a friend (Miss Cazenove), who had 
 said some things in a letter as to the claims of the 
 Church : 
 
 ' April, 1865. 
 
 •My dear Annie, 
 
 ' If only you would not snap your fingers at 
 Rome ! I don't want to give her more than her 
 due, but I do love and honour S. Gregory the Great 
 too much to like what we owe to him and his noble 
 spirit to be so treated. 
 
 ' You know it is a fact that, though there were 
 lii-itish clergy about, they did not choose to try to 
 convert the Saxons, because they wishcul them to 
 come to a })ad end altogether, which was not 
 exactly Clirisliau. 
 
 'liortba ((iucc'ii] had a (Jallic chaplain, but \ 
 don't think he did mncli. IMki impulse! was given 
 by H. Gregory an<l Augustine!. I know tliere is a 
 
 * IfriiiZ/rrfionx (>/' thr Krr. Jiili ii Kriilr.
 
 32 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 great controversy about S. Patrick, and nobody- 
 seems to know certainly whether he came from 
 Gaul or the Lothians before he was stolen,* or 
 whether he was commissioned at Rome or not. 
 People settle it just the way their inclinations 
 lead them. I don't myself think he went to Pope 
 Celestine, but there is no certainty.' 
 
 In the midst of these sadnesses Charlotte's rapidly 
 developing powers must have been great joy to 
 Mr. Keble. She had begun to scribble tales inces- 
 santly, and there seems to have been a good deal of 
 opposition to the idea of her publishing. Her grand- 
 mother, especially, seems to have felt a horror at the 
 idea of Charlotte's coming in any way before the 
 public, which even for the early Victorian age was 
 exaggerated. 
 
 The Kebles were consulted, and the first story. 
 Abbey Church, was taken to Hursley for criticism. 
 For many years. Miss Yonge says, everything she 
 wrote was read by Mr. Keble in manuscript. He was 
 a most delightful critic and an absolutely faultless 
 reader of proofs. And there is no doubt that there is 
 around all Miss Yongc's early books an atmosphere 
 of refinement, an aroma of — shall we say Hursley ? 
 which does seem lacking in some, at least, of the 
 later ones. 
 
 Abbey Church was the first published tale, and, 
 crude as it may seem to modern critics, it is, in the 
 present writer's opinion, very charming and parti- 
 cularly ' Miss Yonge-ish.' 
 
 * ^^'e must remember tliat this was written some forty years 
 before Professor liury's Life of S. I'atrick.
 
 THE EAKLY BOOKS 33 
 
 The story is of the slightest : a party of cousins 
 gathered at the Vicarage of a county town on the 
 occasion of the consecrcition of a church, and the 
 scrape some of them fall into by attending a lecture 
 at a recently founded Mechanics' Institute. 
 
 But the cousins — two of them, at least — are so 
 delightful, especially Elizabeth, who is just a little 
 like her creator in her enthusiasm and youthful in- 
 tolerance and cleverness. And it is all so funny — 
 the horror of the good people at the Mechanics' In- 
 stitute, and the description of the ignorant youth 
 who gives a lecture for the purpose of exposing 
 chivalry. How we have veered round now ! How 
 much Kuskin, William Morris, Burne-Jones, and 
 many another, have done even for the British Philis- 
 tine, to make him realize that ' on a renonce a fairo 
 dater dc Luther Ic re veil de la raison '!■' 
 
 Elizabeth, the clever daughter, and her cousin 
 Anne's talk must have been a transcript of the 
 Hort of thing which went on among the Yongo 
 cousinhood. 
 
 ' " What did you do all that time?' said Elizabeth. 
 ' Have you road llercicur</,iind do you not delight 
 in him ?" 
 
 ' '• Yes," said Anne ; "and I want to know if ho 
 \h not the father of Cedric of Kotherwood. " 
 
 ' " Ha must have been his grandfather," said 
 Eliz;ibctli. "C(Mlrif' lived a Imndred years aft(u\" 
 
 '"ButCcdrio remembered T<n(iuilstone before 
 the Normans came," said Anne. 
 
 ' "No, IK), hr ((Mild not, tiiough he had boon told 
 
 * ( >»iiiani.
 
 34 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 what it had been before Front de Boeuf altered 
 it," said Elizabeth. 
 
 ' " And old Ulrica was there when Front de 
 Bojuf's father took it," said Anne. 
 
 ' " I cannot tell how long a hag may live," said 
 Elizabeth, " but she could not have been less than 
 a hundred and thirty years old in the thiie of 
 Richard Coeur de Lion." 
 
 ' " Cosur de Lion came to the throne in 1189," 
 said Anne. ... " But then, you know, Ulrica calls 
 Cedric the son of the great Hereward." 
 
 ' " Her wits were a little out of order," said Eliza- 
 beth. " Either she meant his grandson, or Sir 
 Walter Scott made as great an anachronism as 
 when he made that same Ulrica compare Rebecca's 
 skin to paper." 
 
 ' " If she had said parchment, it would not have 
 been such a compliment. . . ." 
 
 ' " I believe such stories as Ivanhoe were what 
 taught me to like history. . . . They used to be 
 the only history I knew, and almost the only 
 geography. Do not you remember Aunt Anne's 
 laughing at me for arguing that Bohemia was on 
 the Baltic, because Perdita was left on its coast ? 
 And now I believe that Coeur de Lion feasted with 
 Robin Hood and his merry men, although history 
 tells me that he disliked and despised the English. 
 
 . . I believe that Queen Margaret of Anjou 
 haunted the scenes of grandeur that once were 
 hers, and that she lived to see the fall of Charles 
 of Burgundy, and died when her last hope failed 
 her, though 1 know that it was not so."
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 35 
 
 ' " Then I do not quite see how such stories have 
 taught you to Hke history," said Anne. 
 
 ' " They teach us to realize and understand the 
 people whom we find in history," said Elizabeth. 
 
 ' " Oh yes," said Anne. " Who would care for 
 Louis the Eleventh if it was not for Quontin Dur- 
 ward ? And Shakespeare makes us feel as if we 
 had been at the battle of Shrewsburj'." 
 
 ' " Yes," said Elizabeth, "and they have done even 
 more for history. They have taught us to imagine 
 other heroes whom they have not mentioned. 
 Cannot you sec the Black Prince — his slight, 
 graceful figure; his fair, delicate face full of gentle- 
 ness and kindness, fierce warrior as he is; his black 
 steel helmet arid tippet . . . ; his clustering white 
 phime ; his surcoat with England's leopards and 
 France's lilies ? Cannot you imagine liis courteous 
 conference with Bertrand dii Uuesclin . . . antl the 
 noh)le, affectionate Captal de Bach, who died of 
 j^rief for him 'i . . ." 
 
 '"Give Froissart some of the credit of your 
 I)icture," said Anno. 
 
 '" Froissart is in some places likf Sir W'ahcr 
 himself," said I'^li/.abetli : " l>ut now 1 will U'll you 
 of a i)erson who lived in no days of romance, and 
 has not ha<l 1 he adv/mtago of a practical historian 
 to iigiit him up in our imagination. I mean tli*- 
 gn-at Trinci! of Conde. Now, though lie is veiy 
 urilikf Sjiakf'sp<'ar<^'s Coriolanus, yet there is 
 enough I't'semblance between tlieni to niaUe the 
 compnriHon very Jimusing. TlH'rc was much of 
 Coriolanus' indomilahU' pride /ind iKU'roi- of uioh 
 jtopuiarity [in ('ond<"|. . . . iNot tlwit the Iwnd-
 
 36 CHAKLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 hearted Conde would have listened to his wife and 
 mother ... or that his arrogance did not degene- 
 rate into wonderful meanness at last, such as Corio- 
 lanus would have scorned ; but the parallel was as 
 amusing. ... I hate abridgments — the mere bare 
 bones of history ; I cannot bear dry facts, such as 
 that Charles the Fifth beat Francis the First at 
 Pavia, in a war for the Duchy of Milan, and nothing 
 more told about them. I am always ready to say, 
 as the Grand Seignior did about some great battle 
 among the Christians, that I do not care whether 
 the dog bites the hog, or the hog bites the dog." 
 
 ' " What a kind interest in your fellow-creatures 
 you display !" said Anne. "I think one reason why 
 I like history is because I am searching out all the 
 characters who come up to my notion of perfect 
 chivalry, or, rather, of Christian perfection. I am 
 making a book of true knights." '* 
 
 Perhaps all this sounds very bookish and pedantic, 
 but how^ delicious it is ! and, after all, some literary 
 enthusiasm is almost more desirable than perpetual 
 talk about games. 
 
 Elizabeth has something about her which makes 
 one love this first of the long line of Miss Yonge's 
 heroines very much, and we are sure she died young, 
 and perhaps rather suddenly. 
 
 About this time the Mozleys were bringing out 
 the Magazine for the Young, a delightful little two- 
 penny production, and in it Miss Yonge wrote some 
 of her most delicious little tales. ' Langley School ' 
 
 * Miss Yonge really did this, as we have seen in the little bit of 
 autobiography.
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 37 
 
 is tlie first of those village tales, of which, perhaps, 
 ' Ben Sylvester's Word ' is the gem. 
 
 All these tales are really valuable. They are 
 accurate studies of a state of things fast i3assing 
 away. The children are as cleverly sketched and 
 are as livinr/ as are the best-known characters in the 
 longer book. ' Langley School,' 'Friarswood Post 
 Office,' ' Ben Sjdvester's Word,' ' Leonard the Lion- 
 Heart,' are all perfect little tales, and should not be 
 forgotten. And in her later village chronicles the 
 children, who appear as grown-up people, are them- 
 selves — we recognize onr old friends. We will quote 
 an admiral>le notice by Miss Christabel Coleridge : 
 
 'These tiiles of village life during the latter half 
 of the nineteenth century have hardly ever been 
 widely known, and are now, we fear, almost for- 
 gotten by the pivsciit generation. The earlitn* 
 ones describe a world now passed away, but the 
 later ones are still faiily up to date. They all 
 depict villag(Hife iiiidei- raxoiii-.ihle, Ixit not ideal, 
 circumst-anc<\s, and not through I he rose-coloured 
 spectach^s which Miss Mitl'ord put oji when she 
 wnjte her delightlid Our Mlhuji'. They are, in 
 fact, the successors ol" Mis. llaiiuali More's lildrk 
 (wiles nml Ifrshr ll'/V/z/o/, and t iiey show what \\\o 
 ( 'Imrch has done to mend t he evils lo which t hoso 
 cl<!Ver tr.'icts first called attention. Some day the 
 " Fjingley Tales " will he reprinted as cl.issics, and 
 the lit ill* girls (jf jjingley School will .appeal' in 
 their pink fi'ocks, while tippets, and <ottage 
 liiiiHut^ trimmed with green, d.iinly and |»ic- 
 tures<jiie in " J'>aily S ictorian " style. In l'.».")(l or
 
 38 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 so they will be valuable evidence of what the 
 Church of England did for education and civiliza- 
 tion when she still had the village schools in her 
 liand. Great as was the influence of The Daisy 
 Chain and The Heir of Redely ffe on the girls of 
 their day, I doubt if either did more to stir up the 
 generation who "did parish work" on High Church 
 lines during the latter half of the last century than 
 LamjJey School. 
 
 ' Langley was a small but prosperous village in 
 a southern county. It was not exactly Otterbourne 
 under another name, though some of its character- 
 istics were naturally derived from it, but it was a 
 less considerable place, the only landowner being, 
 apparently, " Squire Manners," and only one, or at 
 most two, farmers being mentioned. Nor ^vere 
 the little Langley girls portraits of Otterbourne 
 school-children. They were created after their 
 kind with unerring truth to life, and an individu- 
 ality which survived through two or three genera- 
 tions. The original " Langley School " began as a 
 series of sketches in the Magazine for the Young in 
 1847. These consolidated into a story ; the school 
 was the connecting link. Miss Edith and Miss 
 Dora Manners tauglit the children and loved them 
 with the whole enthusiasm of the new " Oxford 
 Movement" in their hearts, though they never 
 talked about their duty towards their neighbour 
 — they only did it. The story ends with the mar- 
 riage of Miss Edith, and with the presentation to 
 her by the children of a patchwork quilt of their 
 own making. The " young ladies " are on a con- 
 sideiable elevation, and are never exactly intimate
 
 llMtO ttf 
 
 A, U41HHJII10, 
 
 ciiAKioirr: makv voNtiii. 
 
 To /ace ftage 38.
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 39 
 
 with the children ; but the whole subsequent 
 relation of Sunday-school teacher and scholar, of 
 G.F.S. associate and member, was there in germ, 
 and whether or no the book made " young ladies " 
 interesting to school-children, it made school- 
 children enchanting to young ladies. There is no 
 Government inspector, but good, sound, and quite 
 intelligent teaching had begun, and the Sunday 
 lessons here and there given are models not 
 excelled by the newest "catechism" in our day. 
 The life described is sim^ile, wholesome, and secure. 
 The Wrtues inculcated are family affection and 
 duty, absolute truth in word and deed, modesty, 
 and great self-control of manners and conduct. 
 The Langley children learnt " how to behave." 
 Most of them were children of labourers and 
 servants f)n the estate, and some of small free- 
 holders, and there seems to have been no poverty 
 to speak of. 
 
 ' The characters of this simple story — all very 
 simple, too — are as distinct as their prototypes in 
 th(! flesh. None of us who were young in the 
 fifties and sixties will ever forg(^t good Amy Lee; 
 Kato Grey, who was cl(;vei-er, but not quite so 
 good; Klizabctli Kiiigslcy, who was very superior ; 
 Cl<!mmy Firlding, who was fai- from being as good 
 as shr ought to be ; Kiiiily Mo? ris, who told stoi'ies; 
 and .lauc Anstcy, who (bank her little sister's 
 milk. N\ c rcmciubcr thcni as w(! rt'iuciubcr the 
 Knles and Aniys of real life, whom W(> oiirsclves 
 tried to bring up t<j the sanm stand/ml. TIk y w ere 
 our modi'ls, wIm'I her nui" -idioiai-; rndi-avoured to 
 iiiiitatr tJHin m- not. TIh'S' ceil ;iinl\ lived in ;i
 
 40 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 " dawn-golden " time, and in an " atmosj)herc" not 
 only of cheerful sunshine and fresh country air, 
 but of secure, uncontroversial respect for religion 
 and virtue, undisturbed by Acts of Parliament ; 
 that "atmosphere" which few writers on educa- 
 tional subjects have ever breathed, and which they 
 often misrepresent. The gradual growth of the 
 religious motive, the slow improvement in conduct, 
 is true to life, and is what earnest, careful workers 
 may look to produce. There is one jarring note 
 to our ears. However glad we of this day may be 
 to escape from the naughty little Publicans of 
 juvenile fiction who give thanks that they are not 
 good little Pharisees, we could hardly be content 
 to leave the naughty girl who stole the patchwork, 
 expelled from Sunday and week-day school, and 
 apparently outcast for ever. It is good that she 
 is not the centre of interest, but we should be 
 sorry to leave her without hope. 
 
 ' Langley was as real a place as Barchester, and 
 after many years, in the early eighties. Miss Yonge 
 returned to its inhabitants. The later " Langley 
 Stories" describe the descendants of our old 
 friends, and depict the village school and common- 
 wealth as it existed, at any rate, up to the Educa- 
 tion Act of 1902. The school is inspected, the 
 teachers are certificated, and all modern advan- 
 tages of education, dress, and habits are freely 
 welcomed and enjoyed. The tales take in older 
 characters, and a much wider air blows through 
 them, but they are quite as accurate and life-like. 
 The village school of the eighties and nineties is 
 quite as vividly shown in The 7'hird Standard and
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 41 
 
 in Left Out as that of the forties in the original 
 Langley School. Miss Dora lives unmarried in 
 Langley, and is the jDarish " ladj^ of all work." 
 There is, however, more pathos and more humour 
 in the later stories, and much more tenderness 
 towards childish faults. "Frank's Debt" in Langley 
 Lads and Lasses, a tale of a big farm boy, who 
 gradually grows a conscience and repays his good 
 aunt the money she lent him, is as good a piece of 
 character-drawing as can be found in tales of 
 working-class life. Of the two last Langley stories, 
 Seicincj and Soicing, though longer and more com- 
 plete, is not quite so successful. The Hollises, the 
 daughters of the unsatisfactory Clementina, who, 
 though improved, is still herself, are very clever 
 sketches. But Amy Lee the second, who allows 
 the smart groom to flirt with her, is a little fine- 
 spun, A pretty village maid had better grow up 
 to endure a few compliments with equanimity, and 
 would certainly have heard of her beauty before 
 she left school. The last of all, Pickle and his 
 Page-hoy, is quite charming. Pickle is quite as 
 real a Skye terrier as his page is a real boy, and 
 theii- adventures are at once delightful, funny, and 
 edii'yiiig, and if brought out in modern style, with 
 good illustrations, would make an excellent prize- 
 book. 
 
 ' I do not think Ihut the literary merit of these 
 siniiilc (ales lias ever been fully recogni/ed — the 
 skill with wliicli Nual folouring is conveyed witli- 
 out long and clalxtrate (Uiscrij)! ions, llu^ excellent 
 construction of t Ih^ simple i)lots wliidi always 
 hang togethcT, and. ( liiclly, the clen rent idiaracters
 
 42 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 described in them. The sound-hearted, sensible, 
 but slow peasant, old and young, who wears a 
 smock-frock in the earlier stories, and a good coat 
 in the latter ones, as he acquires a little more 
 education and knowledge of the world ; the reli- 
 gious and refined village matron or elderly servant, 
 the best outcome of the village school ; the clever 
 youth or bright girl who rises in life, and the 
 stupid, idle ones who fall in it — all these are given 
 "in their habit as they lived." The grades of 
 village society, the relations of farmers and shoji- 
 keepers, labourers and head servants, are all given 
 simply as facts, and ungrudgingly recognized.' 
 
 Tales of another kind were engrossing her. Scenes 
 and Characters ; or, Eighteen Months at Deechcroft, 
 we think, must have been always a favourite of its 
 author, for the fortunes of the Mohun family, who 
 lived at Beechcroft, were always in her mind, and 
 we meet Mohuns again and again in later years. 
 
 Scenes and Characters, however, does not seem to 
 us quite so vivid and bright as the two stories which 
 came out in the Churchman's Companion — Henri- 
 etta's Wish and I'he Ihvo Guardians. 
 
 The first of these is an admirable illustration of 
 the extraordinary change which has come over our 
 attitude as to the relative duties of parents and 
 children. 
 
 Henrietta and her brother Fred are the children 
 of a Mr. Frederick Langton, who was killed by a fall 
 from his horse when he was on a visit to his father's 
 place in the country. His wife, who is represented 
 as a charming and saintly person, takes up her abode
 
 THE EARLY BOOKS 43 
 
 at a seaside place, and brings uj) her two children 
 there. ' Henrietta's wish,' a perfectly natural, not to 
 say laudable one, is to visit her grandparents and 
 her father's home, and spend Christinas with the 
 numerous cousins who are gathered there. And at 
 last, when she and her brother are fifteen and four- 
 teen, this wish is granted. They all pay a visit to 
 the old liome. But the most dire consequences arise. 
 
 Fred, who, greatly to his credit, is not an absolute 
 muff, is fretted by continual restraint. He must not 
 drive, must not skate with his cousins until his Uncle 
 Geoffrey has vouched for the safety of the ice. At 
 last he does drive with an impetuous and charming 
 cousin, Beatrice, Uncle Geoffrey's daughter ; the 
 horse bolts, he is pitched on his head, and a bad 
 illness ensues. From the overfatigue arising from 
 his illness his mother dies. Fred was certainly wilful 
 and disobedient, but that poor Henrietta should also 
 be blamed for her ' wish ' does seem unjust. 
 
 Of course, nowadays the modern mother would be 
 braced, and made to feel that to indulge her nerves 
 was positively wrong, and that her children were 
 rather to l)e pitied tban blamed if they found her 
 n<;rv«^s tir(!soiri(!. Foi" the rt!st,(li(; story is delicious. 
 The diifereiit cousins, the delightful Uncle Geoll'iey 
 (said to he a picture of Mr. Yonge), the kind old 
 grandfatlMir, the fussy grandmother who thinks 
 private tlH'atriculs shocking, th(^ des('ri|)tion of the 
 viliagfi cluirfb nnd fln' ncwj'.'inglcd Chrisl nins decor- 
 ations, ure all vi\i(l, and recall those; early days 
 when as yet no one thought that nii<lday Com- 
 muni(jn was und<;sirable, or thai it might be possible 
 for the unconlirmcil to lie present at the T^ucharist.
 
 44 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 The Two Guardians has some charming descrip- 
 tions of Devonshire and some hfe-hke schoolboys. 
 (Miss Yonge's boys are very real.) The heroine is a 
 very fine character, and the book is a real advance. 
 We have in this book the first expression of the 
 author's attitude towards what was then known as 
 ' rationalism ' or ' Germanism,' what we call ' higher 
 criticism.' And, by the way, those first attacks of 
 criticism which became known to Churchmen and 
 to English Christians were not made known to them 
 by reasonable scholarly Christians. There was then 
 no Westcott, no George Adam Smith, or any of those 
 numerous scholars who have done so much to re- 
 assure us. People might be excused for panic when 
 criticism came, not as the endeavour of true and 
 courageous Christians to ascertain what was truth, 
 but as an attack on Christian faith. We smile, 
 perhaps, at the fears of those who came before us, 
 but they were not unjustified. ' The Liberals are 
 deficient in religion, and the religious are deficient 
 in liberality,' said Archbishop Tait. •' 
 
 Miss Dyson had set up a school for girls of the 
 lower middle class, and for these Charlotte wrote 
 The Chosen People and Kings of -England. 
 
 * See an admiiable sermon Ijy the Bis^liop of Gloucester on the 
 ' Criticism of the Ohl Testament^' in liis book The Old Testament cniU 
 its Messages.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ' MONTHLY PACKET ' 
 
 (1851) 
 
 In 1851 £1 new venture appeared, and with it so much 
 of Miss Yonge's work is identified that we must 
 dwell on it. 
 
 This was the beginning of the Monthly Packet. 
 Miss Coleridge tells us that the tone of the Church- 
 man n Companion had become rather controversial, 
 and it was felt that something deeper and less 
 acrimonious might be useful. 
 
 The preface to the first number is so beautiful, 
 and the words as to the Churcli so extraordinarily 
 appli(;ablo to this very time, that we venture to 
 reprint it : 
 
 'If the pretty old terms "maidens" and "damsels" 
 had not gone out of fashion, I should address this 
 letter by that name to the readers for whom this 
 little book is in the first place intended— young 
 girls, or maidens, or young ladies, whichever you 
 like to l>c called, who are above the ago of child- 
 hood, and who are either looking back on school- 
 days with regret, or else pursuing the most im- 
 portant part of education, namely, self-education. 
 
 4o
 
 46 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 * It has been said that everyone forms their own 
 character between the ages of fifteen and five-and- 
 twenty, and this magazine is meant to be in some 
 degree a help to those who are thus forming it ; 
 not as a guide, since that is the part of deeper and 
 graver books, but as a companion in times of 
 recreation, which may help you to perceive how 
 to bring your religious principles to bear upon 
 your daily life, may show you the examples, both 
 good and evil, of historical persons, and may tell 
 you of the workings of God's providence both here 
 and in other lands. 
 
 'With this view, it is proposed to give you a 
 series of scenes from history, dwelling on the 
 more interesting periods and characters. Suppose 
 we call them Cameos, as they are to present scenes 
 and heroes in relief, and may be strung together 
 Avith the chain of your former lessons in history. 
 A few tales which, though of course imaginary, 
 may serve to show you the manners and ways of 
 thinking of past times, will be introduced from 
 time to time, with stories of our own days, accounts 
 of foreign lands, biographies, translations, and 
 extracts from books which are not likely to come 
 in your way, or of which the whole may not be 
 desirable reading for you, so as, it is hoped, to 
 conduce to your amusement, and, at the same 
 time, to the instruction of such as are anxious " to 
 get wisdom and understanding." Above all, it is 
 the especial desire and prayer of those who address 
 you through the pages of this magazine, that what 
 you find there may tend to make you more stead- 
 fast and dutiful daughters of our own beloved
 
 THE ' MONTHLY PACKET ' 47 
 
 Catholic Church of England, and may go alongside 
 in all respects with the teaching, both doctrinal 
 and practical, of the Prayer Book. For we live in 
 a time of more than ordinary trial, and our middle 
 path seems to have grown narrower than ever. 
 The walls t)f the glorious Temple in which we 
 have been builded up seem to shake, though that 
 is but seeming, since they are based on a Rock, 
 and the foundations are the Apostles and Prophets, 
 and not one of the smallest of the living stones 
 need fall from its own station, even though larger, 
 more important, and seemingly more precious ones 
 may totter and rend themselves away. Small 
 stones as we may be, yet we can, we may, we must 
 keep our places in the fitly framed building, where 
 it may indeed be vouchsafed to some even of us 
 to be " as polished corners of the Temple." This is 
 speaking more seriously than I meant at first to 
 have done ; but who can speak of the Church in 
 these days and not be grave, even though we 
 know that the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against her? 
 
 ' Though this letter has been chiefly aiklrosscd 
 to young girls, it is not intended that the pages oi' 
 this inagaziuf; should be exclusively for them. It 
 is purposed to make it such as may be pleasant 
 reading f<jr boys of the same age, especially school- 
 teachers ; and it is hoped that it may be found 
 useful to y(>ung(!r readers, either of (he diawiijg- 
 room, the servants' hall, or the lending library.' 
 
 The Packet began in a very quiet way, a humble 
 little magazine, in lSr>l. Tin- (liiily little: l)lark
 
 48 CHAKLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 volumes of those early years (1851 to 1865) are before 
 the writer, and it may be a prejudice, but they do 
 seem much less old-fashioned and Ijehind the times 
 than most of the other magazine literature of those 
 years. 
 
 There are not a few men and women who were 
 young people in the flourishing days of the Packet, 
 the seventies and eighties, who could, if they would, 
 say that Miss Yonge's hopes had been realized. 
 
 At first Miss Yonge was the chief contributor. 
 She starts off with ' Cameos from English History,' 
 and those ' Cameos ' went on for forty-seven years — 
 an extraordinary feat. They are, of course, not all 
 equally good, but they give a wonderful amount 
 of information, of picturesque detail, of anecdote. 
 They have that photographic style, so to speak, 
 in which Miss Yonge excelled. It is quite possible 
 to find abundant fault. Miss Yonge's style was by 
 no means irreproachable, and the very familiar 
 terms on which she lived with the personages of the 
 Middle Ages seems at times to make her forget the 
 depths of her readers' ignorance ; but a more charm- 
 ing set of books to which to refer and with which 
 to lighten up the schoolroom reading of standard 
 histories does not exist. We are anticipating, but 
 who gives a more picturesque account of the Con- 
 queror, of Henry V., of James I. of Scotland, and of 
 various episodes in which English and Continental 
 history were interwoven? That is one of the 
 peculiar merits of Miss Yonge's ' Cameos.' The 
 insular view of English history leads to most extra- 
 ordinary ignorance at times, and it would be inter- 
 esting to know how many ordinary people have any
 
 THE ' MONTHLY PACKET ' 49 
 
 idea of what is meant by the ' Duchy of Biirp:undy,' 
 the ' Holy Roman Empire,' the ' Babylonish Cap- 
 tivity,' ' Canossa,' and so on. 
 
 Then in October she began the ' Conversations on 
 the Catechism.' 
 
 Also Miss Yonge began to write the long series of 
 stories so often connected with each other, so that 
 there are links between the Castle-Builders, one of 
 the earliest, and the very latest of her tales. 
 
 And it w^as in those early days that she wrote that 
 gem of historical stories, The Little Duke, w^hich is 
 still as f resli and delightful and as much appreciated 
 by the right-minded youtliful reader as it doubtless 
 was in those early days. 
 
 It was followed by The Lances of Lynwood and The 
 Prince and the Page, which are delightful, but not 
 equal to tlu? Little Da1<e, which was never surpassed 
 by Miss Yongo, 
 
 The Dais,/ Chain, The Trial, The Vouucj Strpniolher, 
 made their ai>p('anince also in these little black 
 volnmes. And there wore other writers also who 
 did mucli good work. There was an excelh^nt story 
 whirh one can still read with ])l(iasure. On the liauLs 
 of the Thorpe. Th(^ ant hor wrot(^ one or two other 
 pleasant lit tie stories in \hrChurehnian's(''<)tnpani<)u, 
 and showfil a ronsidfM'abIc power of drawing char- 
 ft«ter and of uiiderstJiiuling of boys. A slightly 
 tyrannical fatlior is usnally to hv found in her dra- 
 tnafifi prrsond' — one of the tokeiw, by t he way, of the 
 ch/mge in f)nr ontlook. l-'atlwrs, whether for belter 
 or worse, for the most part are not tynnujical now- 
 
 ftdayw. 
 
 Tlie rarUel wasalways fnil of edifying information 
 
 4
 
 50 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 from its earliest days, and these little volumes con- 
 tained many excellent papers, and about them there 
 is just that tovich of refinement, that note of un- 
 worldliness, that loftiness of ideal, that severity with 
 self, which are noticeable in all the early leaders — 
 men and women alike — of those first days of Church 
 revival. 
 
 Bracing oneself to endure is the key-note of even 
 the yoimg. Perhaps the fruit of such teaching is to 
 be found in many a Community of devoted Sisters, 
 in many a holy and obscure life of unwearied good 
 works. 
 
 And of course there were papers about Church 
 work, and now and then a description of some cere- 
 mony in the Greek Church, recalling to us now the 
 interest in, and the hopes for, the Greek Communion 
 felt by some of the leaders. 
 
 As time went on, writers now well known to us 
 all made their appearance in the Packet, among them 
 Mrs. Alfred Scott-Gatty, the distinguished mother of 
 an even more distinguished daughter. Mrs. Gatty 
 did for children something of the work that Miss 
 Yonge did for their elders, and certainly no child's 
 magazine has ever taken the place of Aunt Judy. 
 
 In 18GG the Packet appeared in an enlarged shape, 
 and the bound volumes are much larger than the 
 first set. The Six Cushions came out in this series. 
 Miss Yonge had a great knack of describing national 
 characteristics ; the high-bred, rather stiff, and alto- 
 gether delightful Scotch family are true portraits. 
 Dante readings began in 1869, and Miss Yonge's 
 beautiful Musings on the ' Christian Year ' and ' Lyra 
 Jnnocentium'
 
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 THE ' MONTHLY PACKET ' 51 
 
 Miss Yonge began the Caged Lion in 18G8. 
 
 It was just about then that a paper appeared in 
 the Packet which seemed clever and funny, and not 
 hkely to have its prophecies reahzed. Yet something 
 of what it foretold has come to pass. 
 
 A very behind-the-age Rector (this was in 1867) 
 goes to visit a college friend, and finds a church 
 restored according to all the fervour of those early 
 days, and he dreams at night that a descendant of 
 his present host comes in and announces that the 
 church is now restored and the whitewash is back, 
 the organ done away with, the singing men in the 
 gallery. 
 
 It sounded very ridiculous in 1867, but nowadays, 
 when plainsong comes to the front, the organ is a 
 good deal repressed, galleries for singers and instru- 
 ments are not unknown, and the stained glass of the 
 sixties makes us shudder. 
 
 Descriptions of Church work are more frequent, 
 and mentions of Religious Communities occur. 
 
 Some 0X0(0 lent pay)ors on l*]iiglish hymnology 
 began in 1867; thcsy arc still interesting and full of 
 sound criticism. 
 
 Miss Yonge, it may be noticed, was always abreast 
 of modern movements. She never joined in the cry 
 against women's colleges, and slu^ had not nnicb of 
 tbatof)Scurantist spii'it wliidi lias doiu^ somucii liarni 
 to the causi; (jf religion at least, so Far as (Mhical ion 
 was concerned. Even in those very eaily days there 
 ap[)ear('<I .i p.i|M r on examinations for girls, and 
 another on the advantages of traimid nurses foi- the; 
 j)oor. These tilings ure the ("oTnTnon possession of 
 all now ; they were battloliekls forty years ago. 
 
 4-2
 
 52 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Miss Yonge, also, was anything but exclusively 
 literary in her tastes ; she loved botany, natural 
 history, science (when it did not touch on ultimate 
 problems), and, as time went on, some excellent 
 papers on various branches of science found their 
 way into the Packet — some, if we mistake not, from 
 the pen of the present Canon Wilson of Worcester. 
 
 For more directly relii^ious teaching there was 
 Miss Yonge's Womanhind ^^vYneh maybe a little old- 
 fashioned, but which will repay reading, and in 
 some ways is quite unique. Dr. Littledale contri- 
 buted a series of ]mpers on Sisterhoods, which have 
 never been republished, and which are full of com- 
 mon sense and information. It is much to be 
 w^ished that heads of Communities would read and 
 ponder his words about health and the sin of bad 
 cooking in chapter vii. 
 
 Various sketches of the work done by nurses in 
 the Franco-German War appeared in these years, 
 and are extremely graphic and interesting. 
 
 And there is a description of the cholera at 
 Plymouth in 1849 in the May number of 1871, which 
 will bear reading at this distant date. Mr. Prynne's 
 name is engraved on his people's hearts, and this 
 story of his and of the little band of Sisters' heroism 
 should never be forgotten.* 
 
 Maqnum Boimm, another family chronicle, ap- 
 peared in 1877, 1878, 1879. 
 
 Miss Yonge added two more family chronicles — 
 Tu-^o Sides of a Shield and Beechcroft at Rockstone. 
 
 Two more of Miss Yonge's historical stories 
 came out between 1880 and 1890. Two Penniless 
 
 * It now appears iu Mr. Pryune's Life.
 
 THE 'MONTHLY PACKET' 53 
 
 Princesses leads us into the byways of history, and 
 so does A Modern Quest of Ulysses. 
 
 This was the old Monthly Packet from 1851 to 1890. 
 Perhaps to modern eyes it looks a little dull ; per- 
 haps Miss Yonge had ceased to interest a modern 
 generation. AVith all its faults, it breathed a frag- 
 rance of bygone days. It was always loyal and 
 high-toned, and seemed to have taken for its motto, 
 ' Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things 
 are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good repoit, if there be any virtue and 
 if there be any j)raise, think on these things.' 
 
 It did not profess to be written for any but 
 members of the Anglican Branch of the Church ; it 
 did not aim at anything specially exciting. It had 
 no aids in the shape of illustrations. But whatever 
 its limits, or its shortcomings, the old Packet will 
 always be loved by those who, month by month, 
 welcomed it and made through it many dear and 
 never-to-be-forgotten friends. 
 
 Miss C(jl(;ridgc and xMr. Innes took over the 
 editorship in i8UU, and, if there was a change in the 
 tone, it was not very perceptible; perhaps it was 
 not quite bo strongly Catholic in tone, perhaps 
 there was not mucli of the devotional element : one 
 could hardly say. It seemed all right, and wo hoped 
 the old Packet would prosper in its bright blue di'ess 
 and its modern ways -when, lo I with no warning, 
 it ceased to be. 
 
 It was a loss, and has never been re[)laced. 
 
 The ollice <j1' (MJiioi- gave Miss Yonge i)lenty of 
 W(jrk even in <'arl,>' d.iys. She. wrilrs lo Miss 
 Barnett :
 
 54 CHAKLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 '■November (?1850). 
 
 ' . . . You really must beg, borrow or steal 
 something to help me. After this winter I shall 
 get on better, but there are The Tivo Guardians 
 and the Landmarks of History to finish before I 
 can feel really at ease in giving my mind to this 
 affair. I am rather afraid of spoiling the Land- 
 marks by getting into a hurry. If you can send 
 me something, I think we could meet the first of 
 January, but I am sure I cannot single-handed. . . . 
 I wish it had found a name ; if there was any word 
 to express "for Confirmation girls" it would be the 
 thing. . . .' 
 
 We have said The Little Duke was begun in 
 Vol. I. of the Monthly Packet. In that same volume 
 began the Castle-Builders. This is, in our judgment, 
 one of the very best bits of work Miss Yonge ever 
 produced. The late Professor Palgrave, who cer- 
 tainly was no mean critic, was very fond of it. It is 
 an exquisite little story, and has all that flavour of 
 refinement, that ethos, which lingered long around 
 the early Tractarians, and of which we have spoken. 
 The motif of the story, if we may use such a word, 
 is the evils of day-dreaming, of religious emotion 
 which is not translated into action. There is no 
 love-story at all, and the whole is an episode in the 
 lives of three sisters. 
 
 They, Constance, Emmeline, and Kate Berners, are 
 Indian children who have been sent home to be 
 educated. Their mother has married again, and 
 her husband, Sir Francis Willoughby, has also a son 
 ))y his first marriage, Frank, who is about the same
 
 THE 'MONTHLY PACKET' 55 
 
 age as Enimeline and Kate. Constance, almost 
 directly after she left school, was seen and beloved 
 by a young clergyman, Lord Herbert Somers, 
 younger son of one Lord Liddersdale. They are 
 married befoi-e the return of the Willoughbys, and 
 very soon are obliged to go abroad, as Lord Herbert 
 has a bad breakdown in health. The story opens on 
 the eve of Emmeline's and Katherine's Confirmation. 
 They are still at school. Sir Francis and Lady 
 Willoughby return rather sooner than they were 
 expected, and in the excitement of the arrival, and 
 the sight of the two new brothers and a new 
 sister, the Confirmation is pushed aside. Then 
 home-life begins for them. They are taken to a 
 seaside town, where Sir Francis has rented a 
 temporary house, and all their fresh aspirations 
 and longings and their mistakes are described. 
 
 Each person in the story is a good sketch of 
 character: Sir Francis, kind-hearted, fussy, im- 
 perious, irascible if provoked ; Lady Willoughby, 
 gentle, selfish, absolutely worldly and mindless; 
 Emmeline, dreamy, full of aspirations and high 
 ideals, and as yet incapable of putting them into 
 practice ; Kate, more good-natured and merry than 
 her sister, but greatly dependent on her. 
 
 The girls are eager about g(^od works, and fall 
 into tlu; hands of some kind old ladies who are 
 greatly prejudiced against the \'icar, who is start- 
 ing su«li iiuiovations as daily service and weekly 
 Comiiiiiiiioii (\\ is the year ISID). There is an 
 amusing iiillerence l)(;tween that year of grace and 
 the jn'esent one. Tlie only schools in tlu; town 
 fippai-enl ly l)e|onge<l to the new churches, and
 
 56 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 visitors to one of them were freely invited and 
 encouraged to take classes, The new Vicar sternly 
 discouraged all this. 
 
 But in these days we all know old ladies, kind and 
 fussy, exact dittoes of the Miss Shaws of this book, 
 very full of horror of what is now called Ritualism, 
 and was then termed Puseyism. Emmie and Kate, 
 indeed, get into trouble because they insist on the 
 Church Catechism being said by their pujiils. 
 
 On the scene arrives Sir Francis's son. Frank is a 
 charming boy. Miss Yonge, as we have said, had a 
 great gift for describing real boys, and surely one of 
 her numerous cousins suggested the rosy, sweet- 
 tempered, not particularly clever but saintly boy. 
 We use the word quite advisedly. Frank appeared 
 absolutely commonplace to the ordinary observer, 
 and to his new connections, who at once accepted 
 him as a brother, he was a complete puzzle. 
 Gradually they found out that behind his unfailing 
 courtesy and consideration, his though tfulness for 
 the poor little governess, his unfailing good temper, 
 was a deep religious principle. 
 
 Frank had been brought up by a brother of Sir 
 Francis, at whose Vicarage the boy had spent his 
 holidays. In Mr. Willoughby we are sure Miss Yonge 
 drew a picture of some one of those holy men whom 
 she knew so well. The present writer owns that Mr. 
 Willough]>y always made her think of Mr. Keble, in 
 his simi^licity, his learning, his gentleness, his old- 
 fashioned courtesy, his love for his parish, of which 
 he had been the parson for forty years. He is a 
 delightful man, and he really cannot have been much 
 iiKne than fifty, although he is spoken of as if he
 
 THE 'MONTHLY PACKET' 57 
 
 were much older, for twenty years later he reappears 
 in The Pillars of the House. Miss Yonge was just 
 a little bit apt to get mixed in her chronology. 
 
 Emmie and Kate are by this time rather tired of 
 good works, and have taken up higher learning and 
 culture with great enthusiasm and some selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 Frank had assimilated his uncle's teaching, and 
 fully intended to take Orders. His father, however, 
 suddenly announced his intention of putting him 
 into the Guards, and it is with difficulty poor Frank 
 brings himself to consent. Unfortunately, he has 
 been taken away from school to prepare for the army, 
 and his practices and devotional habits cannot be 
 kept quite out of Sir Francis's sight. The i^oor man 
 cannot endure the idea of a religious soldier, and 
 from pettish exclamations proceeds to denunciations 
 of th(j system in which Frank has been brought up. 
 Finally, on the Feast of the Annunciation, things 
 come to a crisis : Sir Francis tells the boy to go Imck 
 to his uncle, as he wishes to have done with sermons 
 and hypocrisy. In the afternoon the girls take 
 Frank and Uieir youngest brother for a walk on the 
 sands; they are overtaken by the tide, and are 
 rescued with much difficulty. Frank is drowned. 
 
 The account of this tragedy is most beautifully 
 given, and thecllect on all the survivors wonderfully 
 brought out. Th(! ])itter grief of Sir Francis, which 
 pasHi.'s o\vv him like a tornado, and leaves him 
 apparently much the same ; the bi-acing ii|» ol' Kate 
 to seek the path Frank had trod, .iml tlie opposite 
 effect it produced on lluinicline, who, having shirk<Ml 
 all her duties, only found that her illness and bitter
 
 58 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 grief made her feel more dissatisfied, unwilling to 
 undergo the inconvenience of a new preparation for 
 Confirmation, and hail with delight the prospect of 
 a London season. And again, to Kate's great sorrow, 
 they lose the opportunity of Confirmation. In 
 London Emmie hecomes extremely fascinated by 
 the services at a new Roman Catholic chapel. 
 
 Then Herbert Somers breaks in upon us. Herbert 
 has almost died abroad, and his wife, who is not 
 unlike Alexandrine de la Ferronay in some respects, 
 is all that Emmeline and Kate aspired to be. Lord 
 Herbert has accepted the living of Dearport, and 
 it is arranged that his sisters-in-law should help 
 Constance to settle in. These two, Herbert and 
 Constance, are extraordinarily charming, merry, 
 clever, and endued with that touch of romance 
 which is the very flower of our religion. They make 
 light of all sorts of disagreeables, and begin to do 
 excellent work at once. Yet they are not the least 
 impossible or unreal. Kate, who has been absolutely 
 won over by Frank's death, is intensely happy ; but 
 Emmie, who is really still extremely unwell, can only 
 feel disillusioned by everything. At last, rather 
 suddenly, a talk with Herbert shows her that it is 
 not her circumstances, but herself, which has been 
 to blame. She has dreamed, not acted. 
 
 ( (( 
 
 I could not feel to care about religion ; I 
 grew tired of all the good books and thoughts and 
 church-going. Hcrljcrt, don't think mo wicked 
 for it, but church-going has such a sameness — not 
 always as you manage the service, but at that 
 church in London it did not make one a bit devout.
 
 THE ' MONTHLY PACKET ' 59 
 
 Everything is weariness together, and I shall feel 
 so all my life." 
 
 ' " Stop, stop, Emmeline ! You have not let me 
 ask you how it was that religion failed as you say." 
 
 ' " Because I must be too bad for anything to do 
 me any good, I suppose," said Emmeline despon- 
 dently. 
 
 ' " Hush, Emmeline ! None of the chosen people 
 of God have a right to speak in that way. But, 
 tell me, what do you understand by religion?" 
 
 ' " Oh, thinking, caring about holy things, stir- 
 ring up ones spirit, feeling love to God — those 
 
 kinds of things— ^liking holy things " hesitated 
 
 Emmeline, somewhat puzzled. 
 
 ' " There is the main-spring ; but that is but half 
 the matter. You had the beginning, but what 
 came of it? How was it evidenced? You tried to 
 feel ; what did you try to do ? " 
 
 ' " I was not well ; 1 could not do much," said 
 Emmeline. 
 
 ' " But what did you try to do ? Did you try to 
 be more attentive to the home duties in which 
 you had fallen short?" 
 
 ' " I did not think that was it." 
 
 ' " Did you try to conquer your reluctance to 
 letting Mr. Brent enter into conversation with 
 you ?" 
 
 ' " Maimiia did not wisli it." 
 
 '" Did you I i-y, wluni y<ju wcvc taken (o London, 
 Ui keep from I'ollowing (lu! foolisli, undcsirablo 
 ways of ()l,licr people ol" your own .'igf', which you 
 youi-self thought wrong at first sight?" 
 
 '" Do you mean the polUa, Herberl ?"
 
 60 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' " Or did you, in the new scene, allow yourself 
 to relax in the devotional exercises you had taken 
 up ? Don't answer me, but yourself." 
 
 '"I cant think how you know everything, 
 Herbert. But, you see, religion won't do for me." 
 
 ' " I don't sec any such thing. You have had a 
 fit of excitement of feeling, which has passed off, 
 but you are not thinking that you have been 
 without religion all the years of your life." 
 
 ' " Oh no ; but that is not what one means. 
 That is too shocking." 
 
 ' " You are a Christian. Each right action or 
 feeUng, each act of faith or prayer, through your 
 w hole life, have not they been fruits of your bap- 
 tismal grace ?" 
 
 ' " I suppose so ; but there have been few 
 enough of them." 
 
 ' " And do you think that is caused by any defect 
 in the grace then given you?" 
 
 '"Oh, no, no!" 
 
 ' " But they have been passing, fleeting, unstable 
 of late. You have had no rest in them, no comfort 
 of mind, no true wisdom, nor strength ; no firmness, 
 no abiding sensation of love and fear of God." 
 
 'Emmeline gave a sort of groan, that showed 
 that his words went home to her heart. 
 
 ' " And you say it is the fault of religion ? 
 Emmeline, our religion holds out to us a means 
 of receiving the strength of the Holy Ghost, the 
 Comforter, giving us the spirit of wisdom and 
 understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly 
 strength, the spirit of knowledge and true godli- 
 ness, and the spirit of God's holy fear."
 
 THE 'MONTHLY PACKET' 61 
 
 ' " Confirmation!" said Eninieline. " Oh, Herbert, 
 would it do all that for me ? I do believe it would 
 be peace at last." 
 
 ' " Emmeline, I am sure it would. It is not I 
 that tell you so ; it is the i3romise of God through 
 His Church." 
 
 ' " Yes ; but it is on a condition ! How am I ever 
 to fulfil that condition? I may make the vow, 
 and intend to keep it, and believe fully, but the 
 feeling will go. I shall be unsteady again." 
 
 ' " If you were to stand in your own strength, 
 not in the all-sufficient grace, you would ; but be- 
 sides j)rayer, will there not then be open to you 
 the especial means of strengthening and refresh- 
 ing our souls?" 
 
 ' " But how many there are no better for being 
 confiimed ! " 
 
 ' " How can we tell? They may be better, or, if 
 they fail, it may be that their hearts are not pre- 
 pared. They wanted prayer, or they wanted faith, 
 or thoy weie not in earnest, or they fell away 
 through some unresisted temptation, not from any 
 defect in the Conlirmation grace, which will yet 
 restore many." 
 
 ' " Then you think if we had been confirmed we 
 sliould have avoided oui* faults?" 
 
 '"No, T say no sudi lliing. I cannot tell how 
 you would liav(^ kej)t _>-onr vow, l)ut I know you 
 wonld llicn ]\:ivv, b<!en ohodiont 1o that sunnnons 
 of 1 1h^ (Jlniicli ; the givic(^ would liavo been given 
 toyou,.Mi(| ir \(»n Ii.kI ii-cd it liglilly " 
 
 '"All, I do h('li«'v<^ tl)at it would have mnd(^ a 
 difTerence. I know I should have been afraid to
 
 62 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 stay away from the Holy Conimunion after your 
 letter, and then I should have watched myself 
 more, and i^ei-haps been saved from these faults, 
 though I never thought they were so bad before. 
 I knew I was good for nothing, but I could not 
 make out that I did anything very wrong. Oh, I 
 am very glad we are to be confirmed now ! " ' 
 
 And Confirmation is at last bestowed on them, 
 not without some self-sacrifice on their part. 
 
 Nothing can be more delightful than the account 
 of the first settling in at Dearport, and all that Her- 
 bert, his curates, and Constance found to do.
 
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 5^
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ' THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE ' 
 (1850—1854) 
 
 It was the publication of this book which made the 
 fame of Charlotte Mary Yonge. Miss Yonge herself 
 tells us, in the reminiscences of Mr. Keble, how the 
 book arose : 
 
 ' In the May of 1850 a friend (Miss Dyson) told 
 nie there were two characters she wanted to see 
 brought out in a story — namely, the essentially 
 contrite and the self-satisfied. Good men, wo 
 agreed, woi-e in most of the books of the day, sub- 
 dued l)y th(! memory of some involuntary disaster 
 — generally the killing someone out shooting — 
 whereas the " penitence of the saints " was un- 
 attemptcd. The self-satisfied hero was to rate the 
 liumble one at still lower than his own estimate, 
 to j)('rsocut(^ liim, and never be undeceived till he 
 had caused his tloath. This was the germ of the 
 tale, of whieli mine was the i)lay\vjight work of 
 devising action and narrative. It is less leally my 
 own than llie later ones, and therefore rises much 
 higliei-. 
 
 'We \vei(! all veiy ha])py over- i(,.iii(l Mr. and 
 Mrs. Keble sliowed tlieir usual patient gootlness in 
 
 G3
 
 W CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 listening to romancings of the yet unwritten story 
 and tlirowing their interest into it; then in reading 
 and correcting the MS. As an instance or two, in 
 the description of tlie sunset the sun had been 
 called a circle, but the poet-hand made it an orh. 
 And when Mr. Edmondstone had called Philip a 
 coxcomb, Mrs. Keble inade the substitute of a 
 jackanapes. Also, at first, Philip, in his solitude 
 at Redclj^e, had been haunted by dread of in- 
 sanity; but this^'as altered, because both the kind 
 critics believed it to be absolutely cruel to bring 
 for^'ard that topic to enhance a mere fiction, and 
 they mentioned instances in which the suggestion 
 of the idea had done serious harm to excitable 
 persons already in dread of that visitation. . . . 
 Again, he advised the alteration of the end of an 
 argument which concluded in a sarcastic and over- 
 bearing manner, saying : " I wish you would de- 
 prive the passage of its triumphant air." In 
 general, the purport of the marks was to guard to 
 the utmost both delicacy and reverence. The very 
 least approach to a careless reference to Holy 
 Scripture or that could connect with it a ludicrous 
 idea was always expunged. I wish my words could 
 do justice to the kindness and good judgment of 
 both these dear friends with regard to that book.* 
 
 Mr. Yonge conducted the arrangements for the 
 publication, and as he evidently had no idea 
 how to manage the affair, a good deal of delay 
 ensued. For instance, the book, by Sir John 
 Coleridge's advice, was first offered to Mr. Murray, 
 which seems extraordinarily stupid, as at that
 
 ' THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE ' 65 
 
 time that eminent publisher did not issue works of 
 fiction. 
 
 However, it was handed over to Mr. Parker, and 
 when it appeared it had an undoubted success. 
 
 We all know how such people as Burne-Jones and 
 William Morris loved it, and that young men and 
 young women adored it. It is funny to find from 
 Miss Coleridge that there was evidently fear on the 
 author's side that the family circle might consider it 
 ' too daring.' It is a dehghtful book, and many of 
 us are fain to confess to having read it at least a 
 score of times. 
 
 ' It embodied,' says Miss Coleridge, ' the spirit of 
 the Oxford Movement in its purest and sweetest 
 form. It is a delightful picture of the best kind 
 of English upper niiddlc class society of the time, 
 and the talk, the ideas are fresh and bright and 
 amusing. Miss Yonge had a sense of humour and 
 some power of irony. It is almost a pity these 
 gifts were not more encouraged, for Mr. Edmon- 
 stone, the good-humoured, well-})red, rather stupid 
 and lovable father so easily ovorboine ])y the 
 lightcous i'hiiip, is the most ably drawn, and is 
 one of the most living of the people, who aio, how- 
 ever, all alive ami creatures of flesh and blood.' 
 
 But would xMiss Yonge and Mr. Kebk; and Miss 
 Dyson have considered tiiis heresy? Guy does not 
 seem to us to belong to the category of those who 
 are pem'tfiits first and Ihon saints, but rather to bo 
 a modern Sir (iaiahad, to be one of those who keep 
 ' the piincoly heart of inno(rencc\' 
 
 For did he yield to any temptation? Does the 
 
 5
 
 66 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 author not make Guy confuse temptation with sin ? 
 Was his anger not the anger of a pure and noble 
 mind when confronted by malicious spite ? It is pos- 
 sible that if he had met Philip the very moment that 
 he had opened the letter he might have sinned ; but 
 the fact remains that before the sun went down Guy 
 had forgiven his enemy. We are not saying this is 
 unreal or impossible — not at all; only that Guy ought 
 not to have thought of himself as unworthy of 
 Amabel, or have sat down so quietly under his 
 injuries. Why he did not seek an interview with 
 his guardian instead of writing, and how Mr. Ed- 
 monstone could be satisfied to let him go so easily, 
 Ave cannot see; and beautiful as the story is, we 
 cannot but feel that all the fuss about Guy and his 
 supposed misdemeanours was a real storm in a tea- 
 cup, nor does it seem to us probable that a man of 
 the world, as Mr. Edmonstone must have been, could 
 think a boy of twenty likely to have become a very 
 deep -dyed villain, or have thought a lapse into 
 extravagance — nay, even into betting — an indication 
 of hopeless depravity. 
 
 But putting this aside, the story is most delightful; 
 Charles, Amy, the old doctor, Mr. Edmonstone, Lady 
 Evelyn, are all charming people. Philip is admir- 
 able — his self - deceit, his priggishness, his Philis- 
 tinism, all brought out with a delightful simplicity 
 and irony. Amy is the type of character that her 
 creator dearly loved : gentle, sweet, apparently weak, 
 and rising on occasion to heights of heroism, of 
 which no one would have supposed her capable. 
 
 It is a great blessing that no continuation of the 
 Heir ever saw the light. Amy and Charles grown
 
 ' THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE ' 67 
 
 old would have been too sad, and we could not have 
 borne the Nemesis which undoubtedly would have 
 overtaken Philip and Laura. 
 
 Miss Yonge was capable at times of real beauty 
 in her writing, and the story of the death of Guy, so 
 simply told, is beautiful. 
 
 And Guy himself is a veritable boy of flesh and 
 blood, and is not at all unreal or impossible. He is 
 so alive that we feel his death is heart-rending, he 
 is so delicious in his young enthusiasm and so un- 
 touched by the world. Perhaps it is this unworldli- 
 ness which gives the Heir and one or two more of 
 Miss Yonge's books their especial charm. 
 
 She resembles Scott in one respect, that her heroes 
 are good men. Sir Walter's heroes are often sup- 
 posed to be uninteresting, but some of them, at any 
 rate, do not deserve this reproach. Henry Morton, 
 Frank Osbaldistone, Edmund Tressilian, to take 
 only three, are excellent and delightful young men, 
 all virtuous (one of them, certainly, had fought a 
 duel) and brave and accomplished. Guy is a fitting 
 companion to them, with the additional grace of an 
 Oxford training upon him. It is a delightful trait 
 in Miss Yonge that, unmusical as she was, she much 
 appreciated a gift for music in others. Guy loved 
 music, which love was a deadly oifence in the eyes 
 of PhiHp, who, as we have said, is a perfect type of 
 Philistine before Mr. Matthew Arnold had made 
 Philistinism known to us. 
 
 Miss Yonge's letters to Miss Dyson, who was 
 known as Guy's mother, abr)ut Iho Hvir and other 
 topics are perfectly delight lul. We only wish there 
 wei*e more of them. Here are some to Miss Barnett : 
 
 5—2
 
 68 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 'June 30, 1851. 
 
 [The writer is working on 2'he Heir of Redclyffe.] 
 
 ' No. III. is in clover. I have had something of 
 some sort almost every day lately, and am not at 
 all afraid of the 60 pages. 
 
 '. . . Sir Guy Morville considers himself much 
 honoured by your invitation, and as much as there 
 is or ^vill be by that time of him shall attend you. 
 It will be a real kindness to take him out of my 
 reach, for he is such pleasant work as to spoil me 
 for more regular business, but there is such a 
 quantity of him all uncondensed and untrimmed 
 that I am afraid you will repent. I hope you have 
 not told jNIrs. Butler the story beforehand, for I 
 want much to know the sort of impression the 
 story makes on a new person, and whether Philip 
 is hated as much as by those wlio know how he is 
 to end.' 
 
 ' As for Guy, he is seeking his fortune in London, 
 and I expect every day to hear of his fate, so I 
 liope it may not be long before he comes forth to 
 all the world. He thanks you and Mrs. Butler for 
 kindly inviting him. I don't think it will be quite 
 as much of a " Bustle '* book as erst, for the last 
 critical reading decided that there was rather too 
 much Bustle, and he has been a little curtailed.' 
 
 ' I am glad Mrs. Butler does not feel like one of 
 our neighbours, who complained that she never 
 would have read the book if she had known what 
 it was coming to. I have had a great deal of 
 
 * Guy's dog.
 
 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE' C9 
 
 pleasure out of it, I must say, and it has been very 
 amusing to hear the different views that peojple 
 have taken of PhiHp. 
 
 ' Now about Violet [Ileartsense]. She is much 
 obliged and honoured by your iuAitation, but I 
 wanted to tell j'ou the state of the case. . . . She 
 is in a very unfit state for being seen. . . . My 
 opinion is that she is in great danger of being 
 long and stupid, and I am tr^'ing to condense her.' 
 
 Another letter says : 
 
 ' Thank you, I have seen the Times. Sir William 
 Heathcote told me there was such an article [a 
 review of The Heir of Redely ffe\ but he had not had 
 time to read it, so I had to wait till morning in 
 doubt whether it would be a knock-down one, and 
 it was rather a relief that it was not all abuse. It 
 is very amusing to see how Miss Well wood* comes 
 in for exactly the same abuse as if she was alive, 
 and with the same discrimination as to facts. It 
 scoms to me exactly the world's judgment of Guy 
 and I*hilip — loving Guy and not understanding 
 him, and sympathizing with Philip as more com- 
 prehensible. However, Marianne's sont cannot 
 be dislikcul, in spite; of his principles — a great 
 triumph for her.' 
 
 It is very helpful to all wlio have had any literary 
 success to read ol" VIk; <-alm, upliriiiig a(l\ic(! gixcu 
 by Mr. Kcblc. lb; was licr s|tiiil ii;il guide. \\v do 
 
 * MiHH W'clhvood was the lady wIkiim (Iiiy waiitt-il to aiil in 
 foniiiliiiff a .SisUrrhood. 
 
 t .MisM Dyson was always Kikiwii as '(Jiiy's nKitlifi/ a^- tlir tiist 
 idea of tlie story came from lier.
 
 70 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 not know if she had yet begun what she did in 
 time practise under his direction — Sacramental Con- 
 fession. To her he spoke of what a successful 
 book might be — * the trial of one's life.' She writes 
 herself : 
 
 ' It was in the course of the summer of 1854 that 
 the book, of which I have already said too much, 
 attained its chief popularity, and showed me how 
 little Mr. Keblo cared for worldly estimation. Not 
 that one word of depreciation or want of sympathy 
 was said. Far from it. He enjoyed — nay, took a 
 kind pride in — its success ; but when I came to 
 him alarmed at my own sense of vainglory, he 
 told me " a successful book might be the trial of 
 one's life " ; showed me how work (even of this 
 sort) might be dedicated ; how, whenever it was 
 possible, I could explain how the real pith of the 
 work came from another mind ; and dismissed me 
 with the concluding words of the 90th Psalm (the 
 which has most thankfully, I own, so far been 
 realized). 
 
 ' And when, in spite of all this, he saw me eager 
 to see some " opinion of the press," he smiled, and 
 said : " Oh, you care for such things." Though I 
 know he perfectly entered into the value of a 
 sound criticism examining into a matter, a mere 
 puff was nothing at iill to him ; and as to works 
 of his own, 1 verily believe he much preferred 
 hearing nothing about them. Forcing praise upon 
 a person he considered as unkind, in the truest 
 sense of the word, since where it was not painful 
 it must be hurtful. By praise, however, I do not
 
 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE ' 71 
 
 mean aiij^robation, which his soul never stinted ; 
 in fact, he was often quite enthusiastically carried 
 away by admiration of anything he thought 
 excellent or containing the merest germ of ex- 
 cellence.' 
 
 About this time were begun the Landmarks in 
 Hiatorrj, and those who have been made in their 
 youth to road them will know something of the 
 salient points of European history. 
 
 The weak point of all her histories is a certain 
 confusion of style and an enormous number of 
 proper names ; but for all that they are good books, 
 and are adapted to lay a foundation of historical 
 knowledge which seems so often strangely neg- 
 lected. 
 
 Another book was begun in these early fifties, one 
 not less, probaljly even more, a power for good than 
 The Heir of Redclyjfe — The Daisy Chain. 
 
 In some ways this is the very best of all Miss 
 Yonge's books. Dr. May, the father of the May 
 family, is a real creation. He is, of all her many 
 most living characters, the most alive ; he is so 
 human, so thorough an EngHshman of the best 
 kind, of liononrablo family of the u])per middle 
 r-jass, of good odncation, jiosscssiug cultivated tastes ; 
 a man most hjving, tcndcr-licai'ted, chivalrous, and 
 quick-tonipered, who, strickon to the ground ]>y a 
 terrible sorrow, I'ises t lii(>ii;^^li il, .miuI l)y it, <<) real 
 self-cf)nf|U(^s(, 1o heights of goodness and of solf- 
 donial. 'Phci-e is no oik^ in all llu! long series of 
 Miss Yonge's charactcn's whom some of us long more 
 to meet than dc-ir Di". Kidmid M.iy. All (ho May
 
 72 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 family are delightful. And Ethel — so much has 
 been said of her that it seems almost needless to 
 write anything of the girl who has inspired so many 
 of us to woi-k for the Church. 
 
 In this most delightful book occur some of Miss 
 Yonge's best bits of schoolboy life. Norman, Harry, 
 Tom, are all tj^Dical boys. Norman is, we suppose, 
 hardly less a favourite than Ethel. Perhaps many 
 lovers of The Daisij Chain hardly do justice to Mar- 
 garet, who. Miss Coleridge tells us, was at first the 
 author's chief interest. Margaret is a most beautiful 
 character; she is called to bear a veritable mar- 
 tyrdom, and she does not fail. Everyone is interest- 
 ing in this book : the sailor lover (the pathetic story 
 of Alan Ernescliffe and of Margaret is simi^ly and 
 beautifully told), the delightful sailor brother, the 
 masters at the school, the rather slow and unin- 
 tellectual Richard May, so good and unselfish. Flora, 
 the second daughter, is a study of the character which 
 Miss Yonge most cordially disliked, the person who 
 is worldly in a perfectly unobtrusive and estimable 
 way. Flora is dreadfully punished for sins which 
 were indeed sins, and very soon cured ; but if she 
 had been as thoroughly given over to the world as 
 Miss Yonge believed she was, poor Flora's sorrows 
 would not have cured her. She was pathetically 
 young — only about twenty-four — when she repented, 
 and we really think Miss Yonge was inclined to 
 think too hardly of her. 
 
 We have said something of one love-story in this 
 book ; all the love-making is so charnnngly de- 
 scribed — the perfect marriage of Dr. and Mrs. May, 
 broken so suddenly, so tragically, the romantic little
 
 ' THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE ' 73 
 
 love-stoiy of Norman May and Meta Rivers, that 
 dainty little fairylike person. 
 
 One great enthusiasm of Miss Yonge's appears 
 now^Foreign Mission work. A connection of hers 
 whose biography tAventy years later she was called 
 to write, John Coleridge Patteson — known to her 
 and to all his family as ' Coley ' — ^had gone out with 
 Bishop Selwyn to New Zealand and the Islands of 
 the Sea, and it was to those regions Miss Yonge 
 sent Norman May and his Meta, to that mission for 
 which she herself caied and worked and gave her 
 best. 
 
 There are some Oxford scenes, and some hints are 
 given of the stress and strain which so many of the 
 best of Oxford felt in those years after the dis- 
 appearance of Newman. 
 
 llic JJaiay Chain, in our opinion, is as fresh and 
 delicious as when it delighted people in the fifties. 
 There are not many old-fashioned episodes. The 
 horror of Miss Winter, the verj' prim governess, 
 at tl)(; thought of a 'gentleman ' walking with the 
 girls of tiic xMay family, is per]ia])s the only ei)isode 
 which reminds us that ''tis sixty years' since the 
 Mays gathered in the schoolroom for their last 
 reading with their mother, in the opening cha])ter, 
 except, indeed, that the family never needed any 
 changf^ of air, never seemcnl to go away sim])ly 
 for health's sake, and very rar<'ly fo)- any otlu'r 
 reason. And they dined in tlu; middles (^1" tlu! 
 day! 
 
 7'//r Ddisy flidin was Ix'gini In Hn' Moii/hh/ I\tcket 
 in lHr»l. hilt only j'ai'l I. a])p<'arc<l 1 licic, .•iiid il was 
 not j)ul»lishe'l in l)ook lOi'iii iinlil ISfifi.
 
 74 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 r^ Heartsease; or, The Brothers Wife, came out in 
 1854. Probably most of Miss Yonge's lovers would 
 say that these three books — The Heir of Redely ffe. 
 The Daisy Chain, and Heartsease — are the best of 
 the tales of contemporary life. Charles Kingsley, 
 indeed, preferred Heartsease to the Heir, Miss Yonge 
 writes in 1855. It is a very clever story, and the 
 heroine, Violet, is one of those developing charac- 
 ters who out of weakness wax strong, whom Miss 
 Yonge so much loved. Again, in this book the 
 characters are very much alive, and we meet with 
 some extremely disagreeable people. The old aunt, 
 Mrs. Nesbit, is quite a wicked old woman. Miss 
 Yonge herself records that Mr. Keble restrained her 
 once or twice. 
 
 ' The chief alteration I remember was that a 
 sentence was erased as " coarse," in which Theo- 
 dora said she really had a heart, though some 
 people thought it was only a machine for pump- 
 ing blood. Meeting the same expression in 
 another book recalled to me the scrupulous re- 
 finement of Hursley.' 
 
 Heartsease is still very fresh and charming, and 
 has a good deal of knowledge of the world, as the 
 world appears to a lady who met it in cultivated 
 and well-born circles. There is just a slight and 
 very distant knowledge of evil, and the declension 
 of Arthur is quite natural. Not quite so probable 
 is his rapid reformation. The book is in some 
 respects an advance on The Heir of Redely ffe, and 
 deserves to be read even in this century.
 
 'THE HEIR OF REDOLYFFE' 75 
 
 Miss Yonge writes in 1855 : 
 
 ' Mamma told you of the wonderful d^but 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 corresj)ondent complains of the 
 babies. . . . Sir W. Heathcote says the will [Mrs. 
 Nesbit's, the wicked aunt's, we suppose] would not 
 stand ; Judge Coleridge falls foul of the geography 
 of the Lakes ; and so on. 
 
 ' Most people say they think others will like it 
 as well as Guy, though they don't themselves, and 
 some few prefer it. It does want papa very much ; 
 but, then, he did set it going, and there is mamma 
 to gloat over it.' 
 
 Mr. Yonge died suddenly early in 1854, just as his 
 only boy was starting for the Crimea ; and in the 
 recollections so often quoted in this book Miss Yonge 
 writes : 
 
 ' It would be vain to tell what Mr. and Mrs. 
 Keblo were to us in those hours of affliction — how 
 they came to us in the cold of a February Sunday 
 evening (no trifle for her), shared, soothed, ele- 
 vated our grief; were all that the dearest coukl 
 be, and never left us till our relations were with 
 us; then, with tender Hyni|).'i1 Ijy, lielped to bear 
 us uj) tln-ougli the l<)ii<^' mouths of uuxicly tliat 
 ensued.' 
 
 After Ml-. Yonge's <k'ath Miss Yonge wi-ites to 
 Miss Barnett :
 
 76 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 '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 feel- 
 ings that meet us from all is very gratifying. 
 
 ' I believe my uncle, always living in his own 
 town far off, had no notion of the estimation in 
 which his brother was held. 
 
 ' . . . I know I shall miss him more when he has 
 been away longer.' 
 
 We think an extract from one of Mrs. Yonge's 
 letters may well come in here. She was always full 
 of interest and enthusiasm about Charlotte. Writing 
 to Miss Barnett a few months after Mr. Yonge's 
 death, she says : 
 
 ' I think she [Charlotte] is the one i)erson who 
 has more pleasure from her books than I have. 
 We never tire of talking of them before they are 
 written, and correcting the MS. and the proofs. 
 1 have just read the first volume of Guy again, 
 but cannot venture upon the second. My thank- 
 fulness increases, I think, that Charlotte's guide 
 was spared to her till the dangers from a first 
 success were over. I do not see that she loses her 
 unself-consciousness, and if there is danger we 
 have Mr. Keble. . . .' 
 
 The little glimpses we get from Mrs. Yonge's
 
 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE' 77 
 
 letters show iis the sweet, loyal natures of both 
 mother and daughter, and the absolute s;yTTipathy 
 which had grown up between them. 
 
 The delight in Charlotte's doings never grew less 
 as long as health and life were spared to the 
 mother.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 'conversations on the catechism' — 'DYNEVOR 
 terrace' — A VISIT TO IRELAND 
 
 (1855—1858) 
 
 There were many months of anxiety for Charlotte 
 and her mother after the irreparable loss; but in 
 time the brother returned, in bad health indeed, but 
 safe, from the Crimea, and, as he recovered, there 
 was much happiness in their daily life. The large 
 family of Moberlys at Winchester were an increasing 
 joy to her. Indeed, they are said to have suggested 
 the Mays, and, oddly enough, some of the events in 
 the family at Stoneborough seem to have been un- 
 conscious prophecies of similar occurrences to the 
 Moberlys — such as the winning of the Newdigate, 
 and one or two other episodes. 
 
 And there was the great joy of meeting Bishop 
 Selwyn at Winchester, and in a delightful letter to 
 Miss Dyson, which is given in Miss Coleridge's Life^ 
 she describes the enthusiasm she felt and the joy it 
 was to her to meet the hero Bishop. Her account of 
 great old Warden Barter's speech reminds us of the 
 description in The Daisy Chain of the S.P.G. meeting 
 at Stoneborough, and of Norman May's speech. 
 
 In a footnote to Bishop Patteson's Life, Miss Yonge 
 
 78
 
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 * ~ ^UMI^^^HH 
 
 i 
 
 
 jIV^ 
 
 ^f A^^^^H 
 
 
 r^ 
 
 .'^^^^^^^Bj^^^^^^^^^^^^l 
 
 "■■ii 
 
 J|H^^^^^- 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 
 
 ^^E' 
 
 1 ' 
 
 ^■"' i 
 
 ^^V^^K^V 
 
 
 *><! 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 X 
 H 
 
 Z 
 
 o 
 
 D 
 b 
 
 OS 
 U 
 Q 
 
 M 
 
 J 
 
 y.
 
 'CONVERSATIONS ON THE CATECHISM' 79 
 
 writes that the means for the Southern Cross, Bishop 
 Selwyn's missionary ship, had been raised — 
 
 ' partly thus. My mother had always been eagerly 
 interested in the mission, and when, on the 
 day of my father's funeral, something brought 
 before her the request for the vessel, she said to 
 Mrs. Keble how much she should like to see the 
 sum raised by contributions from those who liked 
 The Heir of Redchjffe, then in its first flush of suc- 
 cess. Mrs. Keble, pleased to see that anything 
 could interest her, warmly took up the idea, other 
 friends joined, and by their great kindness a sum 
 was raised sufficient to be at least worth present- 
 ing to the Bishop by the hands of a little three- 
 year-old girl, just able to know that she had seen 
 "man" and given him letter, though only able 
 later to value his blessing.' 
 
 This was done in Warden Baiter's garden on the 
 afternoon of the day oi the meeting. 
 
 As time went on, Miss Yonge seems to have enjoyed 
 the county society around very much, and the next 
 few years must have been happy ones in the full 
 tide of work and of interests. 
 
 The (Jonrcvsatlons on the Catechism wcu' put 
 together in 1858, and tlieir author much wished Mr. 
 Keble to write a preface for them. In a letter given 
 in her Recol lections he irently refuses, tclh'ng lier that 
 this 'is not an unknown little l)ir(l waiting to l)0 
 jerked out of the nest," and that it is undesirable to 
 let people tiiink or say (as they are too likely to do) 
 that this is only Mr. Keble speaking with another
 
 80 CHAKLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 voice, and that he had not seen as a critic the whole 
 of it. Miss Yonge says : 
 
 ' I never quite knew what he meant hy his not 
 having read the wliole as a critic — either he forgot 
 hov/ much lie had read, or he had kept himself 
 from touching anything that did not strike him as 
 a positive error in fact or doctrine. I incline to 
 this latter opinion, from what he says of inde- 
 pendent testimony. He certainly did not give 
 advice as to the general plan or subjects; all he did 
 was to read the proofs and mark what was wrong, 
 or when I was in a difficulty help me out by lend- 
 ing books, or consulting them when the point 
 turned upon Greek or Hebrew.'" 
 
 He had given her one piece of advice which cer- 
 tainly would not be needed nowadays : ' It occurred 
 to me whether, when the ladies quote Greek, they 
 had not better say they have heard their fathers and 
 brothers say things.' 
 
 These Conversations are extraordinarily good. 
 One might w^ish to alter an expression here and there 
 — for, naturally, in 1851-1858 people wei-e still feeling 
 their way — but what one reaUy wishes is addition 
 rather than omission. They are full of the most 
 excellent teaching, and might be used by mothers 
 still, especially if they could be re-edited and con- 
 densed. The three Maries — Audrey Mary, Helena 
 Mary, and Mary — who gather round theii- godmother, 
 are representatives of the three classes Miss Yonge 
 
 * Gleanings from Thirty Yearn' Intercourae with the Rev. John 
 Keble, p. xxviii.
 
 ' CONT^ERSATIONS ON THE CATECHISM' 81 
 
 knew so well— the county family, the country clergy, 
 the respectable farmers. They are all very individual 
 in their characters, and very attractive in their 
 girlish ways. 
 
 Perhaps a quotation or two will show how very 
 good the teaching is. Speaking of idolatry, she says, 
 explaining ' Put my whole trust in Him,' that people, 
 women especially, may be led away by the temper 
 of idolatry. 
 
 ' Miss O. Yes, that is one branch ; the other I 
 meant is the temper that enables women to be led 
 captive. I did not so much, at that moment, moan 
 over-love as over-trust. I mean, that we had 
 often rather shape our views of right and wrong, 
 and guide our actions, by the counsel of someone 
 we look up to, than by the rule of God's law. 
 
 'Audrey. But I thought it was right not to be 
 self-reliant, and that we ought to be guided. 
 
 'Miss O. So we ought, to a certain point, but our 
 guides are ))ut men. There is no safety in giving 
 the irfioh' k«!f'i)ing of our conscience to atiollicr. 
 Our rule of light and wioiig, and our doctrine, 
 must bo what Scripture and our own Church teach 
 us, not merely what .111 individual or a few indi- 
 viduals may say. We must have an external 
 standard. 
 
 * Audit If. And that must be lh«! Hiblo and 
 Prayer Hcjok. 
 
 'Miss ().... I']nlhuHiMsn>, wlicn kepi within 
 l)ounds, is a fettling given. I do helii'\e, to (Hiick<Mi 
 love to (iod Jind our neighbour, and to Immioiuj; /(vil 
 foi- all that is excellent ; hut if ungu.'iiih'd it he- 
 
 G
 
 82 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 comes an idolatry. This sort of which you spoke, 
 whicli I think our Lord forbade in the words, "Call 
 no man father on earth, for One is your Father," 
 has been the means of leading many and many 
 away from our Church on one side or the other, 
 and often, as it seems, through their best feelings. 
 
 * Audrey. Their love of goodness, and honour to 
 their pastor, and desire for guidance. 
 
 ' Miss O. I was once struck with the words that 
 desire for guidance becomes a snare where God 
 has not vouchsafed it. To make God and His law 
 the first, and ever to watch for His invisible hand 
 Avorking through the visible, to listen to His voice 
 thi"ough the audible calls to good, to seek only His 
 service, to call upon Him alone at every hour, to 
 keep His Presence and His Mediation ever in our 
 minds, is the only guard from creature-worship in 
 any form, the only hope when in the hour of death 
 and day of judgment all creatures shall fail us, 
 and we shall be face to face with Him alone.' 
 
 Of course, part of Miss Yonge's advice about 
 attendance at Holy Communion and on other points 
 would not find favour with some of us now. But 
 all her teaching as to the doctrine of the Sacraments 
 is admirable. She constantly refers to the Fathers 
 and the best Anglican divines. 
 
 Dynevor Terrace, which came out in 1857, has 
 a delightful hero, Louis, and a provokingly good 
 heroine. Here again is the situation of a child's 
 obedience strained to the utmost point. Louis 
 and Mary are really too submissive to the un- 
 worthy father of the latter, and, although it all
 
 'DYNEVOR TERRACE' 83 
 
 conies right in the end, we cannot see that Mary- 
 took a right view of conflicting duties. 
 
 Much more natural people are Louis's fiery cousin 
 Jem and his dreamy, beautiful wife, who is roused 
 by poverty and trials, and becomes a real helimiate 
 to her hu.sl)and. Mrs. Frost, Jem's grandmother, is 
 ver}' delightful, but wo cannot feel she is as living 
 and original as Dr. May, with whom Miss Coleridge 
 compares her. 
 
 It is a very delightful book to real lovers of Miss 
 Yonge. not so mucli because of the story, but because 
 Louis himself and his tomboy <'ousin Clai-a,and Jem 
 and Mrs. Frost, are such charming people. 
 
 In a letter to Miss Bai'nett, Miss Yonge discusses 
 the pet name of ' Debonnaire ' as applied to Louis. 
 
 ' The fcjlk here,' she writes, ' are quite on my side 
 about "Debonnaire." In the fii-st place, the King 
 was so called as synonymous with Pious, according 
 to Sismondi, and tlu^ jjropcr oiiginal meaning of 
 this woi'd setMiistoliavc been "gracious," in which 
 sense it is ccjnstantly applied to tlu; best oi the 
 knights. Modei-n French has debased it, and given 
 it of late the sense of weakness. ... In {'"nglish 
 
 it decidedly means giaeeful Johnson calls it 
 
 elegant, eivil, well-bi-ed, and no doubt it was stich 
 in tilt! chlvah-ous vocabniaiy. iS'ow, this was jns( 
 wbat I want«Ml ; if it had no ft)olish Kensti it wouM 
 l)c llatt.M-y. . . .' 
 
 Miss Yonge again hiirig-- out in r lax uii lit e idea of 
 a weak cbaracter gradnally (lf\ i-N.pjng iiiHlcr tli<» 
 intliiciu'es of right |irin<i|>les. L( mis, howovor, was 
 only boyish ami nnt'in nird \\li<ri \\c (irst jneel liim, 
 
 0-2
 
 84 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 and had just the qualities and gifts suited to provoke 
 his father, than whom Miss Yonge never drew a 
 more perfect picture of a perfectly upright, excellent, 
 narrow-minded and prejudiced British nobleman. 
 
 Certainly there is one point which strikes a reader 
 of these earlier novels of society of Miss Yonge. A 
 great deal more was expected in the way of sense 
 and powers of judgment from the young man and 
 woman of, say, seventeen or eighteen in those early 
 nineteenth-century days than seems to be demanded 
 now. Our boys and girls are decidedly younger than 
 they used to be, and we are not sure that this is 
 a change altogether for the worse. Certainly no 
 modern father would be so hard on his son's exces- 
 sively harmless vagaries as was Lord Ormesfield 
 on Louis. There is a good deal of humour in both 
 Louis and in his great-aunt, Mrs. Frost. 
 
 Miss Yonge went to Dublin in 1857 to be brides- 
 maid to her cousin. Miss Colborne, now Lady Mont- 
 gomery Moore. She writes to Miss Barnett : 
 
 ' Royal Hospital, Dublin, 
 ' September 2Q, 18.57. 
 
 ' The place we are in is a sight in itself — an old 
 house of the Knight Hospitallers, which the great 
 Ormond converted into an Irish Chelsea [Hospital], 
 making the Commander of the Forces the Master. 
 It is built round a quadrangle, with a cloister, a 
 chapel, and great hall, all in Louis XIV. style . . . 
 this house occupying one side, with the hall and 
 chapel, the house of the Chaplain, and some of the 
 staff, and the old pensioners. ... It is very 
 military church-going . . . sitting in a hideous
 
 A VISIT TO IRELAND 85 
 
 gallery looking down on them [the Lancers]. 
 The pensioners are chiefly R.C., so that there is a 
 very small show of them at church. ... It was 
 a beautiful scene in the great oaken hall, with 
 Lord Seaton's grand figure walking up and down 
 ... all that he ever was in activity, and alertness, 
 and memory. 
 
 'The Church matters are wonderfully lax, as 
 might be expected, the Irish Church hardly pro- 
 fessing to believe in the Church. . . . Kneeling 
 appears to be unknown. I have seen no provision 
 for it except in the gallery here and in a beautiful 
 church built by Mr. Sidney Herbert, to which we 
 went yesterday afternoon. 
 
 ' Lord Seaton was so kind as to give us ... a 
 field-day in Phcenix Park. Only think of being 
 regaled with four regiments of infantry, three of 
 cavalry, and a proportion of artillery, and on a 
 sunshiny day of Irish winds, with the beauteous 
 park for the scene and the Wicklow Hills as back- 
 ground. . . . We had no visible enemy, but we 
 HufYered a repulse in spite of a ])rilliant charge of 
 the Lancers and Scots Greys, l)ut it was all to get 
 us home to luncheon.'
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 LIFE AT ELDERFIELD— ' THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER* — 
 'THE TRIAL,' AND OTHER BOOKS 
 
 (1858— 18GG) 
 
 Another change came into Miss Yonge's life in 1858. 
 Her brother, JuHan Yonge, married, and delighted as 
 Charlotte was to have a sister, and, in time, nephews 
 and nieces, Mrs. Yonge and Charlotte wisely deter- 
 mined to move from Otterbourne House and take 
 up their abode at a cottage very near their old home 
 — Elderfield Cottage, as it then was. In this long, 
 low house with a pleasant garden, both mother and 
 daughter lived for the rest of their respective lives. 
 
 In a perfectly charming letter to Miss Barnett, 
 Miss Yonge describes her brother's wedding — how 
 pretty the bride was, how joyous she herself felt : 
 'I am sure I felt all the time as if I were being 
 married to her just as much as Julian.' 
 
 No sister could have been found more loyal and 
 true and unselfish than was Charlotte Yonge. She 
 was childlike in her gladness ; she was one of those 
 jjeoi^le whose best and noblest qualities are seen 
 best in their relations with their nearest and dearest. 
 
 In this letter tliere is an amusing quotation from 
 a review, which says : 
 
 86
 
 LIFE AT ELDERFIELD 87 
 
 'Miss Sewell upheld baptismal regeneration in 
 Amy Herbert, and mild stupidity in Ursula, and 
 Miss Yonge has turned from the contemplation of 
 the corporal works of mercy to that of the virtues 
 of a hereditary aristocracy ' (we suppose in 
 Dynevor Terrace). 
 
 Eldei-field is almost on the road between Win- 
 chester and Southampton, but this was no draw- 
 back, quite the contrary, in those thrice-blessed 
 years before motor-cars destroyed country life and 
 gardens, and peace and quiet for simple people 
 whose chief desire is to stay in pleasant places when 
 they get to them. Mercifully, Miss Yonge never saw 
 the change which motors have produced, and 
 Otterbourno was in her time the quiet, peaceful 
 little hamlet it had always been, with fields and 
 dells where dalYodils and cowslips grew. She had 
 an intense pleasure in common everyday sights, to 
 which her l^ooks bear witness; she loved botany, 
 and the little book reprinted from the Magazine for 
 the Poun// testified to her knowledge. Then she had 
 th(! great pleasure of her school-children. Every 
 day she went up to the school and gave a lesson in 
 Scripture to ])oys or gii-ls, and on otlier subjects at 
 times. 
 
 Writing iVoni rush'nch in September, 1859, she 
 speaks of her hoincr in that place: 
 
 'It is niiif years since I had been here, . . . All 
 18 mii'li the Hnrne, and \\\i\ ways of {\\^^ hf)use, 
 sounds an<l si;^ht ^, walks and chnich -going, iwv all 
 unaltered. And t Immc is all t hn exceeding pI(\Msur(^ 
 of the old tcinis, the playrul hall" teasing and
 
 88 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 scolding, and being set down for nonsense, and, oh, 
 above all. Uncle Yonge— having more of the father 
 to me than any one could have, though very, very 
 different — but to him Papa looked up, and of him 
 I used to be more afraid than anyone ; and this 
 makes it the most pleasant thing to be v^^ith him, 
 and get the kind, merry words that are more to 
 " William's daughter " than to anything else, not 
 at all to the authoress, for it [her fame ?] is rather 
 a joke here. He has some elements of Humfrey* 
 in him, chiefly the kindly common sense, and the 
 sense of duty which is indeed a good heritage. 
 But it is the first time I ever saw his grey head 
 here without the other silver head that used to 
 be inseparable from it. I have often been here 
 without Mamma, but never without Papa, and 
 you know how to him Devon was like a school- 
 boy's home, and we used to be so very hapjiy 
 together. . . . 
 
 ' I have left all work behind, and feel as if I were 
 living my own life instead of that of my people, 
 and being the old original Charlotte instead of 
 Miss Yonge.' 
 
 And on her return home she writes : 
 
 ' That visit was on the whole so delicious, and 
 leaves such a sunny impression on my mind, that 
 it is strange to remember the spots of yearning 
 recollection and the great pang of going away. Not 
 that I was not glad to get back . . . but when one 
 looked back to the last time of parting in the full 
 hope of being together the next year, and remem- 
 
 * The Squire in Hopes and Fears.
 
 
 
 as 

 
 LIFE AT ELDERFIELD 89 
 
 bered that nine such years passed before the next 
 visit, and that it was with two such gaps, one's 
 heart could not but sink. But it was a happy time 
 and a reassuring one, for I set out with a sense 
 that "winds had rent my sheltering bowers," 
 knowing that my uncle had had a good deal of 
 illness . . . but when I got there it was so like old 
 times, and Uncle Yonge so bright and well and 
 exactly like his old self, that it was quite a happy 
 surprise, and, whatever happens, the recollection 
 of that visit will have been a gain.' 
 
 Miss Yonge went sometimes to London, and she 
 was beginning to form friendships with a younger 
 generation of girls, of whom the most distinguished 
 was Miss Christabel Coleridge,her future biographer, 
 herself the author, in later years, of many delightful 
 stories. 
 
 Sir John Taylor Coleridge's elder daughter, Mary, 
 was one of Charlotte Yonge's most intimate friends 
 (all the letters to her from Miss Yonge have been 
 destroyed), and it occurred to Miss Coleridge that a 
 number of clover and (sager girls were growing up 
 who neod(Ml some intellectual stimulus. It was 
 agreed to form a sort of society, and that ' Cousin 
 Charhitte' should be the head. She chose the name 
 ' Mo( \\vv Goose to her Goslings.' Four (|U(!sti()us were 
 sot (!vei-y iiiontli,an(l tlio best sot of answers t I'avcllod 
 I'ouiKJ ; .■iiid tli(!ro was also a manusci'ipt magazine, 
 7'hf' lidriKich;. Miss Coleridge's account of this is 
 (hilight fill t(t tlioHo who rv.nW/A) what, they would 
 hav<! given to hf! .'iiMoiig t hose; (ioslings. Not only 
 Miss Coleridge, but Miss I'oard and Miss I*'lorencc
 
 90 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Wilford, who both became writers of stories, were 
 among the Gosh'ngs, and many another whose name 
 became known in other connections. In time the 
 society became merged in ' Arachne and her Spiders ' 
 in the Monthly Packet. 
 
 Miss Coleridge tells us of a meeting of the Goslings 
 and Mother Goose in Sir John Duke Coleridge's 
 house in 18G2. Miss Yongc at that time must have 
 been strikingly handsome with her dark sparkling 
 eyes and beautiful white hair. The portrait of her 
 in the Life, from a photograph by Bassano, shows a 
 face at once strong and sweet, with a good deal of 
 resemblance to her father's. 
 
 Hopes and Fears came out in 1860. We think Miss 
 Yonge must have grown fond of the family of Ful- 
 morts, who are the heroes and heroines of what one 
 might call the subsidiary plot of the story. The 
 Fulmorts reappear more than once. There are really 
 two stories in this novel, which cross and intercross, 
 and there is an evident moral intended— the evils of 
 idolatry in affection. The heroine who is supposed 
 to illustrate this story is so sweet and lovable a 
 creature in her youth that it is difficult to conceive 
 her growing into the rather tiresome spinster she 
 undoubtedly became. The naughty girl of the tale, 
 Lucilla, is an illustration of the change which has 
 come over our mannci's. One of Lucy's worst offences 
 is a tour in company with a cousin — a girl verging 
 on the thirties — in Ireland. The impropriety of what 
 woxdd nowadays be a perfectly commonplace journey 
 is much insisted on. Lucy loses her lover, Robert 
 Fulmort, and he devotes himself and his fortune to 
 the building of church, schools, clergy-house, and
 
 'THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER' 91 
 
 choir-school in a skim which the distillery owned by 
 his father and elder brother had not improved. 
 Perhaps the newly-built S. Barnabas', Pimlico, sug- 
 gested this idea; or All Saints', Margaret Street : for 
 there were springing up in London at that time 
 those wonderful churches which did so much, and 
 are doing so much, to spread the Faith whole and 
 undefiled. S. Barnabas', Pimlico ; All Saints', Mar- 
 garet Street ; S. Peter's, London Docks ; S. Alban's, 
 Holborn; Christ Church, Albany Street; S. Mary 
 Magdalene, Munster Square — all these were com- 
 paratively new in these early sixties, and more than 
 once we find them mentioned in the Monthly Pacla't, 
 or allusions to them in Miss Yonge's stories. The 
 great Sisterhoods w^erc in their very earlj'beginnings, 
 and we shall see how the idea of the Religious Life 
 was welcomed by her. Accounts of their work, and 
 allusions to them, arc found in the same way. 
 
 To return U) Hopes cuid Fears, which is perhaps the 
 least attractive of those stories of modern life which 
 we should group in a second class. To the first 
 belong 7'he Heir of Redchjffc, Heartsease, and Tlui 
 Daisy Chain. In the second wo should ]iut Dyiievor 
 Terrace, Hopes and Fears, The Yoniiy S/epmothcr, and 
 The Clever Woman of the Family. The Youny Step- 
 mother is to our thinking a fai- better story than 
 Ifojtes and Fears. No less a person than Tennyson 
 read it with pleasure, and the Guizot family liked it 
 nnicli. 
 
 'J'cnnysoii is (l<'scril)f(l \)y Mr. l'alg)"a\(; as reading 
 in bed one of Miss Yonge's deservedly p<)j)ular (ales, 
 wheicin a leading eilement is the deferred Confirma- 
 tion of a grown-uj) i)erson. 'Oii Tennyson read till
 
 92 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 I heard him cry with satisfaction, "I see land! 
 
 Mr. is just going to be confirmed," after which 
 
 darkness and skimbcr.' 
 
 The Confirmation was not really one of the chief 
 events of the story, but evidently Miss Yonge thought 
 it might provoke comment. She writes to Miss 
 Barnett : ' Tell me what people say to Mr. Kendal's 
 Confirmation. I want to know how it strikes the 
 world.' 
 
 Albinia Kendal, the stepmother, is one of the most 
 absolutely delightful women of all Miss Yonge's 
 heroines, and although her stepchildren are each in 
 his or her different way most horrid little speci- 
 mens, they are very cleverly drawn and developed. 
 The Crimean War comes into this story, and the 
 description of the death of Gilbert, Albinia's only 
 stepson, is as pathetic and vivid a bit of writing 
 as Miss Yonge ever produced. 
 
 Albinia's own child, Maurice, is as natural and 
 naughty as could be wished, and there are pleasant 
 sketches of slighter characters, and some rather 
 good and satirical descriptions of the humours of a 
 country town. 
 
 Another charming story reprinted from the Maga- 
 zine for the Young appeared in book form in 1861 — 
 The Stokesley Secret. The family described therein, 
 the Merrifields, reappears very often, and Hal, the 
 very naughty boy of the story, comes to a bad end, 
 as is set forth in a later book, where he is made 
 almost to marry the scapegrace girl of The Pillars of 
 the House. She just escapes this fate. 
 
 The Merrifields are excellently described, and 
 come out as photographic representations of the
 
 'THE trial; and other books 93 
 
 generally worthy and nearly always dull English 
 county family. It is really quite sad that the 
 Merrifields "were allowed to fall off as they grew old. 
 Those of them who are respectable — and there is 
 only one wdio is not — become so dull, so limited and 
 Philistine, that we wish Miss Yonge had left them 
 where they were at the end of The Stokesley 
 Secret. 
 
 Miss Yonge's letters are full of allusion to the 
 books she was reading ; in one she writes : 
 
 'We have just finished Dr. Livingstone, noble 
 man that he is ; all that one can wish is that 
 he knew what the Church meant. The grand 
 simplicity of his courage and endurance is most 
 magnificent. I am sure England has not come to 
 degeneracy yet.' 
 
 The Trial ran through the Monthly Packet of 1808 
 and 1804, and came out in book form at once. The 
 manuscript relating to Leonard Ward's prison life 
 was the last Miss Yonge ever submitted to Mr. Keble, 
 and she tells us how he made her soften the details 
 of the effect on the mind of prison life. 
 
 Of this book Mr. Henry Sidgwick says, in a letter 
 to Mr, Roden Noel : 
 
 'There is a new story by the authoress of The 
 Heir of Rfdcbjjfc. which I have read with all my 
 old entlmsiasin. f tlionght it was quite gone off, 
 but I can't got Tfu: Trial out of my Ix^ad. Did you 
 ever re/id Madame Jiovary, a Frcnicli novel by 
 Flaubert? It is very powerful, and Miss Yonge 
 reminds me of it })y force of contrast. It describes 
 how the terrible ennui of mean French rural
 
 01 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 domestic life drags down tlie soul of an ambitious 
 woman, whereas Miss Yongc makes one feel how 
 full of interest the narrowest sphere of life is. 
 
 ' I think her religion is charming, and it mellows 
 with age ; the dpre Puseyism wears off.'* 
 
 Certainly, Dr. May and ' le docteur Bovary ' have 
 not a great deal in common. 
 
 One wonders where ' dp7^e Puseyism' comes out. 
 Perhaps in The Tivo Guardians, where one guardian 
 of a youthful owner of an estate disputes with his 
 co-trustee as to the possibility of letting a farm to a 
 Dissenter; or perhaps in the earliest of all the stories, 
 where we saw that attendance at a Mechanics' In- 
 stitute was esteemed a gross impropriety. 
 
 The Trial brings before us most of our old friends 
 of The Daisy Chain. Dr. May is as admirable as 
 ever, mellowed of course, but just as charming and 
 headlong, and the little jars between him and Tom, 
 and their gradual drawing together, are very clever 
 bits of character study. 
 
 The tragedy is well conceived, and Leonard is very 
 living ; we are most thankful he is allowed to go on 
 his Avay in peace and become a missionary in the 
 South Sea Islands, and is not sent home again in a 
 later book. He is just mentioned in The Pillars of the 
 House, and he does appear for a moment in her last 
 book. It is in The Trial, we think, Miss Yonge first 
 mentions Sisters of Mercy ; two come to the rescue 
 of Stoneborough duiing a scarlet fever epidemic. 
 They were brought by Dr. May's dear friend, Dr. 
 Spencer, another admirably described jshysician, 
 
 * Ufo of Henry Sidgwick, p. 109.
 
 'THE trial; and other books 95 
 
 quite distinct from, and absolutely unlike, Dr. May, 
 just a little bit ahead of him in Church views and 
 scientific knowledge alike. 
 
 Some of the readers of the story seem to have 
 been very odd people. Miss Yonge writes : 
 
 ' I find most people grumble at Leonard's not 
 being hung ' [most of us would never have forgiven 
 her if she had allowed him to be executed], ' but I 
 mean to make much more of him.' 
 
 Ethel is our Ethel, only at twenty -nine she 
 seems very much the middle-aged sj)inster, which 
 she would not be now. There is a very pretty, 
 delicately-told romance concerning Ethel : Leonard 
 Ward has an adoration for her, absolutely of the 
 chivalrous kind. What she teaches him in the many 
 readings and discussions which she, her young 
 brother Au])rey, and Leonard shared in the course 
 of a long summer holiday which they spent together, 
 was his stay during the awful time of his trial 
 and three years' imprisonment. 
 
 It is to her that he owes liis missionary aspirations, 
 wliich ar(^ strangely fuKllIcd when he comes out, 
 liis innocence establislicd and all his life before him, 
 for lie was only (Mgliteen when his life seemed to be 
 wrecked. The boys and Ethel have read Marim'on 
 together in that holiday, and on his return to 
 freedom l^thel could not help r(![)eating tlu; long- 
 treasui-cd lines: 'And, Jjconnrd, 
 
 * ". . . (rri<'\<' not fur lliy woes, 
 Disjrnicc and Irdiilile ; 
 Kor lie who iioiioiir Itest liOHtows 
 Sliall i^'wi' tlicf rldiilile," '
 
 96 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' " I've never ceased to be glad yon read Marmion 
 witli nie," he hastily said, as they turned into 
 church on healing a clattering of choristers behind 
 him. 
 
 ' Clara might have had such sensations when 
 she bound the spurs on her knight's heels ; yet 
 even she could hardly have had so pure, unselfish, 
 and exquisite a joy as Ethel's, in receiving the 
 pupil who had been in a far different school from 
 hers. 
 
 ' The grey daw^n through the bloom, the depths 
 of shadow in the twilight church, softening and 
 rendering all more solemn and mysterious, were 
 more in accordance than bright and Ijeamy sun- 
 shine with her subdued, grave thankfulness ; and 
 there was something suitable in the fewness of 
 the congregation that had gathered in the Lady 
 Chapel — so few that there was no room for shy- 
 ness either in or for him who was again taking 
 his place there, with steady, composed demeanour, 
 its stillness concealing so much. 
 
 'Ethel had reckoned on the verse, "That He 
 might hear the mournings of such as are in 
 captivity, and deliver the children appointed unto 
 death." But she had not reckoned on its falling 
 on her ears in the deep, full-toned, melodious bass 
 that came in, giving body to the young notes of 
 the choristers — a voice so altered and mellowed 
 since she last had heard it, that it made her look 
 across in doubt, and recognize, in the uplifted 
 face, that here indeed the freed captive was at 
 home and lifted above himself. 
 
 ' When the clause, in the Litany, for all prisoners
 
 'THE TRIAL,' AND OTHER BOOKS 97 
 
 and captives brought to her the thrill that she had 
 only to look up to see the fulfilment of many and 
 many a prayer for one captive, for once she did not 
 hear the response, only saw the bent head, as 
 though there were thoughts that went too deep 
 to find voice." 
 
 Miss Yonge writes to a daughter of Dean Butler : 
 
 ' A sort of notion of locating a story at Market 
 Stoneborough had made us look up the Mays and 
 find out what they are doing now. 
 
 ' Blanche and Hector are just married, and 
 Aubrey, having proved too delicate for Eton, is 
 Ethel's faithful pupil still, and Flora's house is 
 very well managed, but so stupid, and Mary is 
 mai'ried to a clergyman. 
 
 ' I have changed the cart accident into Dickie 
 tum])liiig (jir the Minster tower on the roof, when 
 he sHd down on a skylight and stuck, till Leonard 
 got him down and stof)ped the bleeding from a 
 terrible cut in the leg.' 
 
 Later on, wlien Leonard's plans are matured, and 
 they are speaking of Dickie, Norman May's boy, 
 whose life Leonard has saved, Ethel says : 
 
 *"Ah, papa is always telling him that they can't 
 get on in New Zealand for want of a smnll ,iich- 
 deacon, .'111(1 Ihat, 1 reailN' lliliik, nbashes him more 
 than anytliing o1h(!." 
 
 ' " He is not forward- ho is only sensible," said 
 Leonard, on wIk^hc heart Dickie had far too fast a 
 liold for even this slight disparagement not to be 
 rebutted. " I had forgotten what a child could be 
 
 7
 
 98 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 till I was with him ; I felt like a stock or a stone 
 among you all." 
 
 'Ethel smiled. "I was nearly giving you 
 Marmion, in remembrance of old times on the 
 night of the Christmas-tree," she said ; " but I did 
 not feel as if the ' giving double ' for all your care 
 and trouble had begun." 
 
 '"The heart to feel it so was not come," said 
 Leonard. "Now, since I have grasped this hope 
 of making known to others the way to that grace 
 that held me up " — he paused Avith excess of feel- 
 ing — ' all has been joy, even in the recollection of 
 the darkest days. Mr. Wilmot's words come back 
 now, that it may all have been training for my 
 Master's work. Even the manual labour may 
 have been my preparation." His eyes brightened, 
 and he was, indeed, more like the eager, hopeful 
 youth she remembered than she had ever hoped 
 to see him; but this brightness was the flash of 
 steel, tried, strengthened, and refined in the fire — 
 a brightness that might well be trusted. 
 
 ' " One knew it must be so," was all she could say. 
 
 ' " Yes, yes," he said eagerly. " You sent me 
 words of greeting that held up my faith; and, 
 above all, when "\ve read those books at Coombe, 
 you put the key of comfort in my hand, and I 
 never quite lost it. Miss May," he added, as Dr. 
 May's latchkey was heard in the front door, " if 
 ever I come to any good, I owe it to you." 
 
 ' And that was the result of the boy's romance.' 
 
 The Trial, which many of us love with a good deal 
 of the love we gave to the Heir and to The Daisy
 
 'THE trial; and other books 99 
 
 Chain, brings out how ideal, how beautiful, are the 
 relations between Dr. May and Ethel. Nowhere in 
 fiction is that relation of widowed father and the 
 special home daughter more winningly described. 
 We know Dr. May must be with his wife and Mar- 
 garet now, and we can only hope Ethelred has joined 
 them, for we cannot picture her without her father. 
 
 The Chn-er Woman of the Family came out in 18G5 
 as a book ; it did not run through the Packet This 
 is, in our judgment, almost Miss Yonge's cleverest 
 book ; not the most charming by any means, biit dis- 
 tinctly able and amusing. She betrays more humour 
 in this tlian in any other book. The poor clever 
 woman, Rachel, is not at all clever in reality, in 
 some ways extraordinarily stupid, and Miss Yonge 
 has been quite merciless in showing up all her follies 
 and her abrupt, disagreeable manner. Side by side 
 is the charming, the really gifted woman Ermine; 
 in fact, the })ook is not an attack on chiver women 
 or writing women, or women who do anything at 
 all worth doing, but on presumption, overmuch talk, 
 and silly contempt for authority. The story is not 
 at all an attempt to prove that women were never 
 to vf!Titin-e out of the l)eaten tracks. 
 
 Lady Temple, the youthful widow and mother of 
 Beveii uniiily childien.at tluMuature ago of twenty- 
 fivo was supposed to bo absolutely helpless, and hei- 
 cousin T?a<h(d detei-niines to be her good angel and 
 manage her boys foi- her. The bo3's ar<> peifectly 
 doeih-aiid ol)edienl with their mot her,Mn(l lioix'lessly 
 naughty with Hadml ; then t he ('Iev<'r \\'<»Miaii talis 
 in with one Mauleverer, who leads her to believe he 
 has been prevcnte*! by intellectual scruples from 
 
 7-2
 
 100 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 taking Orders. The way in wliieh Rachel flies to 
 conclusions, and the way Mauleverer leads her on, 
 are most cleverly shown up. Rachel, who is an 
 heiress, is much harassed by the evils of lace-making, 
 and is led into setting up a home for some or])hans 
 in an adjacent town, where, instead of lace-making, 
 they are taught wood-engraving ; they are put 
 under the charge of a widow whom Mauleverer 
 introduces to Rachel, and in due time produce two 
 woodcuts. 
 
 ' They were entitled " The Free Maids that weave 
 their Thread with Bones," and one called "The 
 Ideal " rej)resented a latticed cottage window, 
 Avith roses, honeysuckles, cat, beehives, and all con- 
 ventional rural delights, around a pretty maiden 
 singing at her lace pillow ; while the other, yclept 
 " The Real," showed a den of thin, wizened, half- 
 starved girls, crannied over their cushions in a 
 lace school. The design was Mr. Mauleverer's, the 
 execution the children's ; and, neatly mounted on 
 cards, the performance did them great credit.' 
 
 When Rachel shows the woodcuts to some friends, 
 a certain Captain Keith throws doubt on their being 
 woodcuts at all, and promises, if he cannot prove his 
 words, to subscribe to the enterprise. A few days 
 later he succeeds. 
 
 Lady Temple, who is supposed to be so timid and 
 helpless, makes a raid on the home, and finds that 
 the children, whom she contrives to see alone, are 
 starved and beaten and made to work at lace- 
 making 'more than ever we did at home, day and 
 night ; and if we don't she takes the stick.'
 
 'THE trial; and other books 101 
 
 Lady Temple carries off the two children; one is 
 sickening with dij^htheria, which she communi- 
 cates to the Temple boys and to Rachel. 
 
 Mauleverer and the widow are both tried at the 
 assizes, but poor Rachel, as a fi-iend remarks, ' has 
 managed so sweetly that they might just as well try 
 her as him for obtaining money on false pretences ; 
 and the man seems to have been wonderfully sharp 
 in avoiding committing himself.' 
 
 The widow, who turns out to be no widow at all, 
 and whose child is Mauleverer's, is sentenced to three 
 years' imprisonment, but Mauleverer has to be ac- 
 quitted. Fortunately, he has been recognized as one 
 Maddox, who has committed frauds, the story of 
 which is another part of this history, so he does not 
 escape ; and Rachel, after suffering intensely in body 
 iind mind, marries, to the un])ounded astonishment of 
 everyone, Captain Keith, whom in early days she 
 had taken to task for lack of a belief in heroism, and 
 to whom she had narrated his own exploit at the 
 siege of Delhi, as it had been told her without any 
 name being given. She adds that the hero was killed. 
 She does not discover her mistake for a long time. 
 
 There is much more in the book which is most 
 delightful : the story of the faithful love of Colonel 
 Keitb and the 7-ea/ Clever Wonum, Ermine Williams. 
 Tlicrc^ is another of Miss Yonge's worldly women, 
 liessie Keith, Captain Keith's sister. She is nnich 
 more ronxincing tliaii most of tlu^se unworthy per- 
 sons, and niiicli more deserving ol" blame; in fact, she 
 is very al)ly (l('S(iib(Ml. l-'or .ibsolnte cleverness, f(n' 
 variety of cliaracUir and clevrn- talk, t lie book stands 
 out among all Miss Yonge's tales, and is far ahead of
 
 102 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 any, except perhaps the stories we have named as 
 belonging to the lirst class. 
 
 There is an allusion to it in one of her letters to 
 Miss Barnett : 
 
 ' I have been entreated to send Dr. May to cure 
 
 her [Ermine, the lame heroine], but I think that 
 
 would be past even his capacities ! 
 
 'There is no heart-breaking about him [the 
 
 Colonel] ; with Rachel, she had made up her mind 
 
 to immolate her affections at the shrine of her 
 
 asylum before she found out that she was in no 
 
 danger. Now I believe in her.'
 
 JOHN KKBLK. 
 After the painting by G. Richmond. 
 
 To face page 103.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MR. KEBLE'S death — THE HISTORICAL TALES — 
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 
 
 (1866—1874) 
 
 In the early spring of 1866 Mr. Keble died, and his 
 wife followed him in forty days. 
 
 To Miss Yonge this must have been one of the 
 great sorrows of her life, but in all she says of it 
 there is the note of thankfulness. 
 
 ' It was the one bright, beautiful day of a cold, 
 wet spring, and the celandines spread and glis- 
 tened like stars round the grave where we laid 
 him, and bade him our last "God be with you" 
 with the 2.3rd Psalm, and went home, hoping that 
 he woidd not blame us for irreverence for thinking 
 of him in words applied to the first saint who boi-e 
 his name: " He was a burning and a shining light, 
 and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his 
 
 It is hai'dly possibles to dwell loo nmcli on wjiat 
 the blank in luir lil'e imist have l)eeii. Ilcr mother's 
 bcaltli als(» began to fail, and tbc^se must liave l)een 
 sad y<^ars. Mrs. Yonge died in 1S(),S, and ('liarlolte 
 wasalorK!; tin; widowhood (d" the unni.-tnied woman,
 
 lOi CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 of which she speaks in Hopes and Fears, came on 
 her, but she was brave and unselfish, and began her 
 Avork again. 
 
 To this period belong her three chief historical 
 stories — The Dove in the Eagles Nest, The Chaplet of 
 Pearls, The Caged Lion. The first of these is on a 
 very high level indeed, and the Chaplet hardly less 
 so. The story of the burgher maiden, Christina 
 Sorel, carried off by her father, who was in the pay 
 of a lawless German Baron, to tend the sickly little 
 daughter of the Baron, is a lovely idyll. Christina 
 has been brought up by her uncle, a wealthy citizen 
 and skilled carver of Ulm, and she is refined and 
 cultivated to an uncommon degi'ee. She appears 
 among the rough inhabitants of the castle as some- 
 thing beyond their ken, and she manages to bring 
 the poor little sickly maiden to grasp the meaning 
 of the simple truths Christina taught her. 
 
 Christina fancied that when the snow melted, 
 Ermentrude's soul would pass away. And so it came 
 to pass. The young Baron is prevailed on to fetch a 
 priest, for, as the elder Baron has been excommuni- 
 cated, a priest is seldom seen in the castle. 
 
 ' On the white masses of vapour that floated on 
 the o^jposite side of the mountain was traced a 
 gigantic shadowy outline of a hermit, with head 
 bent eagerly forward and arm outstretched. 
 
 'The monk crossed himself. Eberhard stood 
 still for a moment, and then said hoarsely : " The 
 Blessed Friedmund ! He is come for her"; then 
 strode on towards the postern gate, followed by 
 Brother Norbert, a good deal reassured.'
 
 THE HISTORICAL TALES 105 
 
 But Christina is loved by the young Baron, and 
 in time he Avins her to be his Avife. He is supposed 
 to have been killed in a skirmish, and Christina is 
 left with twin boys and the Baron's fierce old mother, 
 who dies in a few years. The story of the upbring- 
 ing of the boys, of their visit to Ulm, of the hero of 
 romance, Maximilian, and, finally, of the death of 
 Friedel, the younger twin, in a skirmish, is perfect. 
 Friedel comes to give water to the foe of their house- 
 hold, Schlangenwald, and the Count tells him that 
 his father is a Turkish slave, and shoots Friedel. 
 Ebbo, the elder boy, is left, and suddenly his father 
 returns. He had been really taken prisoner by the 
 hereditary foe, and sold to the Turks. After many 
 adventures he had been ransomed, and returned to 
 find his one surviving son a gallant knight, in the 
 service and obedience of the Emperor, no longer the 
 marauding Baron lie himself had been. He refuses 
 to resume his foraier state, asking only for a (luiet 
 corner in whicli to 'save his soul.' ' It was ]ilain that 
 Sir ElK'rliard lia<l learnt more Cliristianity in the 
 liold oF liis Moorish [)irat(vsln'|) than ever in the 
 Holy Koman Emj)ire' — long ago he had vowed never 
 to return to a life of violence — and the story ends 
 with an epilogue, showing us Ebbo in his later life. 
 Miss Yongc could not resist making him cmbiace, to 
 some ext<'nt, the rcroi'iiK'd doctriiic, and IhcichN rail 
 into disgrace; with Ciiarles V. It is a bcaulilul l)ooU, 
 to which this shoi't acconnl <h)cs no juslic(\ 'J'ho 
 story ot' the twin hiothcis and ihcir lo\('. and of 
 I<"'ri<'<h'rsd<;it h, is ot" all ln'i- stoi'ics the most touched 
 with poetic grac(!. VVh<Mi tiu; foe: of t heir house has 
 J'.ijjcn ;nid I''i'ie(lel is mortally \N'ounded, l']l»l)o only
 
 100 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 severely hurt, the brothers must needs be sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 ' This sentence brought the first cloud of grief 
 or dread to Friedel's brow, but only for a moment. 
 He looked at his brother, who had again fainted 
 at the first touch of his wounded limb, and said : 
 "It is well. Tell the dear Ebbo that I cannot 
 helj) it if, after all, I go to the praying and leave 
 him the fighting. Dear, dear Ebbo ! One day to- 
 gether again and for ever ! I leave thee for thine 
 own sake." With much effort he signed the cross 
 again on his brother's brow, and kissed it long and 
 fervently. Then, as all stood round, reluctant to 
 effect this severance, or disturb one on whom death 
 was visibly fast approaching, he struggled up on 
 his elbow, and held out the other hand, saying : 
 "Take me noAV, Heinz, ere Ebbo revive to be 
 grieved. The last sacrifice," he further whispered, 
 whilst almost giving himself to Heinz and Moritz 
 to be carried to his own bed in the turret chamber. 
 
 ' There, even as they laid him down, began what 
 seemed to be the mortal agony, and, though he 
 was scarcely sensible, his mother felt that her 
 prime call was to him, while his brother was in 
 other hands. Perhaps it was well for her. Surgical 
 practice was rough, and wounds made by firearms 
 were thought to have imbibed a poison that made 
 treatment to be supposed efficacious in proportion 
 to the pain inflicted. When Ebbo was recalled by 
 the torture to sec no white reflection of his own 
 face on the pillow beside him, and to feel in vain for 
 the grasp of the cold, damp hand, a delirious frenzy
 
 THE HISTORICAL TALES 107 
 
 seized him, and his struggles were frustrating the 
 doctor's attempts, when a low, soft, sweet song 
 stole through the open door. 
 
 ' " Friedel !" he murmured, and held his breath 
 to listen. All through the declining day did the 
 gentle sound continue — now of grand chants or 
 hj^nns caught from the cathedral choir, now of 
 songs of chivalry or saintly legend so often sung 
 over the evening fire, the one flowing into the 
 other in the wandering of failing powers, but 
 never failing in the tender sweetness that had dis- 
 tinguished Friedel through life. And whenever 
 that voice was heard, let them do to him what they 
 would, Ebbo was still absorbed in intense listening 
 so as not to lose a note, and lulled almost out of 
 sense of suffering by that swan-like music. If his 
 attendants made such noise as to break in on it, or 
 if it ceased for a moment, the anguish returned, 
 but was charmed away by the weakest, faintest 
 resumption of the song. Probably Friedel knew 
 not, with any earthly sense, what he was doing, 
 but to the very last ho Avas serving his twin 
 brother as none other could have aided him in his 
 need. 
 
 ' The September sun had set, twilight was coming 
 on, the doctor had worked his stern an ill, and 
 Ebbo, quivci-ing in every libre, lay spent on his 
 ])ill()W, wlu'H his mother glided in and took her 
 seat neai' liim, though wherc^ slie lioped he would 
 not notice her presen<'e. iiut he raised his eye- 
 lids, und said, " He is not singing now." 
 
 '"Singing indeed, but wliero we canncjt hoar 
 him," she answered. "'Whiter than tin; snoAV,
 
 108 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 clearer than the ice-cave, more solemn than the 
 choir. They will come at last.' That was what he 
 said, even as he entered there." And the low dove- 
 like tone and tender calm face continued upon 
 Ebbo the spell that the chant had left. He dozed 
 as though still lulled by its echo.' 
 
 This is one story which surely need never grow 
 old-fashioned. 
 
 The Chaj)let of Pearls is hardly less excellent. In 
 it Ave are given a romantic story which is laid in 
 the period of the St. Bartholomew massacre. The 
 present writer well remembers Dr. Bright, the 
 eminent Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the 
 University of Oxford, pointing out the great lite- 
 rary merit of the account of the dying hours of 
 Charles IX. We will quote it : 
 
 ' The surgeon said, " You have seen a sad sight, 
 Monsieur le " Baron : I need not bid you to be 
 discreet." 
 
 '"There are some things that go too deep for 
 speech," sighed the almost English Berenger ; then, 
 after a pause, " Is there no hope for him ? Is he 
 indeed dying?" 
 
 ' " Without a miracle, he cannot live a month. 
 He is as truly slain by the St. Bartholomew as 
 ever its martyrs were," said Pare, moved out of 
 his usual cautious reserve towards one who had 
 seen so much and felt so truly. " I tell you, sir, 
 that his mother hath as triUy slain her sons, as if 
 she had sent Reno there to them with his drugs. 
 According as they have consciences and hearts, so 
 they pine and perish under her rule."
 
 THE HISTORICAL TALES 109 
 
 ' Berenger shuddered, and almost sobbed. " And 
 hath he no better hope, no comforter?" he asked. 
 
 ' " None save good old Flipote. As you heard, 
 the Queen-mother will not suffer his own Church 
 to speak to him in her true voice. No confessor 
 but one chosen by the Cardinal of Lorraine may 
 come near him, and with him all is mere ceremony. 
 But if at the last he opens his ear and heart to take 
 in the true hope of salvation, it will be from the 
 voice of poor old Philippine." 
 
 ' And so it was ! It was Philii)pine who heard 
 him in the night sobbing over the piteous words, 
 "My God, what horrors, what blood !" and, as she 
 took from him his tear-drenched handkerchief, 
 spoke to him of the Blood that speaketh better 
 things than the blood of Abel ; and it was she who, 
 in his final agony, heard and treasured these last 
 words, "If the Lord Jesus will indeed receive me 
 into the company of the blest!" Surely, never was 
 repentance deeper than that of Charles IX., and 
 these, his parting words, were such as to inspire 
 the trust that it was not remorse.' 
 
 Miss Yonge in this book gras])ed th(^ sj)ii-itto some 
 extent, at any rate, of tbis ])(M-io(l. AN'c do i-ecognizo 
 Charles IX. and Catherine de' MtMlici and the great 
 Henry, and the portrait of the old Hugnenot 
 minister, who ])roved such a father in novi\ to the 
 hapless heroine. The description of the Court of the 
 DnehesscMh' (^iiinet , uith .-ill lis I luguenot stilVnes.s 
 and I'cai goodness, is very good inch'cd. 
 
 77ic' ('(ifji'd Lion, II story of .lames 1. of Scothmd, 
 inlroihu-es us to Henry V. of England, .iml gives us
 
 110 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 a vivid picture of the King and of his brother Bed- 
 ford, of the illness of Henry, of the Flemish Court. 
 There is a saintly heroine, and another weak hero, 
 Malcolm, who grows to be a saint. It is an inter- 
 esting story, and sheds light on several not very 
 familiar bits of history. Malcolm after James I.'s 
 murder goes to Jerusalem. He returns to die, and 
 is tended on his death-bed by his first and only love, 
 Esclairmonde, now a holy nun. 
 
 ' " Sister," he said, " the morn that I had offered 
 my ring, I was feeble and faint ; and when I knelt 
 on before the altar in continued prayer — I know 
 not whether I slept or whether it were a vision, 
 but it was to me as though I were again on the 
 river, and again the hymn of Bernard of Morlaix 
 was sung ai-ound and above me by the voice I 
 never thought to hear again. I looked up, and 
 behold it was I that was in the boat — my King was 
 there no more. Nay, he stood on the shore, and 
 his eyes beamed on me ; while the ghastly wounds 
 that I once strove in anguish to staunch shone out 
 like a ruby cross on his breast — the hands, that 
 were so sorely gashed, were to me as though 
 marked by the impress of the Sacred Wounds. He 
 spake not ; but by his side stood King Henry, 
 beavitiful and spirit-like, and smiled on me, and 
 seemed as though he pointed to the wounds as he 
 said, ' Blessed is the King who died by his people's 
 hand, for withstanding his people's sin ! Blessed 
 is every faint image of the true King !' 
 
 ' " Then methought they held out their arms to 
 me, and I would have come to them on their shore
 
 THE HISTORICAL TALES 111 
 
 of rest, but the river bore me away — and I looked 
 up, to find I was as yet only in the earthly Jeru- 
 salem ; but I watch for them every hour, to call 
 me once and for ever." ' 
 
 These are the three most important historical 
 stories. Perhaps the critic will say Miss Yonge has 
 idealized everything too nuicli, but nevertheless 
 there is a true ring iibout them. We do seem to see 
 the places and people she describes, and, daring as 
 it will seem to be to make such a statement, The 
 Chnplet of Pearls is not an unworthy companion to 
 Mr. Benson's Bi/ What Authointy ? and might recall 
 what that delightful book ignores, the St. Bartholo- 
 mew and the general state of religion in France. 
 
 To The Chaplet of Pearls Miss Yonge wrote in later 
 years a sequel which first appeared in the Monthly 
 Packet — Stray Pearls. It is not nearly so interesting 
 as the Chaplet, but has capital descripti<jns of the 
 Fronde, of Fr(!ncli society at that period, and of the 
 misery of the French peasant. 
 
 A final sequel. The Release, which dealt with the 
 French Kevohition, was not nearly so good, and 
 does not seem to us to have caught the spirit of the 
 tinin. It was one of Miss Yonge's last and least able 
 books. 
 
 Miss Yonge woiked a good deal at history. She 
 was always writing the 'Cameos' for the Packet, tuu\ 
 some years l)ef<)re this .she had wi"itt(Mi one of her 
 most delightful little 1)0()ks, which should not bo 
 all«)W('(l to pjissiuto tlui heap of forgotten things, 
 A Book of (iolden Deeds. SIk; says :
 
 112 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' It is rather intended as a treasury for young 
 people, where they may find minuter particulars 
 than their abridged histories usually afford of the 
 soul-stirring deeds that give life and glory to the 
 record of events, and where, also, other like actions, 
 out of their ordinary course of reading, may be 
 placed before them, in the trust that example may 
 inspire the spirit of heroism and self-devotion. 
 For surely it must be a wholesome contemplation 
 to look on actions the very essence of which is 
 such entire absorption in others that self is not so 
 much renounced as forgotten ; the object of which 
 is not to win promotion, wealth, or success, but 
 simple duty, mercy, and loving-kindness. These 
 are the actions wrought, " hoping for nothing 
 again," but which must surely have their reward. 
 
 ' At some risk of prolixity, enough of the sur- 
 rounding events have in general been given to 
 make the situation comprehensible, even without 
 knowledge of the general history. This has been 
 done in the hope that these extracts may serve as 
 a mother's storehouse for reading aloud to her 
 boys, or that they may be found useful for short 
 readings to the intelligent, though uneducated, 
 classes.' 
 
 We cannot even among the store of new books with 
 lovely illustrations find a better book than this, and 
 there is so much in it which is quite unfamiliar. 
 
 Another excellent book is the one called A Book 
 of Worthies. In it she tells the story of thirteen 
 great champions, beginning with Joshua and ending 
 with Julius Caesar.
 
 THE HISTOKICAL TALES 113 
 
 ' In old times,' she says in her preface, ' when 
 brave men had little time to read, and fewer books, 
 they still kept clusters of glorious examples 
 gathered from all times to light them on the way 
 to deeds of virtue. 
 
 'Such were the Seven Champions of Christen- 
 dom ; the Dozipairs, or Twelve Peers of France ; 
 the Seven Wise Masters ; and, above all, the Nine 
 Worthies. These nine were, three from Israel, 
 namely, Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabeus ; 
 three from Heathenesse, to wit. Hector, Alexander, 
 and Julius Caesar ; and three from Christendom, 
 Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey de Bouillon.' 
 
 Miss Yonge points out that our judgment of what 
 constitutes worthies may differ a little from the old 
 compiler of the first nine, but ' he has selected the 
 noblest instances he knew of great, good, and true 
 men and " happy waiiiors," and," so far as we may, 
 we follow his gui(hince in our choice.' 
 
 The Jlistonj of Cliriatian Names is a hoo\i which 
 strikes one with awe. It is full of information, and 
 represents an extraordinary amount of work. Very 
 likely it abounds in errors, for philology has had 
 many new lights shed on it since her day; but it 
 also abounds in curious, out-of-the-way facts. Here 
 is one : 
 
 ' It is a more curious fact . . . that Hannibal 
 has always been a favourite [name] witli the 
 peasantry of Ccjrnwall. From the lirst dawn of 
 piirisli registers naiiiiyljall is (jf constant occur- 
 rence, nuich too e/irly even in tliat intt^lligent 
 county to be a mere gleaning from hooks; .iiid tlir 
 
 8
 
 114 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 West Country surname of Honeyball must surely 
 be from the same source. A few other Eastern 
 names, though none as frequent or as clearly 
 traced as the present, have remained in use in this 
 remote county, and ought to be allowed due weight 
 in favour of the supposed influence of the Phoe- 
 nician traders over the races that supplied them 
 with tin and lead.' 
 
 Or take this account of Richard (the name) : 
 
 ' Richard, or Richardet, was one of the Quatre 
 Fils d'Agmon, who, according to one version, was 
 the person who gave the fatal blow with the 
 chess-board instead of Renaud.'' He is not a very 
 interesting personage, being rather the attendant 
 knight than the prime hero ; the rescued, not the 
 rescuer ; but under his Italian name of Ricciar- 
 detto he has a whole poem to himself written by 
 a secretary of the Propaganda. ... It was not to 
 this Paladin that its name owed its frequency, but 
 to Richard, or stern King, an Anglo-Saxon monarch 
 of Kent, who left his throne to become a monk 
 of Lucca, and was there said to have wrought 
 miracles.' 
 
 These quotations will give some notion of the 
 wealth of stories contained in the two volumes of 
 The History of Christian Names. 
 
 Miss Yonge wrote a great number of short stories, 
 and one. New Ground, deals with the adventures of 
 
 * Renaud was the hero of an old French romance called Les 
 Quatre FiLs Aimon. He was insulted while playing at chess, and 
 replied by dashing out liis enemy's brains with the board.
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 115 
 
 a clergyman and his family in Kaffirland somewhere 
 in the sixties. There are very clever sketches of 
 character in this tiny book. There is the quiet, 
 devoted girl, ready to go or stay, as seems best, and 
 who goes, and lays down her life for the work's 
 sake ; and there is a sentimental girl, full of talk, 
 and aspirations, and eagerness, who breaks down 
 utterly, while a rather dull sister, who hates leaving 
 home, develops into one of the best of workers. We 
 wonder if this story is still sometimes read at 
 Mission working-parties. It certainly would be very 
 wholesome reading, especially the account of the 
 breakdown of the girl who wanted to teach natives, 
 and who grumbled that it did not seem worth while 
 to have come out just to do housemaid's work and 
 teach tiresome white children not half so nice as she 
 could find in the village school at home . . . and as 
 for the natives . . . ' it is a mere delusion to think 
 that their coming all greasy and horrid into our huts 
 to paw everything and say " wow " is teacliing them 
 to be Christians. Not that 1 am complaining,' etc. 
 
 Foreign Mission work was very much in Miss 
 Yonges mind at that time, for in 1871 appeared 
 Pioneers and Founders, a book of studies of the lives 
 of some missionaries. Before this she had written 
 Tke Pupiln oj SI. John I lie Divine. JN'either of these 
 books should be forg(jtten, for there is really no 
 successor to either, and the ignorance of Church- 
 people about the successors of the Apostles and 
 aljout the Mission work of the Church is often most 
 protoun<I. Tiieso books were leading up to her 
 chief contiibution to Mission lit<'rature, the Life of 
 John Coleridge Patteson, 
 
 8—2
 
 116 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 This is a fascinating biography. Many of us well 
 remember the two large volumes, which was the 
 first form in which it appeared, and realize how they 
 made us, for the first time, know something of the 
 reality of the Divine call to the Church, something 
 of the extraordinary romance and beauty of true 
 self-devotion. 
 
 ' It was embalming a saint of the Church,' she said ; 
 and truly no more true and loyal son of the Church 
 has ever gone forth to the Mission work than Bishop 
 Patteson. 
 
 Indeed, those who read the book will say she has 
 been allowed to do what she hoped — 
 
 ' to succeed in my earnest hope and endeavour to 
 bring the statue out of the block, and, as it were, 
 to carve the figure of the saint for his niche among 
 those who have given themselves soul and body to 
 God's work.' 
 
 Miss Yonge opens her book with a particularly 
 fresh and interesting account of Mr. Justice Patte- 
 son, the Bishop's father, and of the habits and 
 customs of legal circles in the early years of the 
 nineteenth century. Both Mr. Justice Patteson and 
 his w^ife, who was the sister of Sir John Taylor Cole- 
 ridge, were very remarkable people. 
 
 Coleridge Patteson's boyhood, especially the Eton 
 period, is delightfully described. Excepting one or 
 two of the great biographies, we can hardly call to 
 mind any life which deals so pleasantly with the 
 story of the man's boyhood. Miss Yonge knew her 
 Eton and her Oxford, and as, fortunately, Patteson's 
 letters had been kept, the picture is very complete.
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 117 
 
 It is wonderful to read of the purpose of self -dedi- 
 cation, kindled apparently by two sermons— one 
 preached by Archdeacon (afterwards Bishop) Wilber- 
 force, and one by the recently-consecrated Bishop 
 Selwjai. That purpose was never forgotten, and 
 the boy's tutor, Mr. Edward Coleridge, was full of 
 interest in missions. And Miss Yonge tells us how 
 Bishop Selwyn, who was a fi-iend of the Patteson 
 family, half seriously, half playfully, asked : ' Lady 
 Patteson, will you give me Coley?' The boy con- 
 fided to his mother that he wished to go with the 
 Bishop, and his mother replied that if he kept that 
 wish she would consent. 
 
 His mother's death in 1842 made a very deep im- 
 pression on Coleridge Patteson,and,as his biographer 
 says, ' everything sank deei:>ly.' He certainly was 
 most fortunate in his father, whose letter to him on 
 his failure to attain a place in the Select at tlie 
 examinatif)n for the Newcastle Scholarsliip shows 
 an ideal relationship between father and son. Sir 
 Jolin Taylor Coleridge said of Judge Patteson that 
 he was a man of singularly strong common sense, 
 and this letter shows it. He is so reasoual)l(^ about 
 his disappoiiitnicut. Tlie wliole pictures of VAxux life 
 is very interesting, including a tlcscrij)tion of 
 Windsor Fair. Then canu; days at P>aUiol, and 
 mention of various friends whoso names became 
 well know II in after-years. Edwin Palmer, aft(M'- 
 wai'ds Arclidcicon of Oxford, and his biol lici'-in law, 
 Mi-. .Jani(!s Hiddcll, so rnrly lost to Oxft))(l and to 
 I'.alliol, were of these. 
 
 Patteson was an ontlnisiasfic cricketer, nnd Miss 
 Yonge tolls u story of a Prol'essional coming to him
 
 118 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 in Melbourne years after he had left Oxford, and 
 begging him to give him a meeting at 5 a.m., and let 
 the Professional bowl him a few balls ! 
 
 The account of Patteson's Oxford life is as good as 
 that of Eton. There is a sketch of 'Coley as an 
 Undergraduate ' by Principal Shairp, which speaks 
 of Patteson as 
 
 'the representative of the very best kind of 
 Etonian . . . those pleasant manners and that 
 perfect ease in dealing with men and the world 
 which are the inheritance of Eton, without the 
 least tincture of worldliness.' 
 
 It is difficult not to linger over these charming 
 pages describing Patteson as a layman ; amongst 
 other matters, the story of his father's resignation of 
 his post as Judge on account of deafness, and the 
 high-minded and simple way in which his resignation 
 was carried out. Miss Yonge might well say that the 
 Judge ' had done that which is, perhaps, the best 
 thing that it is permitted to man to do here below 
 — namely, " served God in his generation." ' 
 
 Patteson was elected a Fellow of Merton in 1852,* 
 and devoted some time to the study of Hebrew and 
 Arabic in Dresden. We wish Miss Yonge had told 
 us who was the famous theologian to whom Mr. 
 Arthur Coleridge, who was Patteson's companion, 
 refers in a letter. It is wonderful to read of Patte- 
 son's taste for, and acquirements in, the study of 
 languages, of philology, and to see how very soon 
 he relinquished all intellectual delights. 
 
 In 1 853 he was ordained to the curacy at Alfington, 
 
 * He retained his Fellowship until his death.
 
 UISHOP PATTESON, 
 From a sketch kindly lent liy the Mel.incxian Mission. 
 
 To /act page Ii8.
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 119 
 
 a hamlet of Ottery St. Mary, where a church had 
 been built by Sir John Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 These chapters which tell us of Patteson's dia- 
 conate— his early ministry — are still very well worth 
 reading. He pours himself out to his father about 
 all his difficulties and perplexities. He had a pecu- 
 liarly happy time, and his sister writes : ' The im- 
 pression he has made is really extraordinary.' 
 
 And then comes the story of the sacrifice. And, 
 again, this should never be forgotten, for it gives 
 the picture of an ideal parental surrender. Bishop 
 Selwyn came to stay at the Judge's house, Feniton 
 Court, in 1854, and after a talk with him Coley went 
 to his sister and told her that the Bishop knew of 
 his wish. 
 
 ' ** You ought to put it to my father, that he may 
 decide it," slie answered. " He is so great a man 
 that he ought not to be deprived of the crown of 
 Sacrifice if he 1)0 willing to make it." ' 
 
 'The crown of Saci-ifico.' How few of us could 
 speak in this way a})out the giving up of a brother ! 
 
 * So Coley repaired to his father and confessed 
 his long-clu'iisbcd wisli,and how it had como forth 
 to the iiishijp. Sii- John was iiianif'cstly stai'tlod, 
 but at once said: "You liav(» done (|uit<! right to 
 speak to iiic, and not to wail. It is my first im- 
 pulse to say No, i)ut that would bo very selfisli." 
 
 ' Coley explained that he was "driven to speak"; 
 lie (b'flared himself not dissat islied wit li his pi-esent 
 position, nor, Ik? hoped. im])atient. IT liisstayiug 
 at home were decided upon, he would cheerfully
 
 120 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 work on there withoiit disappointment or imagin- 
 ing his wishes thwarted. He would leave the deci- 
 sion entirely in the hands of his father and the 
 Bishop. 
 
 ' Luncheon brought the whole family together, 
 and Sir John, making room for his younger 
 daughter beside him, said : " Fan, did you know 
 this about Coley ?" 
 
 ' She answered that she had some idea, but no 
 more could pass till the meal was ended, when her 
 father went into another i-oom, and she followed 
 him. The great grief broke out in the exclama- 
 tion, " I can't let him go " ; but even as the words 
 were uttered they were caught back, as it were, 
 ■wnth *' God forbid I should stop him !" 
 
 ' The subject could not be pursued, for the Bishop 
 was public property among the friends and neigh- 
 bours, and the rest of the day was bestowed upon 
 them. He preached on the Sunday at Alfington, 
 where the people thronged to hear him, little 
 thinking of the consequences of his visit. 
 
 * Not till afterwards were the Bishop and the 
 father alone together, when Sir John brought the 
 subject forw^ard. The Bishop has since said that 
 what struck him most was the calm balancing of 
 arguments, like a true Christian Judge. Sir John 
 spoke of the great comfort he had in this son, cut 
 off as he was by his infirmity from so much of 
 society, and enjoying the young man's coming in 
 to talk about his work. He dwelt on all with 
 entire absence of excitement, and added : " But 
 there, what right have I to stand in his way? 
 How do I know that I may live another year?"
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 121 
 
 'And as the conversation ended, "Mind!" he 
 said, " I give him wholly, not with any thought of 
 seeing him again. I will not have him thinking 
 he must come home again to see me." 
 
 ' That resolution was the cause of much peace of 
 mind to both father and son. 
 
 ' After family prayers that Sunday night, when 
 all the rest had gone upstairs, the Bishop detained 
 the young man, and told him the result of the 
 conversation, then added : " Now, my dear Coley, 
 having ascertained your own state of mind, and 
 having spoken at length to your father and j^our 
 family, I can no longer hesitate, as far as you 
 recognize any power to call on my part, to invite 
 you most distinctly to the work." 
 
 ' The reply was full acceptance. 
 
 ' Then, taking his hand, the Bishop said : " God 
 bless you, my dear Coley ! It is a great comfort 
 to mo to have you for a friend and com])anion." 
 
 ' Siioli was the outward and such the inwai'd 
 vocation to the deacon now within a month of the 
 priesthood. Was it not an evident call from Him 
 by whom the whole Church is governed and sanc- 
 tified ? And sui'cly the nol)lo old ninii, wIid fc^i-ccd 
 himself nf)t to witlilioid "his son, his firstborn 
 son," received his fiown from Him who sn'id : 
 "Willi blessing I will hl.-ss Ibeo."' 
 
 WC \\n\(^ lingered onci- those oaily i)Mges of the 
 bi«);^ivil>by, foi-, as wo ba\o s.-iid, tb<\y ;ii'o ho woiidor- 
 fully frosb, and give so doliglillul a <l(^script ion ot" 
 Pattoson's youth and ol his faniily ; llio story of bis 
 work is full ot" interest, ;in(l In- MliJI pours biinsolf
 
 122 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 out to his beloved father, who lived to hear of him 
 as admitted to the order of Bishops. The Judge 
 died in 1801. Some time before his death he knew 
 that his days were numbered, and his letters to his 
 son and to Bishop Selwj'n are just the letters we 
 should have expected — brave and pious, and full of 
 faith and joyful hope. 
 
 ' His works do follow him,' writes Miss Yoiige, 
 and she goes on : ' We turn to that work of his 
 son's in which assuredly he had his part, since one 
 word of his would have turned aside the course 
 that had brought such blessing on both, had he 
 not accepted the summons, even as Zebedee, when 
 he was left by the lake-side, while his sons became 
 fishers of men.' 
 
 Miss Yonge writes to Miss F. Patteson : 
 
 'Jalyl, 1801. 
 
 '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 
 [Bishop Patteson's].* 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 
 spirit seemed to chime in so perfectly with the 
 resting from the labours. One in spirit as they 
 always were, how much closer they may be to- 
 
 * Bisliop Pattesou had been consecrated on St. Matthias's Day^ 
 1861.
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 123 
 
 gether now ! And now your Sunday is passing 
 fast away, and that return to daily life is coming 
 that seems hardest of all when the external calm 
 is over, and one seems no longer lifted into that 
 higher and more real region, but beginning to find 
 what the world is without the arm one has leant 
 on so long. 
 
 ' It is strange how the recurrence of scene or 
 place brings this back as fresh as ever when one 
 thinks one is used to it : the pang of not looking 
 for the white head [of her father] in the stalls of 
 the Cathedral was one of the first, and it was 
 almost as overcoming to see the field-paths where 
 we used to walk between churches on Sunday . . . 
 and the not having him to meet me at the end of 
 a journey ; only that brought the thought, Would 
 that face meet me in the real home when the 
 journey is over? It is the first vexation and 
 worry, the first loss, that is, after all, what com- 
 forts one most — when it is what would have been 
 doubly felt for them, and one knows they are 
 shielded and only gain by it. 
 
 'After your last note to me, I was sure your 
 first feelings must be of the relief that the hard 
 and long way to the grave was ovoi-, and rest had 
 so gently begun, and this must be the abiding sense, 
 even tliough the sore, sore missing must come, 
 till the grief turns with time to solemn i)leasuro. 
 
 'After all, but for those beautiful letters, it is 
 such a separation /is that from your brother, and 
 witli no anxiety nnd susjienso. Those Iclleis do 
 go Ikjuk; to one's licait ; as Mrs. Kebb* sai<l, one can 
 hardly part from them ; there is something in the
 
 124 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 depth and simplicity of your brother's that ought 
 to do one great good, and fills one with more 
 reverence than I can say. 
 
 ' His own feelings seem to me to absorb all the 
 rest, and to be much the most precious part ; but 
 there certainly ought to be a desciiption of the 
 outward things put forth, and this could, I 
 should think, be easily compiled from his and 
 Mrs. Abraham's letters. I have done as you told 
 me, and have put the bound Daisy Chain into 
 Mrs. Biss' case [for New Zealand]. . . . 
 
 'You will be feeling the whole sorrow freshly 
 both in thinking of the arrival of the letters in 
 N. Zealand, and in watching for the answers ; 
 but I have hojied from the first that the tidings of 
 the first alarm and then of the end would not be 
 far ai3art, and that there would be no dreary 
 watching for mails coming in. And, oh, what a 
 comfort the talk to Mrs. Selwyn will be! Mrs. 
 Keble wrote to her, but she could not come then, 
 but hopes to manage it.' 
 
 One longs to quote Bishop Patteson's admirable 
 letter to his tutor — on p. 341, vol. i. — Mr. Edward 
 Coleridge, but those who already know Bishop 
 Patteson's Life will remember it, and those who do 
 not had better read it at once. Some sentences we 
 must quote. He is speaking of his longing for men 
 and what sort of men he needs — men of industry, 
 men of religious common sense — and he says : 
 
 ' Then, again, unless a man can dispense with 
 what we ordinarily call comfort or luxuries to a
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 125 
 
 great extent, and knock about anywhere in Mela- 
 nesian huts, he can hardly do much work in this 
 mission. The climate is so warm that, to my 
 mind, it quite supplies the place of the houses, 
 clothing, and food of old days, yet a man cannot 
 accommodate himself to it all at once. I don't 
 say that it came naturally to me five years ago, as 
 it does now, when I feel at home anywhere, and 
 cease to think it odd to do things which, I suppose, 
 you would think very extraordinary indeed. 
 
 ' But most of all — for this makes all easy — men 
 are wanted who really do desire in their hearts to 
 live for God and the world to come, and who have 
 really sought to sit very loosely to this world. 
 The enjoyment, and the happiness, and the peace 
 all come, and that abundantly ; but there is a 
 condition, and the first rub is a hard one, and lasts 
 a good while. 
 
 ' Naturally buoyant spirits, the gift of a merry 
 heart, are a great help ; for oftentimes a man may 
 have to spend months without any white man 
 within hundreds of miles, and it is very depressing 
 to live alcjMC in the midst of heathenism. But 
 there must be many, many fellows pullijig up to 
 Surley t<j-night who may be well able to pull 
 together with one on tiie I'acilic — young fellows 
 whose enthusiasm is not mere excitement of 
 animal spirits, and whose pluck and courage are 
 given them to stand the roughnesses (such as they 
 are) of a missicjuary life. b\n; dear Unclf, if you 
 ever tiilk to any old pupil of yours about the work, 
 don't let him suppose that it is consistent with 
 ease and absence of anxiety and work. When on
 
 126 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGB 
 
 shore at Kohimarama, we live very cosily, as I 
 think. Some might say we have no society, very 
 simple fare, etc. ; I don't think any man would 
 really find it so. But in the islands, I don't wish 
 to conceal from anyone that, measured by the rule 
 of the English gentleman's household, there is a 
 great dilference. Why should it, however, be 
 measured by this standard r* I can truly say that 
 we have hitherto always had what is necessary 
 for health, and what does one need more ? though 
 I like more as much as anyone.' 
 
 Is this not just what we want to say to Etonians 
 and other English boys nowadays ? 
 
 There is one point in Bishop Patteson's career 
 which is very remarkable. He left England in 1854, 
 and he laid down his life in 1871. Never once did he 
 return to his home and the sisters and brother he 
 loved so well. Of course, since then voyages even to 
 New Zealand and Melanesia are much less formid- 
 able affairs than they were in his time, but, still, it 
 was very wonderful that he never gave himself the 
 exceeding joy of going home. 
 
 Bishop Patteson's correspondents were exceedingly 
 interesting people, and Miss Yonge's selection of 
 letters is marked with great judgment. There are 
 letters to Mr. Keble and Dr. Moberly, as well as to 
 his own large circle of relations, including Miss Yonge 
 herself. 
 
 They reveal the character of the writer, and make 
 us understand why he was so much loved. He had 
 considerable mental powers, as we have seen, but far 
 beyond all these were his extraordinary unselfish-
 
 BISHOP PATTESON 127 
 
 ness and powers of loving and hunger for souls. 
 The Eton and Oxford man, the English gentleman, 
 was indeed the follower of the ' Pastor Pastorum,' 
 and few people can, we think, read his letters about 
 his ' boys ' without a pang of shame that Christian 
 brotherhood has been realized as yet so little by 
 Christians. 
 
 The story of his death is well kno^vn, and need not 
 be repeated. Miss Yonge's simple narrative is worthy 
 of the subject. May her book inspire not a few 
 Etonians and Oxford men and Englishmen to follow 
 in the steps of one of whom one of his own converts 
 wrote : ' He did not despise anyone, nor reject any- 
 one with scorn. Whether it were a white or a black 
 person, he thought them all as one, and he loved 
 them all alike.' As his biographer sa} s, ' He loved 
 them all alike.' ' That was the secret of John Cole- 
 ridge Pattesons history and his labours. Need more 
 be said of him ? Surely the simple islander's sum- 
 mary of his character is the honour he would piefer ?'
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 'the pillars of the house,' and other family 
 chronicles— changes 
 
 (187.3) 
 
 While Miss Yonge was writing Bishop Patteson's 
 Life, she was also busy with another long family 
 chronicle, in some ways resembling The Daisy Chain. 
 
 The Pillars of the House began in the Monthly 
 Packet in 1869, and ended in 1872. It was published 
 in 1873. The Pillars of the House is linked in the 
 present writer's mind with Bishop Patteson's Life, 
 for a story was told to her by Miss Annie Moberly 
 of Miss Yonge coming in to a meal after a morning's 
 writing, and saying : ' I have had a dreadful day ; I 
 have killed the Bishop and Felix ' — Felix being the 
 hero of the Pillars. 
 
 By those of us who read it as it came out month 
 after month, it is regarded with an affection which 
 is, perhaps, inexplicable to those who only know it 
 in two fat volumes with unpleasing illustrations — 
 inexplicable, at least, to all who do not possess that 
 peculiar cast of mind which enables them to join 
 the circle of Miss Yonge's lovers. A lover of Miss 
 Yonge is born, not made. 
 
 Tlie dear Pillars ! Even now one loves it best in 
 
 128
 
 ' THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE ' 129 
 
 the pages of the Packet. It is the story of a dis- 
 inherited faniilj^ the father of which is a priest. He 
 is very soon worn out by hard work and trouble, 
 and leaves his wife, in faihng health, and thirteen 
 children, the two youngest of them, twins, born on 
 the day the father dies. And, by the way, to nuise 
 that father came our old friend of the Castle-Bailders, 
 Lady Herbert Somerville, transformed into Sister 
 Constance, of S. Faith's, Uearport. Lord Herbert is 
 dead, but before his death he founded the com- 
 munity. The chronology is rather difficult. 
 
 The pillars of the house are Felix, the eldest boy, 
 and Wilniet, the elder of twin sisters. The struggles 
 of the pillars are narrated in a life-like manner. The 
 family are as individual as possible, and before long 
 we used to feel they were as real friends as any of 
 the people we met day by day. Lance, the chorister, 
 was our favourite, next to Felix, of the boys, and 
 Geraldine, the lame girl Avho became an artist, of 
 the girls. The schoolboys are as delicious as any 
 Miss Yonge ever described. Can we ever foi-get 
 Lance's famous luii to fetch the verses which his 
 scatter-brained friend, liill Harewood, had left in the 
 hollow (jf a tree, and u lii(!li he only remembered a 
 few minutes bel'oi'e they were to be shown up in 
 an examination for a scholarship? Or the musical 
 festival at the cathedral town where Lance is being 
 educated, or the famous skating-party, at wliich 
 Clem(;nt, the good boy of tin; family (who is l)eing 
 brought up in timt S. Matthew's Choir School so 
 well knowji U> us who r(\*i(l Jloprs (tin/ Fidi'tt), 
 Clement the exemplary young Cathohc, who thinks 
 his family hopelessly old-fashioned and 'cathedrals 
 
 9
 
 130 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 very slack,' is overcome by very mild potations, and 
 comes home in a state ascribed by his innocent elder 
 sister to mince-pies. His misery and shame and 
 Felix's mild lecture are very good. 
 
 Wilmet's love-story and her betrothal to John 
 Hare wood, a Major in the Engineers, his acci- 
 dent in Egypt, and her marriage to him on what 
 seemed likely to be his death-bed, but was not — 
 how we delighted in all this and in seeing Wilmet 
 subjugated, she who had ruled her subjects so 
 firmly ! 
 
 Miss Yonge fairly entangles her readers in this 
 book with a network of old acqviaintances : charac- 
 ters from the Castle-Builders, our friends of The 
 Daisy Cham, Robert Fulmort from Hopes and Fears, 
 Countess Kate herself, and the boy with whom she 
 played at being Hermione descending to soft music, 
 Lord Ernest de la Poer — all these appear. The 
 inheritance, the lovely Vale Leston Priory, comes 
 back to the Under^voods. How well we know the 
 house ! Miss Yonge drew a plan herself for us, and 
 we saw it exactly. There was an exquisite church, 
 and a river, the Ewe, to which an Undei'wood was 
 supposed to pay due in every generation. 
 
 Vale Leston was delightful, and Felix turns into 
 a model squire, restores Church property, and all 
 his family are very happy ; but we wish Miss Yonge 
 had let us just see Felix restored, and had then 
 dropped the curtain. Was it necessary to kill Felix ? 
 Could we not have pictured him living an honour- 
 able and happy life, perhaps with wife and children? 
 The loves of Lance and Gertrude May — who, by the 
 way, is the least attractive of all the May family
 
 'THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE' 131 
 
 whenever and wherever she appears — are not very 
 interesting, and we do wish Angela had not been 
 made so very, very ' common ' and disagreeable a 
 young woman. Angela as a little girl was naughty, 
 but she could never have become so horrid as Miss 
 Yonge makes her out to have been. 
 
 However, Miss Yonge did kill Felix, and dispose 
 of everybody more or less, and so made the Pillars 
 inordinately lengthy. All the portion which deals 
 with the fainily at Bexley, the nasty little town of 
 potteries, is excellent and interesting ; and the 
 description of Felix, who, when his father was 
 manifestly dying, insisted on becoming an assistant 
 to a friendly bookseller, and his rise from this to the 
 position of chief bookseller and Town Councillor 
 and editor of a newspaper, is really admirable. For 
 Miss Yonge had a deeply rooted sense of the value 
 of gentle birth and breeding, of a public school 
 education, of belonging to a county family. She 
 makes Felix do everything which she herself would 
 most thoroughly have disliked. And she shows 
 what the sacrilice entailed. Yet how different was 
 the lot of Felix in his town from that which would 
 have befallen him, say, in some little French pro- 
 vincial town! Without in the least intending to 
 preach, Miss Yonge shows us what the Church of 
 England has done and does for England. K\v,n in 
 Bexley, Felix and his brothers wore able to create 
 interests for themselves through the choir and n\\ 
 the multifari(Mis business which grows up around a 
 parish church. Life was dull (uioiigh in Bexley, an<l 
 the cravings of the artistic Goraldine for something 
 beautiful /iie not ignored; hut how mucli duller,
 
 132 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 how much more circumscribed, how much less in- 
 tellectual, would it have been without the parish 
 church. 
 
 Felix, we believe, was Miss Yonge's favourite 
 character. He is entirely good, yet perfectly natural ; 
 and he may not have been brilliant, but he was, as 
 his biograjjlier brings out, a very able and an excel- 
 lent man of business, and yet, capable of a wide 
 outlook, he could rise beyond the Bexley Town 
 Council : he was a man of affairs. 
 
 Here again, we have a great deal about music. 
 Felix, the scapegrace Edgar, Lance, Clement, were 
 all musicians, and Lance was a bit of a genius. The 
 family are more artistic, less intellectual, than the 
 Maj-s ; their chief interests are music and art, about 
 which there is a great deal. The Underwoods are 
 most of them good, and Felix becomes a veritable 
 saint, but only one of the six brothers takes Orders. 
 The book is a romance of very matter-of-fact 
 drudgery, and Miss Yonge's feat is that she casts 
 around Felix and Wilmet's heroic struggles an 
 atmosphere of romance ; she glorifies these sordid 
 troubles. And although Felix does become a squire, 
 yet he never becomes rich ; the whole family con- 
 tinue, after their restoration, to live simple, hard- 
 working lives. 
 
 Now, this was doing a real bit of work towards 
 the establishment of the kingdom of God. Miss 
 Yonge was probably a little bit afraid of what she 
 heard of Christian Socialism in her later years, and 
 if Felix had taken the bit in his teeth, and had 
 become an ardent disciple of Kingsley and Maurice, 
 his biographer would have sorely grieved. For what
 
 'THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE' 133 
 
 Miss Coleridge says is surely true, that ' her char- 
 acters often walked away from her.' 
 
 But in this book she tells of a boy of sixteen 
 gallantly taking on himself the care of twelve 
 brothers and sisters, abandoning any hopes of a 
 University career, taking a post which was regarded 
 in those days — 1854 — as a social descent, and living 
 a pure and hard-working life ; doing his very best, 
 and ^\inning for himself respect and a place as an 
 honoured citizen. 
 
 There is no preaching at all ; only the book is a 
 glorification of honourable poverty. There is a 
 writer of modern novels — a lady who has sneered 
 more than once at Miss Yonge — who in one of her 
 books holds up exactly the oi:)posite ideal. Her 
 hero was also a child of gentle birth, who was 
 stricken by misfortune of a physical nature. The 
 wIkjIo book is a gloiification not only of gentle 
 birth, but of the most material side of wealth and 
 all that wealth brings - gorgeous houses, clothes, 
 horses, even distails as to tlie personal attendance 
 of the h(;ro's valets. The hero naturally became 
 extraordinarily selfish, and has a terrific moral 
 collapse, from which he recovers. 
 
 Which is the nobler idealy Miss Yonge may bo 
 very circumscribed and limited, but she lias a ])assion 
 for goodness which ought to l)e rcnuMnhcrcd. llei" 
 ideal was that the people she cared for should use 
 th«!ii' ciicuinstances, not allow those circiinjstances 
 to be their inin. 
 
 To us who read in our eai'ly teens of I'Vlix's self- 
 denial and of his hiofheis and sisters there came a 
 sense of the dignity of poverty, of the glory of work,
 
 134 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 of the impossibility that a gentleman could cease to 
 be a gentleman, no matter what his work might be. 
 And there grew on us also a sense that the Church 
 was a great reality ; that Felix's action when he 
 came to his kingdom, in refusing to be a lay rector, 
 was absolutely natural. Perhaps we were not the 
 worse for this idealism. 
 
 Miss Yonge has been blamed for her love of old 
 families and the value she set on birth and breeding, 
 but she certainly can never be blamed for Mammon- 
 worship. 
 
 This is the second of what we might call Miss 
 Yonge's family chronicles, unless we count the little 
 Scenes aiid Characters as one. The Mays are the first 
 and the most generally known, and then come the 
 Underwoods. 
 
 She wrote a few years later another long family 
 chronicle, which never seems to have become very 
 popular — Magnum Bonum. In it again she has a de- 
 lightful doctor, who, however, dies almost at the begin- 
 ning of the story, which recounts the fortunes of his 
 widow and children. The said widow. Mother Carey, 
 is one of Miss Yonge's most delightful and natural 
 people ; but the story as a whole is not so con- 
 vincing, nor the characters always, excepting Mother 
 Carey, quite so individual and alive as our old friends, 
 and the episode of the lost will is wildly improbable. 
 The book reflects the time in which it was written. 
 She hints at the discomfort and discouragement 
 which upset so many minds in the sixties and 
 seventies ; the modein spirit was not ignored at 
 Otterbourne, and Miss Yonge had travelled a long 
 way since she wrote J'he Heir of Redely ffe.
 
 CHANGES 135 
 
 There was another family chronicle, The Three 
 Brides, which came out in the Packet soon after the 
 PiUaj^s were finished, but we do not think many- 
 people would greatly care for it. The only funny 
 episode is the extreme horror that the ordinary man 
 of thirty years ago felt for any woman who spoke 
 in public. 
 
 But we are anticipating a little. 
 
 In 1869 Miss Yonge paid a visit to France, and 
 stayed with M. Guizot and his daughter, Mnie. de 
 Witt. Her letters, which are given in Miss Cole- 
 ridge's Life, desci-ibing this visit, are most charming 
 — the most delightful fresh descriptions of this 
 glimpse into French life and of the Guizot family. 
 
 M. Guizot was rather an odd friend for Miss Yonge, 
 but she seems to have enjoyed herself, and it is most 
 sad that she never went abroad again ; in fact, it is not 
 only sad, but absolutely ridiculous. One cannot but 
 feel angry that some friend or another did not 
 compel her to spend a winter at Florence or at 
 Kome. How good it would have been for her ! 
 
 In 1800 her dearest cousin. Miss Anne Yonge, died 
 very suddenly — a terrible and irrcpaiviblo loss. 
 
 Then Mr. iiigg-Witlua-, who had been at Otter- 
 bourne for thirty-seven years, i"etired, and Miss 
 Yonge had a new clergyman and a clergyman's wife 
 to face, and it was impo.ssil)I(^ but that changes 
 should come. 
 
 Miss Yongf? supported liei- pai-isli |)iies1 with mi- 
 \va veiling loyalty, even luider the Irinl of Ciovern- 
 iiieiit ins|)ect ion oi' tlu^ schools, in wliicli sh<? ha<l 
 taught so long, and of \\ liieb she was ntit nnn;ilnr- 
 all\' pi'oud ; and th<^ little not e <»!' reminiscences con-
 
 13fi CHAT^LOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 tributed by Mrs. Elgeo, widow of Mr. Bigg-Wither's 
 successor, is very touching. Miss Yonge wrote to 
 Mr. Bigg- Wither every Sunday until his life ended. 
 
 Another change came into her life in 1873. 
 
 Miss Gertrude Walter, the sister of Mrs. Julian 
 Yonge, came to live with her at Elderfield. Miss 
 Walter seems to have been full of intellectvial in- 
 terests, and to have given Miss Yonge intense affec- 
 tion and much help. At the same time, her presence 
 in the little house kept other people away, as there 
 was absolutely no room for a guest ; and as she 
 became a complete invalid, much anxiety and fatigue 
 ensued for Miss Yonge. But probably the gain of a 
 sympathetic comjianion was more than compensa- 
 tion for the disadvantages — and they were quite real 
 ones — of this arrangement. Certainly, no one can 
 restrain the wish that, as time went on, Miss Yonge 
 had had more intercourse with her superiors in in- 
 tellect; that she had seen more of the world of 
 Oxford and of London ; that she had had more 
 natural links with people of light and leading. 
 Miss Coleridge and others could not do as much for 
 her as they might have done owing to this isolation 
 at Otterbourne. Miss Coleridge was really the only 
 author of any distinction whom she frequently saw^, 
 and to be surrounded by a circle of admirers, all 
 decidedly inferior to oneself, is good for no one. If 
 only she had had someone sufficiently near her own 
 age, and of superior mental power, to criticize her 
 and tell her when she was wi-iting too much, the 
 gain would have been great.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 
 (1872—1873) 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth came to stay with 
 Miss Yonge some time in the seventies, and one can 
 only wish the elder author had seen a great deal 
 more of the much-loved Principal of Lady Margaret 
 Hall, to whom we may apply what was said of some- 
 one else, ' To love her is a liberal education.' Miss 
 Wordsworth has generously given an account of her 
 visit, which can be quoted here : 
 
 ' Ottkhhouhnk, 
 'May, 1872. 
 
 'Well, dear . . . here 1 am at last, and seiz<^ the 
 oppf)i-tunity of my lujstess being g<^ne out to do a 
 liltif! school-teaching, to write to you. 
 
 ' I had a lovely and (Mijoyabh; joiii-ney, and bad 
 the pleasure of seeing a l)r()iighnm with Miss Yonge 
 insidn it (h'ivo np just ;it 1 li«' nionicjif our 1 rain was 
 stopping. She and t be coaclnnan act ually <'ont riscd 
 to tal<(^ mo and all my luggage, and we bad a plcu- 
 s.'int drive tln-ougb a country of budding onk- 
 tbicketsanfl lianUsol' wild llow(U's,and just in fr(jnt 
 
 i;J7
 
 138 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 of us a beautif vil rainbow very low down in the sky. 
 1 cannot describe the exquisite, soft, half -rainy, 
 half -sunny colouring. All this time I felt extremely 
 shy, though, of course, we both of us talked hard^ 
 as shy people are apt to do, and I confess my feel- 
 ing was, " What shall I do if she goes on in that 
 voice for the next three or four days ?" One felt 
 inclined to speak like a hospital nurse oneself. 
 Afterwards we made an expedition (rather under 
 difficulties) into the garden to try and hear the 
 nightingales ; but it was a very rainy afternoon, 
 and we took i^efuge in the drawing-room — a long, 
 low room, lined with books and with a few nice 
 prints. My eye was almost at once caught by a 
 very fine impression of Diirei's "Knight and 
 Death " (hanging close to two photographs of the 
 San Sisto). Of course I ejaculated ; and she said, 
 " Oh, that was picked up by my father when he 
 was in Paris. I think, considering he was only 
 twenty, it showed very good taste." Then off we 
 ^vent about Ruskin — "What a mistake to think he 
 is a had knight "—Sintram, of course, etc., etc.; 
 and having once got fairly started, we went on 
 about all sorts of things (how they were connected 
 it is really hard to remember) — Nuremberg, Paris 
 (the only foreign place she had ever been to) ; the 
 two things that interested her most — the Con- 
 ciergerie and the Louvre ; especially one little 
 Murillo of our Lord looking on S. Peter. . . . 
 Then we went for a most delicious stroll, some- 
 thing like the Wytham woods, where there were 
 patches of bluebells and many other exquisite 
 things, in order to fill our baskets with some moss
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 139 
 
 for cliurc-h decoration. Then to the church for 
 service; congregation — a man, a little girl, and 
 ourselves. 
 
 'The church is in that dreadful early modern 
 Gothic, the churchyard very pretty. Then tea in 
 the drawing-room ; my hostess looking more like 
 an old French marquise than ever in a red and 
 black Dolly Yarden dress, with pink skirt. I must 
 get a sketch of her in that particular costume. 
 Alas ! I never did. After tea she provided herself 
 with a pair of scissors, and some of those cards of 
 Sunday-school texts which have to be snipped up, 
 and I got my knitting, by way of fancying we 
 were industiious ; and she volunteered to read me 
 Keble's review of the Life of Walter Scott in an 
 old British CHtic. We must have read, I think, at 
 the rate of a page an hour, as we went off into 
 interminable discussions about ever3'thing, and, 
 of ccnirso, a great deal of laughing and nonsense. 
 How all the subjects got together I can't think. 
 However, in the course of it she got down a copy 
 of the Faerie Queen (which had been given by 
 Ml'. Kcble to his wife before they were married, 
 and used to be their trav(!llingc()ni])ani()n), with a 
 nic(^ little note in it from Mrs. Kcblo's sister, 
 desiring her ac('eptancc ol" it. Sometbing in the 
 reading about the beauty of Walter Scott's prose 
 mad(! nie mention Dr. Wlicwcll, .mikI liisdcliglil in 
 that fine passages in 'I'lu A nfir/iiar}/ about a stoiniy 
 sunset and a t'nilcn nionaicli (<'arly in (•b.'i]»1<'r 
 vii.). Of conrsj! Iliat had to be looked out and 
 lead I \\'«' bad been having some fun a])out the 
 Coxe and Max Miiilt'i' school, and Ihcii' way ol"
 
 140 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 disposing of all the old legends as myths about 
 the sun and clouds; and she amused herself by 
 turning the whole passage into a sort of allegory 
 about Louis XIV. ; laughing at her own thoughts 
 in the way people do when a fresh combination 
 comes into their mind. I never knew a face that 
 it was greater pleasure to watch, and certainly 
 never saw any woman (or many men) who seemed 
 so perfectly uritireable. I dare say she finds it 
 rather lonely, though there is a married brother 
 and family of children whose garden joins on to 
 this. We were talking about something or other, 
 and she said, "Two things everyone ought to be 
 taught— to write a letter, and, if they have been 
 anywhere, to describe it." I said : " Well, I don't 
 mind about the letter, but it is not so easy, when 
 you come home tired, to give a long account of 
 your doings." " Well, it is far worse to come home 
 and have no one to care what you have been 
 doing." She seems very fond of the nephews and 
 nieces, and is at this moment taking the place of 
 a knocked-up governess, though rather in despair 
 over a child who " has just reached that distress- 
 ing stage when they know their alphabet perfectly 
 well, and will go on saying the instead of the." 
 All this energy seems so strange after the poor 
 X's. [invalid friends]. By the way, Miss Yonge 
 mentioned quite casually that she had read through 
 the whole of the Faerie Queen as a girl, just because 
 she liked it ; and made a manusciipt translation of 
 I ProTuessi Sposi for the benefit of her father, who 
 could not understand Italian, and liked to have a 
 bit every night. . . .'
 
 U I c.r..n. 
 
 CHARLOTTIi MAKY VONGH. 
 
 To /<»( (• fiii^c 1 40.
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 141 
 
 The letter ends here, but Miss Wordsworth adds 
 some journal notes as well : 
 
 ' Wednesday, May 8, 1872. — Church decorating 
 (at home) with C. M. Y. We each did a cross for 
 the two sides of the altar — yew, bay leaves, and 
 rhododendrons. Her cioss was broken-backed, and 
 had to be supported by various devices. First I 
 suggested crinoline wire (whic-li was ineffectually 
 tried) ; then she went and hunted up a garden- 
 spud, which she stuck triumi)hantly at the back, 
 and which she was sure "wouldn't show." Pre- 
 sently in conies her brother. " I think, Julian, we 
 shall stand these on two hassocks to make them 
 taller." " You might just as well stand them on — 
 mashed potatoes." This was quite too much for 
 my gravity. He waited for some time while wo 
 made a wi'cath with wet moss, flowers, and 
 greenery for the font. . . . Went into church and 
 arranged our crosses. Little girl bringing hemlock 
 flowers. Nearly robbed the garden of its beautiful 
 lilac clematis. Funeral came in the midst of <»ur 
 o})orati()ns. 
 
 ' 'l'/tui:sday, May 0.- AlliT the usual fesl ival ser- 
 vices I left her, regretting she had proofs or some- 
 thing to do, and could not come, too, and walked 
 up to the little common. Gorse most l)riliiant> 
 beautiful distances, birds singing, milkwort on the 
 turf, and a thousand otluu" tleligiits — a place in 
 wliir-h U) feel the true spirit ol" Ascension Day I 
 She must have been at work at this time on 7'he 
 Pi/la IS (if Uir Iloune, for at dinner she said : " 1 do 
 HO want a comic song. Can you help mo? I don't
 
 U2 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 know any music, and am not in the way of hearing 
 such things. I want Angela to sing one on the 
 river." " Would ' Not for Joe ' do ?" " Oh no, that 
 is too common, I think." " Well, I wonder if this 
 would. It's dreadfully vulgar, but the childien in 
 the Children's Hospital at Nottingham used to 
 sing it : 
 
 " ' Six o'clock is striking : 
 
 Mother, may I go out ?' etc.*' 
 
 ' " Oh, that will just do, because the bargemen 
 can take it up and answer her again. I shall be 
 so much obliged if you will dictate it to me this 
 evening." Which I accordingly did, both of us 
 greatly amused. 
 
 ' Drove, or rather were driven, to Hursley in a 
 low open carriage, by the road along which the 
 body of Rufus was brought. Talked of Miss Mac- 
 kenzie and missions. 
 
 ' Just as we were getting into the village, I ex- 
 claimed at the beauty of a lane with light green 
 foliage. " Ah, I have often thought I would go 
 down that lane, but I never have yet. Certainly 
 the road did not look inviting. Stopped outside 
 the lych-gate. Church very beautiful with its 
 cross-lights — the font especially so ; Keble's grave 
 and his wife's; wreath at the head, I think, of both. 
 We stood there some moments, she telling me of 
 his funeral day, the comfort the early service had 
 been ; a butterfly in the church ; brass slab where 
 the coffin rested. I thought she rather would 
 have preferred a grass grave to the marble ones, 
 especially as she had told me at anothei- time, with
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 143 
 
 enthusiasm, of an Indian Sultana whose one wish 
 was that the grass should grow over her grave. 
 
 ' Drove back through park. Deer. Anipfield 
 Church. Something of this sort of conversa- 
 tion on our way through the wood : C. " This is 
 quite a typical Ascension Day ; these gleams are 
 so much more beautiful than fixed sunshine." 
 E. " One always fancies it was the same time of 
 year in the Holy Land, but, of course, the season 
 was more advanced there " 
 
 ' Ampfield Church stands on a rise. Drinking- 
 fountain below, with verses by Lady Heathcote. 
 Wont up and looked round the churchyard. " When 
 Miss (R.) Kingsley was here she seemed to know the 
 note of every bird." Got into the carriage again, and 
 drove on through a road among woods. Admired 
 the larches. " As you like this so much, I must 
 take you to-morrow to one of my favourite places 
 for bluebells. 1 think we should have time in the 
 morning. Yes, this is very pleasant English 
 scenery. I like; it blotter than a 'crack country,' 
 where you are always being dragged up or down 
 hill. What J <lo dislikes ar(; caves. There is one. 
 where I go and stay sometiuK's in Devonshire, and 
 a sensation-novel lady [Annit; Tiiomasj iuti-oduced 
 it into one of her books. The most improbable bit 
 in tbe l)ook was (oddly enough) the only true one 
 — that the cave had a door with a lock and key." 
 Apropos of something I said : " Yes, there ought 
 to b(! a novelists' lawyer. Sir .John Colen'dg(< 
 loj^kcd over all the law in The Trial for mo. He 
 took me to \\\<- I '< nt l;i iid I'l-ison, and in.nie ;ill sorts 
 of inquiries in my presence as if foi- bis (^wn odi"
 
 lU CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ficatiou. Mr. Roupell was there, so it was easy to 
 ask questions about the treatment of a man of 
 education. . . ." 
 
 'In tlie evening she gave me a beautifully printed 
 copy of Potter's ^Eschylus to look at. " Do read it 
 it out loud. I am sure you will enjoy it more." 
 However, as I Avas rather tired, she read me some 
 of Baring-Gould's poems : " The Three Crowns," 
 " Bishop Benno and the Frogs " — a very clever 
 thing — etc. She reads unaffectedly and with a 
 good deal of spirit, and, like all good readers, does 
 not come between you and the subject. 
 
 ' Friday. — Went for our bluebell walk. It was 
 thorough enjoyment, I think, to both of us. She 
 seemed to delight in the red colouring of the docks 
 — a great sweep of which lay across the landscape 
 — and young oak-trees ; then there were greyish- 
 blue lakes of wild-hyacinths among the stems to 
 our left — a peewit flying about in a sort of broken 
 hollow to our right, and a strange croaking 
 creatuieAvhose bodily form could not be discovered. 
 Promised me some flowers to take back to West- 
 minster Hospital. 
 
 'In the afternoon took me to St. Cross in the 
 open carriage. Sand-martins, rooks, etc. Agreed 
 in our views about Butterfield having ruined the 
 place. Cardinal Beaufort (about whom she was 
 disposed to be enthusiastic) ; old silver crosses 
 handed down from time immemorial. Peeped 
 into Winchester Cathedral for a moment; through 
 the nave and out at door on the south ; spoke to 
 verger about choral festival. She seemed proud 
 of knowing all the byways to the Awdrys.
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 145 
 
 Mrs. A. doing illustration for a lecture. Dr. 
 Ridding's Athenian sketches, C. Y. raving about 
 the beauty of our morning walk. As we drove 
 back, we talked of Mr. Butler of Wantage. C. 
 "Well, he is very delightful to me, and yet he 
 gives me more snubs than anybody. I shall never 
 forget how he scolded me once for dining out on a 
 Friday. You would be surprised how much there 
 is in Mrs. Butler. She is so much taken up with 
 making both ends meet — I mean in keeping such 
 an establishment going — that she has hardly time 
 for anything else ; but she knows so much, and 
 has great depth of character." General Wilbraham 
 passed us on the road. His daughters nursing an 
 old aunt. 
 
 ' Home too late for church, so dressed early and 
 had such an evening ! My hostess, as I see her in 
 my mind's ej-^e (lying on the sofa vmdcr the San 
 Sistopictur(% in the Dolly Varden dress aforesaid, 
 and showing a very pretty pair of feet in white 
 open-work stockings), and I on the other side 
 "capping Miss Austen con amove." C. "One 
 thing I always think so nnich to her credit : she 
 gives you a great deal of costume, and it is never in 
 the way. You know her nephew says she never 
 
 was in love ; but (name forgotten) told quite 
 
 a romance about her : her meeting with some 
 Welsl) squire, wlio ])aid hor maikcd atlcntions, 
 and was always expected to conu* Forward, wIkmi 
 it tin-ncd out \w was dead." 1 said, I bch'evo, that 
 J did not t liiiik Prrsiuisiaii could lia vc Ix'cn writ ten 
 by a person \slioli,id not been in love. (L "AN'liat 
 was the good ol' the story of Mr. lOlliot (T supi)oso 
 
 10
 
 U6 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGB 
 
 he was necessary), and Mrs. Clay? How much 
 one sees the improvement in society since those 
 days ! Lydia going off without ever having been 
 married — even the Mrs. Rennets of these days 
 would have felt it. Then poor Colonel Brandon's 
 situation. I know a Mrs. Palmer ! How cleverly 
 Harriet Smith is drawn ! One feels the utter 
 hopelessness of ever making anything of her. 
 The sentimental young lady of those days — Miss 
 Lily Black in Inheritance. Her letter first-rate. 
 Isn't it good in Mansfield Park where Mrs. Rush- 
 worth (that is to be) complains of her aunts 
 ' sponging ' on Mr. R. ! I always read Miss Austen 
 to people of the present generation who don't 
 appreciate her " (taking down a cojDy to see what 
 Miss De Bourgh's name was). " I had been j^ositive 
 it began, instead of ending, with H." In answer 
 to a question of mine : " Emma ? Oh yes, I know 
 Mr. Knightley's Christian name. Don't you 
 remember when she says, ' I called you George to 
 see if you minded it"? How good that scene is 
 where Miss Bates talks to him out of the window ! 
 My mother and I took Avarning by that when we 
 first came to live here, and determined we never 
 would be so caught." 
 
 'I said I always thought Fanny Price had 
 brown eyes. " Oh no. Don't you remember when 
 Edmund had to learn to prefer soft blue eyes to 
 sparkling black ones? I think I know exactly 
 what Fanny looked like, with curls making an 
 ogee arch over her forehead." 
 
 ' Talked about Charlotte Bronte. " How wrong 
 it Avas letting the brother stay at home and
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 147 
 
 coarsen those "girls' minds ! You see the traces of 
 it in Jane Eyre. Villetfe is better." 
 
 ' " Apropos of reviews, Annie Thomas once 
 asked me, ' How do you feel when they cut you 
 up?' It was such an awkward question. I said, 
 * Well, at all events I don't cry over them all day, 
 as Charlotte Bronte did. I was so angry the other 
 day. In a story, some gentleman says to a lady, 
 'Well, Avould you like me to turn good and build 
 a church like one of Miss Yonge's heroes ? Now, 
 I never did make my hero build a church, except 
 Mr, Ernscliffe, and that was after he was dead." 
 
 ' One of the most amusing things was to hear 
 her giving an account of the plot (some of it) of 
 The Pillars of the House. It was exactly as if 
 she was explaining the involutions of some real 
 piece of history, and she was quite as much in 
 earnest. I dare say, if I had been there longer, I 
 should have had a great deal more of the same 
 kind, for she evidently, when the first shyness 
 was over, liked talking ov(M" hoi- ])0()])1(\ NafiirlleJi ! 
 
 'Another night I had made some (juotation 
 from George Eliot {Adam Bede) about ancestral 
 features without ancesti-al (jualitios. C. " Oli 
 yes, of course I remember that ! . . . I wondcn* 
 no one has (n'or wi'ittcn a poem on the death of 
 Loroir/o de Mcdiri." 
 
 'I had b«M,'M with licr sotmc time in tlw liouso 
 before I ventured to ask lici- nbimt ;iiiy «»r licr own 
 things. Howevci-, ono evening as wo were at 
 snpp(M-, I asked her it' T.Md\- Kfitli's death* had 
 been drawn from i'<';il life. 
 
 * III Tlir I'lrrir W'liiiiiiu tif thr Ftnui/l/. 
 
 10—2
 
 148 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 * Instead of her replying, unluckily, a crumb got 
 down her throat, and she began to choke so 
 genuinely that I did not know whether to be more 
 frightened or amused ; and it was some time 
 before I got my answer — in the negative. 
 
 ' Afterwai'ds from time to time she volunteered 
 a good deal. About one poor girl who fell in love 
 with Ethel, in The Daisy Chain, and wrote to the 
 author, saying " You are the mother of all my 
 good thoughts." Translations : One French trans- 
 lator would turn Guy into Walter ; another would 
 call Averil Lucie, or some such name, instead of 
 Everilda, which it really was. " Oh," I said, " I 
 always fancied, as you had got so many Mays, you 
 thought it only right to have April, like the old 
 rhyme, 
 
 ' " March borrowed from Averil/ etc." 
 
 * " No, that, somehow, never came into my head." 
 ' She evidently feels very much having no one 
 to take an interest in these things ; and talked a 
 great deal of her own family — some cousins who 
 had been like sisters, and were now no more (one 
 who used to tell her about Lady ylnne, a favourite 
 old child's book I happened to mention), and we 
 got quite confidential over family histories. I 
 said we had really never known what sorrow was. 
 She answered very touchingly, " And you will find 
 it is much better than you think." 
 
 ' I showed her one of my father's letters ; she 
 looked at it with interest. " Ah, I have nothing 
 of that sort. My letters used to be : ' Dear Char- 
 lotte, I am coming home to-night at six. Your
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 149 
 
 affectionate,' etc." C. " My father died of apoplexy ; 
 there were two strokes, with a few days between. 
 We had no clei'gyman ^vith us. I read the Com- 
 mendatory Prayer. Afterwards Mr. Bigg-Wither 
 came in, and read us the fifteenth chapter of 
 Corinthians. It was kindly meant, but a great 
 strain. Then those kind Kebles came over, and 
 did everything they possibly could. I never was 
 
 a nurse, and did much better than my brother 
 
 or I could." But she seemed to look back on that 
 sorrow as not so hard to bear as her mother's 
 illness, with its long, gradual breaking up of a 
 character that had been so congenial. (They seem 
 to have seen everything in the same way, and the 
 same absurd likenesses in people, like the game in 
 The Pillar a of the House, which they appear really 
 to have played.) 
 
 ' " The lii-st coming home with nobody to w el- 
 come you ! One of my cousins contrived to 
 spare me that. Now I have got used to it, aiul 
 go and look what letters there are. . . . One 
 of the things that made me take to you liist 
 <^f all was seeing how much you looked up (»> 
 your father." This was in answer to soiiu'lhiiig 1 
 had said about wishing she could know him, as 
 slie Hcemed to miss Kel)!*; so nuich ; or, il" I re- 
 member tlu! words rightly: "Ah, when one's 
 mastei" is taken away fioni oik/s head I " 
 
 'Altogether, this our last evening was one of 
 oui- nicest. Sh(! seemed to l»d you se(? so much of 
 her real heart and I'eeling, expressed almost as 
 nujch by tin; flushing of licr I'.ice ;ind the varying 
 character ol" her bmw n eyes, with their diiVcrent
 
 150 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 looks of almost tears, sparkle of fun, eagerness of 
 observation, far-awfiy yearning (especially some- 
 times out of doors), and the charming play of her 
 mouth, as by anything she says. 
 
 ' It is a great pity one who is really so loving 
 and lovable should not be able to show it except 
 to the very few who have the chance of getting 
 intimate with her. I think she must have felt 
 this herself, to judge by the way she spoke of Miss 
 Austen's alleged reserve in society. . . . As I think 
 she said herself, only not quite in those words, 
 " Self-consciousness is a misfortune, not a fault." 
 
 'Friday. — Went to church 9 a.m. As we got 
 out afterwards, she amused me by saying : " Do 
 tell me. Is my hat on hind side before ? I have 
 had such horrid misgivings about it." Luckily, it 
 was all right. After breakfast she went, I think, 
 to her school, I to my packing. 
 
 ' Apropos of an emerald ring : " I think all the 
 Otterbourne childien of this generation will asso- 
 ciate the ' rainbow round about the throne ' with 
 this ring." 
 
 ' When I had done packing, I found her armed 
 with a large photograph -book of friends and 
 relations, which she showed me. I forgot to say 
 how much talk we had had about Bishop Patte- 
 son. Bishop Selvvyn's log-book, and Melanesia 
 generally, on which she is employed just now. 
 Also a great deal about the Old Testament — 
 David and S. John (of course con amove), some of 
 this out walking ; the 40tli l*salm — Keble's trans- 
 lation of " Mine cars hast thou opened," and 
 much more. But as we hardly over sto^JiJed
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 151 
 
 talking during the four days of my visit, it is 
 obAiously impossible to put down everything. 
 One day she took me into her bedroom, a small 
 room A\Tth a look-out on laurel-bushes, and I 
 sliould think an excellent place for observing 
 birds. "Tod als Freund" over the bed's head. 
 We talked a little about it. " And Alice Moborly 
 happened to have done me this text, 'At evening- 
 time it shall be light,' so that fitted in beautifully." 
 Picture of an old owl, " which I remember as long 
 as I can remember anything"; photographs; a 
 picture done by her mother for stained - glass 
 window ; family portraits. 
 
 ' She docs all her work in the drawing-room, the 
 chief peculiarity of which is, there is no piano. 
 Over the chimney-piece, her father in the centre, 
 Lord Seaton, Keble, Sir W. Ileathcote, all by 
 Richmond ... a fine print of Millais' Huguenots 
 in another part of the room; the two San Sisto 
 groups^how she did talk to mo about the cherubs ! 
 Death and the Knight; a print from the Visicjn 
 of S. Augustine (S. Lawren(;e, S. Katharine, (;tc.), 
 about which she was vciy el()(|uent ; and I think 
 a Cuyp, or something Cuypish, on one sid«! of Hk^ 
 lire; and at the foot of the sofa, and close to tli<' 
 fire, a window with something grc^en peeping in, 
 and a view of the road iipliill to the* common. On 
 lh(!otliei' sid(j of, and at light angles to, (lie lire 
 three windows, and nr.-ir the Taithest hei' writing- 
 table, with a handy chilVonier witii cu|)boaitl lor 
 wastc-j)apei-, |»aste, etc. 
 
 ' III the middle of (lie luoiii a table with some 
 llo\vei>, ill w liich she evident l_)' took great pride —
 
 152 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Solomon's seal, picked in our walk. Well, all 
 pleasures come to an end, and so did this. If any- 
 thing could have made parting pleasant, it would 
 have been the genuine affection of her farewell. 
 
 ' I paid her another visit in 1873, of which the 
 following is a slight record : 
 
 ' Thursday, May 29.— To Chandler's Ford. C. Y. 
 waiting at the station for nie. Drove a little way, 
 then got out and walked through a wood some- 
 thing like Buckland Covert. She noticed the 
 curious growth of the fir-cones coming at the 
 joints of the branches. Some must have been 
 there several years. Talked in a desultory way. 
 Somehow Jean Ingelow came up. C. admired 
 Off the SkeUigs, also her part of One Story by Tivo 
 Authors (Margaret), which I think she said was 
 "how I first became acquainted with her. She 
 was very angry because I would cut out so much 
 of the other author's part." Stopped to look at a 
 snake running away in the broken ground, and 
 told me a story of some Colonial Bishop being 
 stung by a viper here in England. Came down by 
 the road, leaving Hursley Park on our left. Pretty 
 groups of children in the late afternoon light. 
 
 ' Friday, 30th. — Paid calls in Winchester. To 
 cathedral service. Old arches outside recently 
 discovered. C. Y. " I remember when these were 
 first found. I was quite a girl, and very enthusi- 
 astic, saying to Mr. Keble : ' Well, I think this is 
 the greatest event that has happened in Win- 
 chester for many years.' He gave me one of his 
 funny looks. ' Oh no, Charlotte ! Don't you think 
 the greatest event was Canon Carus's coming ? ' "
 
 ■•1 
 
 O
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 153 
 
 ' After service showed nie the font. Something 
 Hke the Lincoln one. Was very much shocked I 
 had not been to the cathedral " since you came to 
 your senses. Well, we'll make a point of it next 
 time you come." 
 
 ' On the Saturday we had a grand church- 
 decorating, and I was amused at the energetic 
 way she set to work, carrying a large basket 
 on her arm into the church, and subsequently 
 dusting and scrubbing the dark oak carving 
 inside the altar rails. Afterwards we paid a visit 
 to Miss Walter, who had got downstairs on to the 
 sofa. 
 
 'Sunday, (Whit Sunday) we had a great deal 
 of Sunday-school, etc. I never saw a woman who 
 seemed to mind noise so little, and the same thing 
 struck me when we were travelling the next day. 
 
 ' Sunday Afto'noon. — " Now I must go and write 
 my weekly letter to Mr. Wither." However, she 
 hung al>out by the door, talking about i)rayer 
 apropos of a story of Bishop Patteson having once 
 escaped a gieat danger, and finding aiterwards 
 that liis old g<)voni(\'^s h;i(l Ixmmi piviyiiig for In'in 
 all niglil. 1 said 1 he ol)\i(ju.s thing: "Why, then, 
 did he get kiiliMl at last?" and the obvious remarks 
 to and tj-o were made. I said : " At last one comes 
 to pi'ay for nothing but wpii-itual tilings, except, 
 ])erhaps, j)coplo on(! loves." h\ "And success." 
 C. "Yes. 'l'rosp(!r Thou our li;md>\vork.' that 
 was always a favourite; text of mine. J I'ancy (iod 
 oncourngcs p(H>p|(> liy secrondary motiv<^s whiio 
 tlicy are young, and \>\ degrees wit lid raw s I luun, 
 treating us like children." (At another lime she
 
 154 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 said : " I have had a gieat deal of affection in my 
 Hfe, but not from the people I cared for most.") 
 
 ' Sho^\ed me an autograpli of Keble with what 
 he called " his motto " (from George Herbert), 
 " Love is a present for a mighty King," stuck in 
 Christian Year, I think. After tea slie got into a 
 corner of the sofa by the little window already 
 mentioned, close to the fire, and I sat at the head 
 and looked over her photograph copy of Lyra 
 Innocentium. I made her read me several : the 
 one for the day, and, " What I care for more," for 
 Whitsun Eve, about the cooing of the dove ; also 
 "Where is the brow to wear in mortals' sight?" 
 We began witli the one for Whit Sunday, and, as 
 she said, it rather seemed to have been done for 
 the sake of getting the children in somehow, 
 whereas the " Eve " was his own self completely. 
 
 ' Among the photographs, one of Fra Angelico's 
 face struck me. I think she said she had got it in 
 Paris. It had all the air of being a portrait — the 
 mouth so characteristic. I said, however, I wished 
 the upper part had more the air of one who had 
 gone through some intellectual struggle. It looked 
 vmdeveloped. How could one get sympathy from 
 such a man ? This led to a very interesting dis- 
 cussion as to whether one must be able to he a 
 thing in order to enter into it. " I'm sure I don't 
 think I coukl have been as good as " (I think she 
 said) " some of my own characters. Take courage, 
 for instance. I know I'm an arrant coward. How- 
 ever, you miiy say that's a mei'e matter of physical 
 nerve." I mentioned a paper I had seen in Mac- 
 inilLan by Mr. llutton, where he says Tennyson's
 
 MISS WOKDSWOKTH S VISITS 155 
 
 Northern Farmer was drawn from the outside, 
 and Tithonus from the inside. And this led us, of 
 course, to Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, whom 
 one felt he had drawn from within. C. " I fancy 
 him a mixture of Iiamlet and Sir John Falstaif. 
 Now, Othello, 1 think, is from the outside." Then 
 we went on to " Middlemarch" and the wonderful 
 portraiture of Lydgate. Where did she get her 
 medical knowledge from ? 
 
 ' I said something — I forget exactly what — about 
 the effect of great events in f oiniing gi-eat literary 
 characters. What would Shakespeare have been 
 if he had not lived in an heroic age ? 
 
 ' C. " But sometimes the crisis comes, and there 
 is no great man to rise up to it. Now, for instance, 
 who is there ? Perhaps the greatest intellect of 
 
 the age is Dr. Newman. But " " But," I said, 
 
 " perhaps his inlcLlect is too strong for his juihire." 
 And we digressed a little on that subject, and got, 
 somehow, to self-consciousness, whether it was 
 the effect of the character or the epoch. " Bishoi) 
 Patteson," she said, " was a lemarkably self-con- 
 8ci(jus man. It was one of his great trials. I'm 
 sure Ulysses was self-conscious." (1 could not 
 agree to this.) C. "I should say, now, that Ku- 
 ripides was self-conscious, and yEschyhis not." 
 " Yes." " And Cicero ?" " Oh yes," 1 said ; • why, 
 he was just as much ovcr-cixili/.cd as ourscix cs." 
 (J. " Do you IvMow a |)assag(! iu ouc ol" MissSewell's 
 books in wliicli sIk! sa^sola prcl ( y girl : 'She was 
 not vain, liiil she. wouinn I ii;i\c liked an\(>l lui' 
 tallicis I.I l)(>un'i"s to p.iss licr uilliout iioti<'ing 
 hei'" r " 1 ."^aid : " ( )r like iMaggic in I'/u: Mill on I he.
 
 156 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Floss, who didn't like the gipsies not to think her 
 a clever little girl." C. "Well, you know, I feel 
 like that girl of Miss Sewell's, I am afraid. I don't 
 like it if people — not snub nie, exactly, but don't 
 give nie my due. The other day I was going over 
 a cathedral with a lady who certainly had all the 
 right to respect, and I found my remarks treated 
 with the utmost conteinpt. I fancied we had been 
 mistaken one for another, and afterwards found 
 it was the case. People do all they can to spoil 
 
 you " " And then," I said, " are the first to 
 
 turn round on you for being spoilt." " Yes. But, 
 now, what should you have thought of Miss Strick- 
 land going over a show place and leaving a message: 
 ' Tell the Duchess I have been here ; she'll like to 
 know it 'y I don't like butter, but I must say I 
 like approbation. What should you think of 
 people when they come and say, ' I've been want- 
 ing to see you so, I've heard so much of you,' and 
 so on?" "Oh," I said, "if you did that to me, I 
 should butter them again so thickly that they 
 should see I was chaffing them. But I should 
 hope they would have the good taste not to do 
 so." " Very few people have good taste. I am 
 getting hardened now, and don't mind it as much 
 as I did. Of course, now, if I met, say, one of 
 your sisters, and said I Avantcd to sec her so, it 
 would be quite natural, because I knew you. But 
 supposing one met George Eliot or Mrs. Oliphant, 
 of course it would not be the same thing ; and yet, 
 you know, one likes to be apjiroved of — when one 
 wiites a fresh thing to know it is not a falling 
 off." Something made me say : " I suppose a great
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 157 
 
 success almost always brings a great shadow with 
 it. It seems as if God would not allo^v people to 
 have their heads turned — if they were good, at 
 least." I believe she assented. " Ah," she said, 
 evidently thinking of herself, " a lonely old age is 
 a sad thing." She was apparently haunted by her 
 mother's six months' imbecility, for she added : " I 
 hope I shall keep mj^self. My mother got so rest- 
 less ; she was never quiet five minutes. We could 
 not keep her in bed at night. If I went down 
 to get my dinner, she could not bear me out of her 
 sight However, I do not think my constitution 
 is like hers. The other side of our family is more 
 for sudden deaths." A good deal of this conversa- 
 tion took place in the dusk, when people generally 
 get confidential; and she went on about her 
 father's symi)toms, and a little tendency to gout 
 she had hccn feeling. " Peo])le often think I must 
 })e very dull here, and want me to go and live in 
 Oxford." 1 forget exactly at what part of the 
 conversation I had begged her to go for a winter 
 in Rome — it seemed such a pity for people who 
 knew and cared about the j>lace not to see it. 
 " W(!ll, the Heathcotes wantcnl me to go last 
 winter, but F declined. There sccmsso nuich to do 
 here; and, with an old mind likc^ niine, it is dilli- 
 cult to take in fresh impressions." 
 
 ' I have forgotten a good deal of this conversa- 
 tion now, but I shall never forget Ikm' eyes, spark- 
 ling like diamonds, cispecially by ea)i(lleligli1. 
 
 ' We started together by ti'ain iIm; next day, 
 and travelled a short distance t<»gether. She was 
 going to see Miss Dyson, "the mothei- of (»uy."
 
 158 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 " You must come again, you know ; you seem 
 quite to belong now to Ascension Day and 
 Whitsuntide." We had several other meetings 
 after this, but I fear I have not kept a record of 
 them.' 
 
 Another friend of Miss Yonge's was Mrs. Gibbs, 
 the wife of Mr. William Gib))s, whom all Church- 
 men gratefully remember. The visits to the home 
 at Tyntesfield, of which she writes, ' The beautiful 
 house was like a church in spirit, I used to think,' 
 Avere a great pleasure. She writes from Mr. Gibbs's 
 house in 1872 : 
 
 'J. F. O. [Bishop Mackarness] slept here last night 
 to assist at the opening of Mr. Randall's church 
 at Clifton,* to Avhich we have been this morning. 
 The Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Moberly, pi'eached 
 most beautifully about the Shadow and the Image. 
 Mr. Skinner is also here for it ... . Those who 
 stayed for the luncheon are full of enthusiasm, 
 and say it was most successful, and that the two 
 Bishops spoke in perfection in their several ways ; 
 but Archdeacon Denison seems to have almost 
 demolished poor Dr. Moberly with the noise he 
 made. This is a holy and beautiful house to be in, 
 with Blanche's almost unearthly goodness and 
 humility, and her husband's princely nobleness. 
 . . . He still reads the lessons in chapel, and with 
 beautiful expression. Just fancy Avhat it was to 
 hear him read the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, the 
 spirit so rising above the infirmities ! He wants 
 
 * The beautiful ('hurch of All Saints, which has been so great a 
 blessing to many souls.
 
 MISS WORDSWORTH'S VISITS 159 
 
 to build a church here for the district, also a 
 private chapel, licensed for H. C. But the Rector, 
 a very low and slovenly Churchman, will not 
 consent ; though the Bishop [Bath and Wells] has 
 been talked to by our Bishop and him of Ely, he 
 will not or cannot abide it. As to the chapel, there 
 came a letter two days ago, saying " he would do 
 everything in his power," but it is much feared 
 that this means only a licence for the Holy 
 Communion, not permitting anyone not in the 
 house to receive. It is celebrated now in the 
 Oratory, l^ut with a sense that it is irregular and 
 might be stopped when nobody is really ill. How 
 
 Mr. and the Bishop can take advantage of the 
 
 scrupulous forbearance they meet with, I cannot 
 think.' 
 
 And another interest was Wantage. The sister of 
 Mrs. Butler, Miss Barnett, was one of Miss Yonge's 
 later correspondents, aiid Miss Yonge was an 
 Exterior Sister of Wantage from ISHS. She speaks 
 of the Dean as })oing almost one willi the 'Mighty 
 Three,' and that Wantage was 'almost a Theological 
 College, HO many men were trained there.' 
 
 Wantage stands for so much to us of the English 
 Church, and the Community of S. Mary's, Wantage, 
 seems to have be(m one of th(; most richly l)l('ss(!d of 
 those Communities which have given back to us the 
 idea of tlie K'cligious Life for \\'om(?n. Wantage is 
 linked also with the Community of S. John the 
 Evangelist at Cowley; and ulum it is rememb(M-ed 
 how greatly she car(Ml \'i>]- mis.sifnis, it is ind(M»d 
 thankwoi'thy to realize that Miss Vonge had this 
 connection with Wantage.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN — RELIGIOUS BOOKS — LATER 
 
 YEARS 
 
 (1873—1901) 
 
 Miss Yonge began in the seventies to write the 
 series of histories for children known as Aunt 
 Charlottes Stories. There are volumes on Scripture, 
 English, French, German, Roman, and Greek history. 
 
 There are such numberless books of elementary 
 history nowadays that it is probable these are 
 out-of-date. Yet they are exceedingly good in 
 plan, and the ones on English history and Scripture 
 history do really lay foundations for more advanced 
 books. The one on German history is perhaps the 
 least successful. Miss Yonge also wrote the charm- 
 ing Evenings at Home, on the plan of the old 
 favourite of bygone years. 
 
 Her industry was extraordinary. Mr. A. J. Butler 
 speaks somewhere of the incredible diligence of the 
 Middle Ages, but Miss Yonge's powers of work seem 
 to us as wonderful as any medieval scholar's. She 
 had a knack of writing three books at a time, a 
 page of one and then a page of another, and then 
 a third, while the first two dried, which is awe- 
 inspiring even to read about ; and her interest in all 
 her work was unbounded and ever fresh. 
 
 160
 
 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN 101 
 
 111 the seventies Miss Yonge wrote several short 
 stories— Ps atul Q's, for instance, Avhioh is a deliglit- 
 ful account of a younger sister who decides she is 
 ' put upon ' by her excellent elder sisters. There is 
 in this book one of the pleasantest of Miss Yonge's 
 schoolboys. She also tried her hand on a bit of 
 nielodrania — La(7// Hester — which is very readable, 
 but highly improbable; and strange as it is that such 
 a word should l)e aiijdicable to anything Miss Yonge 
 wrote, it is somewhat disagreeable — not, however, 
 from any love-story. My Young Alcides is, on the 
 other hand, to our thinking, as improbable as Lady 
 Hesto; Ijut as charming as Lcuhj Hester is unj^leasant. 
 
 She also edited lianslations from French memoirs. 
 
 Now we must speak of more directly religious 
 work. Five little ]>ooks of questions on the Collects, 
 Epistles, Gospels, Psalms, and Prayer Jiook, were 
 wiitten by bcr for her own Otterbourne childi-en, 
 and, where llie Catechism has lujt i"e|)la('e(l (be 
 Sunday-schocjl, these books might be, and perliai)s 
 are, still usefnl to ])e(j|)l(! who wish to follow the 
 Church's guidance and leach their cliildi-en the 
 lessons of (j(dle<t and (iospol, of tlu; I*ray<M- Hook 
 and Psalter. Tlieie are no answers, and they are 
 meant to aid the teacher in (piestioning a class of 
 orderly children who have i-ead their Gospel or 
 Epistle, <)]• learned theii" Collect, and who have 
 Hi})Ies in their hands to which t(^ refer. And, by 
 the w/iy, would it not be possible^ foi* ns. who so 
 passionately ci-}' out for leligious teaching, t<j 
 organize classes alike in count ry and town on some 
 weekdays, and once again gel into indi\idual tou<di 
 
 11
 
 162 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 with Church children? With the Catechism on 
 Sunday and some individual teaching in the week, 
 a great deal may be done, and it is a great pity not 
 to read the Bible ^vith children and young people. 
 The old-fashioned Bible-class has been dropped far 
 too much by some who are very zealous for distinc- 
 tive Church teaching, and it is sad that so many 
 children are allowed to drop out of the Catechism 
 or the Sunday-school, and are not carried on to 
 really good definite Bible and Church history in- 
 struction in classes which are classes, not merely 
 instructions, sometimes very feeble instructions, by 
 a clergyman. Miss Yonge in her own day laid her 
 children's foundations deep and strong. 
 
 As one turns over the Questions on the Gospels, one 
 sees how thoroughly taught the children would be 
 who had read the Gospel and had been questioned 
 on it in the way she laid down. These little books 
 would be quite useful to mothers who teach their 
 own children. 
 
 Scripture Readings for Schools and Families, with 
 Comments, began to appear in 1871. 
 
 They are selections from the Bible itself, and are 
 intended to serve as readings for children from 
 seven to fourteen years of age. 
 
 ' Actual need,' she writes, ' has led me ... to 
 endeavour to prepare a reading-book, convenient 
 for study with children, containing the very 
 words of the Bible, with only a few expedient 
 omissions, and arranged in Lessons of such length 
 as by experience I have found to suit with 
 children's powers of accurate attentive in- 
 terest. . . .'
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS laS 
 
 The Soripturo portion, with a very few notes 
 exphmatory of mere words, is bound up apart, to be 
 used by children ; Avhile the same is also supplied with 
 a brief comment, the purpose of which is either to 
 assist the teacher in explaining the lesson, or to be 
 used by more advanced young people. 
 
 The RrmJiuffs are (piite unique; there is as yet no 
 other book* at all on the same plan, and the know- 
 ledge and reverence shown in the comments are 
 exactly what would be expected from the writer. 
 
 But it is to be feared five thick volumes are alarm- 
 ing to the ordinary parent, and yet anyone who 
 beiran on the Old Testament side by side with 
 Gospt'l Timcft, which leads on to Aposfolic Times, 
 would find it not at all iini)<)ssil)le to work through 
 Old and New Testament alike in three or four years* 
 steady reading. 
 
 The sj)afc bctwcoi the Old .'md New TestanuMits 
 was not left uiibii<lg('d liy Miss Yonge, and her 
 readers are guided through the finer i)ortions of the 
 Deutero-Canonical books, and are not left in ignor- 
 ance of Judas Maccabeus and of tlic licioic mothei- 
 of the seven sons. 
 
 Of course, the cliicl' (Ict'ect of these volinnes is that 
 all modern crit ieism is al)solut(dy ignored ; but for all 
 that th(\v contain a wonderfid amount of informa- 
 tion, and the plan (»f th<i books is excellent -so 
 excellent that Professor Ilnxley praised it as an 
 e\/iTn{)l(^ of how tin; Bible should be read in schools, 
 perhaps the conmients on the (Jospel stoiyaic a 
 little longand a lit tie (lull, l»iit we Hr« sure t hat 1 hey 
 
 * .Since thi« w.is writUMi tin- |ircHciif writer lias |inhlislicii a 
 vohimfi of Hilile KeadiiiffH with rommeDt'* ' (Mowlir(iv«). 
 
 ii-2
 
 161 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 would help many a mother or govei'ness who wishes 
 to read the life of Christ with her pupils. The Old 
 Testament comments are often spirited and illu- 
 minating, if we remember the standpoint from which 
 they are written. 
 
 There is always in her comments a deep sense of 
 the moral truth underlying all the history, and of 
 the real value, purpose, and meaning of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 A later book was pviblished in 1888, Conversations 
 o7i the Prayer Book ; it came out first in the Monthly 
 Packet, and is a perfect mine of information. The 
 book is in the form of conversations, and conversa- 
 tions seem to be a little out of favour nowadays. 
 
 Nevertheless, Miss Yonge's book might be read 
 with much advantage by people just before or after 
 their Confirmation. For quotation, the conversation 
 on the subject of Confession which occurs in the 
 chaptei" on ' The Visitation of the Sick ' is an excel- 
 lent example of Miss Yonge's teaching. 
 
 Earlier than this is the volume of Bec/innings of 
 Church History, and it is most useful as a summaiy 
 of the Acts. But no one could, we think, read it 
 through consecutively. It is very long. The best 
 way of using it is to have it as a reference, and 
 read chapters from it from time to time in illus- 
 tration of history. The chapters on Charles the 
 Great, for instance, would be excellent to read on 
 Sunday, when the weekday history lessons had 
 touched on that monarch, and so on. 
 
 Mothers who try to teach schoolboys a little 
 European history in the holidays will find in it, as 
 in all Miss Yonge's books, an extraordinary amount 
 of information, and a sense of God's purpose work-
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 1G5 
 
 ing in the Church of God ; of the real, deep, under- 
 lying unity of the Church; of the truth that the 
 history of the Church in the most modern days is a 
 continuation of the story which was begun on the 
 Da}' of Pentecost, and will end when ' He conies to 
 judge the quick and the dead.' 
 
 Musififj.s on the ' Christian Year,' bound u]) with 
 (rleaniiujs of RcvoUcvtions of the Rev. John Kcbic, 
 appeared in 1871. We have ci I ready spoken of and 
 quoted from the lievollections of Keble. They and 
 the Mufsincjs came out in the Packet. The Musintjs, 
 ov Meditations, on the ' Christian I'efrr'are beautiful. 
 When we remom])er that the ^vriter sat so long at 
 Keble's feet and drank in all that lu> could teach her, 
 we feel no one coidd he a more litting interpreter. 
 .VlasI so few of iis (iiid time on Sundays to read 
 even our (Christian lear, iniicli less to glance at the 
 (•(niimcnl. I>ut surely every now and then Ihe 
 Miisin;/s might accompauN' our reading, for lliey 
 bring us into 1 lie at niospliciu- ol t lie ( '/iristnin ) car, 
 BO calm ;ind luacing aud suWering. 
 
 l*'or a specimen \\<' will gi\e pail ot' the comment 
 on the beaiitit'ul poem lor lOaster l"]\fiii the ( 'hris- 
 han }'('<ir. Miss ^'«»iige writes: 
 
 'In a vers«! of ext laonliiia ly lieauty we aic I iius 
 exhorted : 
 
 ' " \\'lioii tcarn firo spent, and IlifMi art left ainiio 
 
 ^\'itll j^lio'-t'* of lilcs-inj^H i^niu', 
 Think I lion arL tikcii from llic croRs, nnd Iai<l 
 
 III .fesiis' liiirial sliailc ; 
 'I'ake Mohch' mil, tlir roil of prriNor, ami call 
 
 ( >nt of llir rorky wall 
 Till* fount of lioly lilooil ; ami lill on lii^li 
 i'liy gro\vllin({ t^uul tliul feels so desululc uiid dry."
 
 166 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' For thou art in this rocky wilderness of a 
 world a prisoner of hope, who should turn and 
 look to the stronghold of Zioii above, singing in 
 hope of the promise of the future. Joseph, his 
 father's darling, lay imprisoned in the pit, not 
 knowing how he should be saved, but sure that 
 God would save him ; and so " a man should both 
 hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the 
 Lord." For this is what it is to be " buried with 
 Christ in baptism by His death," to be dead with 
 Him to the world, and our life hidden with Him.' 
 
 In 1877 appeared Womankind, with which many 
 of us had made acquaintance in the Monthly 
 Packet. This is a volume of essays on the life of 
 women who belong to the leisured classes, and 
 abounds in practical good sense and deep religious 
 feeling. A good deal of it is quaint and decidedly 
 old-fashioned. The chapter, perhaps, which most 
 excited ungodly mirth in one's mind is the one on 
 dress ; yet how full of good sense the book is ! 
 Perhaps we who were just growing up in the 
 seventies, and were adorers of Miss Yonge, found 
 it easier to take these admonitions as they were 
 showered upon us each month than if we had had 
 them given to us in a book of decidedly dull 
 appearance, and certainly some of us thankfully 
 acknowledge that we were and are the better for 
 U'o7nankind. 
 
 How good much of it is now ! The protest against 
 mothers who contrive that all their grown-up 
 daughters' time should be frittered away in writing 
 invitations and arranging flowers ; the words on
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 1G7 
 
 culture, oil how to see sights, and, to pass to a 
 perfectly different subject, on 'spiritual direction' 
 — how excellent they all are! To this day one is 
 thankful to have read in one's youth : 
 
 ' Of all hateful kinds of gossip, one of the most 
 shocking is that aljout the different ways of con- 
 fessors. It is not only irreverent, but a dishonour- 
 able breach of sacred confidence. The priest is 
 bound to absolute secrecy with regard to his 
 penitent ; the penitent is just as much so with 
 regard to any peculiarities of his. Besides, where 
 can the real penitence be, if there is levity enough 
 to make such observations ? 
 
 ' Again, we know how the poor plead that they 
 do not see that such and such a person is the 
 bettei' for going to church or being a coinmuni- 
 cant, and bring up all his faults .Mgainst liiiii. 
 
 'It is th(^ same with those who are known to l)0 
 in the haljit of using Confession. The world has 
 laid hoM (»f a (rutli here. They ought to lie better 
 tli.-m other people, or else the_>' lu'iiig scandal on 
 their |)rofession. 
 
 ' iielations arc; (puck to note the orrois ol' oiui 
 another, especially' il tiieii notions are not the 
 sain(s and outbreaks of tenipei', s('lllshn<'ss, e\il- 
 Hpeaking, or worldliness, will ho cited as pioofs oi' 
 the incoiupetency of the system that has not 
 cur(!d thi'ia. 
 
 'Now, ill-tenipei is sometimes a liodily oi- 
 iieiNous affection . . . but I he ot her tault s a re a II 
 wilful oues, and t lieii' coul inuanc(> unrepresscMJ can 
 only spring either from dishonestconfessionH, from
 
 168 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 want of earnestness in following out the remedies, 
 or from that teirible levity, before mentioned, 
 which presumes on pardon — to go on in sin. There- 
 fore the person who is not striving to imjirove 
 under this system is in the double danger which 
 is enhanced by all misused helps. . . . 
 
 'Nor does spiritual guidance at all mean putting 
 oneself into the hands of one who will exact blind 
 obedience — exercise priestcraft, as it is called. 
 Such influence as we were reminded of in Dojnine 
 Freylinyhausen* exists wherever there are weak 
 women and ministers Avho try to rule them. The 
 Pharisees devoured w^idows' houses. And thei-e 
 were those in S. Paul's time who led captive silly 
 w^onien. Moliere has shown oif a Tartuffe, and 
 Dickens a Gradgrind. But these men (Tartuffe, 
 Gradgrind) prevailed by flattery and outward 
 show, not by the stern and strictly guarded rela- 
 tions of priest and penitent. The leading is not 
 an attempt to direct in the common ways of life, 
 but an assistance in dealing with sins, and in rising 
 to higher and deeper devotion. To those Avho feel 
 the exceeding danger of drifting into bad habits 
 and worldly customs, and heaping sin upon sin 
 for want of warning, it is an inestimable boon, 
 supplying the lack of those voices of home whose 
 praise or blame were our "waymarks sure" in 
 our childhood. 
 
 ' If we look at biography, we shall find religious 
 melancholy far more common among those who 
 
 * A really charming story of llie Dutch settlers in America, by 
 Miss >\'ilford. It came out in tiie Fuckd in the early seventies. 
 Tartuffe was surely a layman.
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 169 
 
 tiy to do everything for themselves, trusting 
 merely to their own sensations, than to those who 
 have kept to the way traced by our Lord for His 
 Church, in which is found the constant joy of 
 pardon and peace.' 
 
 Of course, much of Womanhind is quite out of 
 date. Women can go about alone in London, and 
 may oven smoke cigarettes, witliont ceasing to be 
 well-bred and good pcoi)le And Miss Yonge's views 
 on medical education for women are absolutely 
 wrong, as she would l)e the first to acknowledge now. 
 
 Tliere are some words on underdoing and undoing, 
 which we (niote, as much to the point now as when 
 they were first written. 
 
 ' Talk is one of the great enemies of living a wise 
 and usetid lil'c. Il is (>ven more a snare to the 
 grown-up woman tli.iii to liic child. . . . 
 
 *To many anoiuch, especially those wlio li.ive 
 belongCMl to l.irge I'amilies, one coul iim.il sti-e;iiu 
 of passing chat (er seems n necessary ol" lil'e. Tliey 
 are uidiai)j)y when alone, and cannot sit at Inane, 
 for want of" someone to sjx'ak to.' 
 
 MIhs ViMige sjiows us, lio\\e\ci-, the other siiK-: 
 
 'Conversation is f'tnphat ically an art to bc^ 
 Htudied for home consumption ... it is a »hity 
 ... to Hhare in conversation and tallc with full 
 spirit ami interest.' 
 
 Ami wemii^t (|uot e allot hei- word in llie chapter 
 on llc'ilth : 
 
 * 'i'o t he in \ a liil, \\ lio^e sil f is so pa iniull \ present 
 in pain, weakness, or las.sitinle. ^hall I \eMhire to
 
 170 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 say anything that has not been nmch better said 
 in the books I mentioned ? 
 
 ' Yes, one word I will try to say. Perhaps you 
 are grieved at feeling yourself so unlike the gra- 
 cious invalids you read of, so loved by all. You 
 feel it very hard and neglectful if you are left 
 alone, yet you do not know how to bear with the 
 others when they come, and you are glad when 
 you can manage to be only dull, not snappish. 
 People petted you, and thought nothing too much 
 for you when you were very ill ; now that illness 
 is permanent they are getting tired of you, when 
 you really want them. 
 
 ' There is nothing for it but to dwell more and 
 more on Him who is shutting you into your 
 chamber to commune with Him. Dwell on His 
 love and His sufferings for you, and you will 
 find it easier to give the love and sympathy that 
 will draw others to you, and do your best to be 
 of some use to someone. . . . You can do easy 
 matters the busy have no time for ; you can be 
 their memory, send kind messages . . . write 
 letters that sometimes are much valvied. It is the 
 old story so often enforced in parable and allegory : 
 our cross grows lighter so soon as we set our hand 
 to aid in bearing that of another.' 
 
 Womankind concludes with a beautiful chapter 
 on ' Going in.' She writes : 
 
 'I meant when I chose this title . . . that 
 riding on the crest of the wave, and then begin- 
 ning to fall below it, which must befall many 
 of us.'
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 171 
 
 We are sure iniuh of Avhat she says in this is 
 wrung out of her own experience. She speaks of 
 the trial which conies to most who have been suc- 
 cessful and who find others going beyond them. 
 
 'We enjoy progress,' she writes, 'as long as we 
 go along with it, l)ut there often comes a time 
 when the progress gets beyond us. And then ! 
 Are we to be drags, or stumbling-blocks, or to 
 throw ourselves out of the cause altogether ? . . . 
 
 'What shall we say? Kach generation must 
 think for itself, and each will l)cst love all that 
 was the achievement of its prime. The power of 
 symi)athy with what lies behind us, and what 
 fidvances beyond us, is very different in dilTerent 
 persons. 
 
 'Scmic ^^'oiiiig jxHiplf^ treat all (hat their elders 
 thought or (lid as old-world rul)l)ish, barely tole- 
 rate their mothers, and oj)enly contemn (heir 
 aunts. These ^^ill advjincc^ the shortest (list.iuco 
 of all, and be the very first to ])e stranded and left 
 behind breathless, grund)ling and sc«)lding at the 
 wave uhicli passes beyond (hem, for (heii' powers 
 and synij)a(liies are the shallowest and weakest. 
 
 ' Others hav<! a (l(;ep love of the past, and strike 
 their roots far down; tin-}- liononr .unl t'eel \\i(h 
 those who have, built the steps on wliiili t li(\y 
 s(and, and, striking a .jns( balance, bt^tween old 
 en"or(s and new cult are, lil'(!"s experiences and 
 hope's int nit ions, lei (lieinselves he guided on so 
 1,1 r t lint tlirir own spring foiw ;ii-(l . . . ;inil their 
 power (»f going along wi(h tlit! coming generation 
 arc nui<h greater. . . .
 
 172 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' A welding together of the new and the old is 
 the thing needful. Not that the young should treat 
 everything old as worn out and ridiculous. It has 
 been the strength and glory of Enghiiid that she 
 has been built on hei" old foundations instead of 
 sweeping them away; but when we pass the bounds 
 of our own youth, we have to bear in mind that 
 it is narro^v intolerance on the part of the elder 
 generation which provokes the younger into a 
 general overthrow as soon as they have the power. 
 
 ' The review in the Liteiaii/ Churchman of the 
 Idylls of the King drew forth a beautiful moral — 
 namely, that Arthur had made the Round Table 
 his ideal of the perfection of mankind and knight- 
 hood, and for that very reason arose the quest of 
 the San Greal, leading above and beyond, and 
 breaking up the Round Table to the grief and 
 sorrow of Arthur. And it is this which befalls 
 every generation unless they live in an age of 
 decadence. A quest will rise out of their Round 
 Table. Their juniors will not rest with their idea 
 of perfection, but will sti'ain on to something 
 beyond and more their own. It will often seem 
 to spoil and break up the older scheme. That 
 which was the vision of youth, and of which 
 fruition has barely come, is viewed with patron- 
 izing pity as a mere first essay, and the lesson of 
 good - humour we learnt when our towers of 
 wooden bricks were overthrown, that the young- 
 lings might use their materials, was so long ago 
 that it is haid to recall it . . . but the very same 
 qualities have to be called into pljiy — unselfishness 
 and candour. If we can only eliminate ficlf and
 
 
 -^ 
 
 w 
 
 h 
 < 
 
 5 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 u 
 o 
 y. 
 
 o
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 173 
 
 got rid of ]>orsonal fooling, wo sliall be able to 
 judge much more fairly whether our knights have 
 gone off after a San Greal or a phantom, a Una 
 or a Duessa. . . . 
 
 'It is widowhood that sometimes brings the 
 changes — sometimes simply the being outrun and 
 surpassed in progress as our breath grows shorter 
 and our enterprise less ardent. 
 
 ' Well, what is our part ? Surely to try to be 
 helpers to the best of our abilities. There will be 
 some who lag behind, and who will bo glad of a 
 helping hand, and to whom our old-fashioned aid 
 may be valuabh;. And if wo endeavour to be kind 
 and friendly, understanding the purport of the 
 novelties, and granting the good in them, we shall 
 get our counsel listened to, and may bring about 
 that happiest union of " fervent old age and youth 
 serene" which is symboli/(Hl by our groy old 
 Gothic buildings manlh'd by tlioir gi-oon crtH^poi-s. 
 
 'Yes, but \vh(!n we are elderly, and not old, we 
 don't seem to attain these venerabh* giaics. In- 
 deed, wo often do not feel ourselves agoing. . . . 
 It is . . . possible ... to fall into ways that have 
 very little to he said I'oi- tliciii. A resolute dctor- 
 iiiiiiatioii still to ;ilfoct youth, cxt cni.i lly ; or. 
 .•igaiii, dilig(Mit cultivation of soin(! foiiii oi" l».i(l 
 healtli, or anything tliat puts us out ol" real s^'m- 
 patby wit li t In- \<)ungcj- geiKM'ation, anil fixes our 
 attention on oui'selves, oui' grievances, our com- 
 forts, is a form ot" this dangerous elderliness 
 dangerous l»cc;iusc it is letting the heart go to 
 sleep. . . . Tlie w.iy to go llirouuli this elderly 
 period is to recollect Ih.il w li;ite\ cidiops IVoui us
 
 174 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 here should be so much taken away from between 
 us and our view of heaven. If we are becoming 
 less necessary here, it is surely that the links and 
 bonds of our earthly life may fall a^vay, and our 
 gaze upwards be clearer and steadier. 
 
 'To see the truth and take it cheerfully is 
 wisdom ; and if we find ourselves shelved before 
 our time, it is well to recollect that, after all, we 
 were but God's instruments, and that He knows 
 best whether we are blunted or not. 
 
 ' Nay, our neighbours may know what we do 
 not. 
 
 ' The Archbishop of Cordova thought that his 
 best sermon which Gil Bias was forced to declare 
 " sentait un peu I'apoplexie," and it may be best to 
 take a hint in all humility. 
 
 ' " A calm undressing, waiting silently," is the 
 best thing that can befall us as well as the trees. 
 And though it is pleasanter to give things up 
 than to have them taken away, let us remember 
 that we are never so safe as when our will lies 
 undiscerned by all but God.' 
 
 Somehow, as we read these words, so full of deep 
 humility, the conviction forces itself upon us that, if 
 only good people would reflect on this problem of 
 ' going in,' there would be less of that unedifying 
 dislike of their ' successors ' — of people who have 
 taken the place we either filled ourselves or saw 
 once filled by one we loved. 
 
 And the chapter on Old Age is very beautiful. 
 The description of those old people who
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 175 
 
 'seem to live already in a soft halo of heavenly 
 light, ready to interest themselves kindly in M'hat 
 concerns us, but their minds and thoughts chiefly 
 occupied with the home that they are nearing — 
 the Land of the Leal.' 
 
 There is a warning that it is possible in old age 
 to fall into a state where, 
 
 ' as the force of mind and body lessen, the old ten- 
 dencies kept in check by custom or regard to 
 opinion get the mastery, such as querulousness or 
 peevishness, hasty exertions of authority from a 
 piteous doul)t whether it can still be exercised, 
 apparent avarice froin the want of pt)wer to judge 
 expenditure, terriljle distrust of others and their 
 motives, constant self-assertion, alienating all, and 
 then resenting tluur standing aloof, (^h, mournful 
 condilion I And yoi, may it not await any of ns? 
 " Fursak(! mc not, (J (iod, in minc^ 'igt', when I am 
 old and grey-headed." Those, as far as we can see, 
 whom God does preserve from this state are those 
 who have guarded themselves carefully through 
 life from giving way to jx'tulant emotion, and 
 have triful to Iiv(^ in th(^ love and W^ixr of (Jod, not 
 only doing obvious outward duty, but making 
 communion with God rest and joy. Those who 
 thus live may hope to realize that 
 
 ' " Nor hIi.iII (lull njfo, tv* worltllijiffs say, 
 Tln' Jn'.'ivcmv.irfl (lame .'uiimy ; 
 III** S.ivioiir c.imiot jklss .nvay, 
 And willi Him liveH our joy."' 
 
 Surely it is well to pi-ny I'or suili .iii old agti, if age 
 is to be our jioit ion.
 
 176 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 Doai- Miss Yonge, no doubt prayed for that old 
 age, Avhich was granted to her in full abundance. It 
 seems to us that in MovinnJxind she revealed more 
 of her OAvai inner self, of the love and devotion to our 
 Lord which were the mainspring of her life, than in 
 any other book. 
 
 The book shows her as she was, with all her power 
 and also all her limitation. She was intensely re- 
 served, and it was not often in her books that she 
 spoke very openly of the deep things of God and of 
 the soul. The Pillars of the House, perhaps, tells 
 us more of her deep convictions than any other 
 story. But in Woinanhind she now and then 
 allows herself to speak quite freely and from the 
 heart. 
 
 It is curious, also, to notice another point in Miss 
 Yonge's books. She wrote mainly for women. Her 
 earlier books undoubtedly had a certain amount of 
 popularity among men ; but so far as she had any 
 sense of a mission, we are sure she only thought of 
 her own sex. This is much more pronounced in her 
 later books, however. She understands the ordinary 
 English schoolboy, good or naughty. 
 
 She speaks of some schoolboy writing to her 
 about the utter muffs ladies (Miss Yonge never 
 speaks of 7)ien and women) made of schoolboys, and 
 instanced Norman May (which shows the school- 
 boy was limited). Miss Yonge goes on to say: 'I 
 always thought Earrar's boys, who always died as 
 soon as they began to be good, very immoral.' 
 
 And she can put on her canvas all kinds and sorts 
 of English gentlemen and respectable English work- 
 ing men. The modern villain of any class is beyond
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 177 
 
 her. Her scoundrels in the historical tales are the 
 most convincing of her wicked men, possibly because 
 we know so much less about the period. 
 
 Miss Yonge is intensely simple, direct, and per- 
 haps somewhat wanting in artistic faculty. She 
 is singularly inferior in this respect to Mrs. Gaskell, 
 whose stories are on quite as limited a canvas, but 
 who produces effects as different from any of Miss 
 Yonge's as are the sketches of a real artist from the 
 photographs of the best camera. That is where 
 Miss Yonge falls short of real greatness. She photo- 
 graphs with extraordinary fidelity, and her people 
 are real people; but she has no idea of construction 
 or of plot, nor does she ever face great questions or 
 problems, but, as Mrs. Dyson said in 1857 : 
 
 ' Charlotte sent us the Saturdnij Review of her . . . 
 It is clever enough, and tlic praise just, we think. 
 But the reviewer would never enter into hoi- jjrin- 
 ciples, and cvideiifly wants bcr to iin(|citak(> \ho, 
 great social (jueslions, as Mrs. (jiaskcU and suciiliktj 
 writers. Wliy she may not take her own line, 
 instead of imitating I hem <>r trying t(» c()nq)eto 
 with Shakespeare, onr caniHit (•(tinprclHiid ' 
 
 What gives her work value is, lirst of all, that her 
 <liaracters in t ho best of her books are all alive and 
 inqtrcss tluMUselves ujion us ; w<' cannot foigct thcin, 
 and, what is more, we do not wish to forget thcni: 
 they bocomc r«'al friends, whose tastes, opinions, 
 exam|)les, liav*; directed our own. 
 
 Then, there is in the books a jiassion for goodness 
 — that is, the gor>dness whi<-h implies higli-niinded- 
 ncHH, absolute honesty, unselfishness, and an in- 
 
 lli
 
 178 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 capacity for evil. She cares so much more for good- 
 ness than for anything else. And she has, as Mr. 
 Henry Sidgwick pointed out in the words already 
 quoted, an extraordinary gift for investing the 
 dullest situations, the most commonplace occupa- 
 tions, not merely with interest, or with gentle satire, 
 but with romance. Miss Yonge is one of the most 
 romantic of writers. She does feel what Mr. Chester- 
 ton has so well expressed, that 'romance lies not 
 upon the outside of life, but absolutely in the centre 
 of it ; she sees all the glory and beauty that lie behind 
 the dull routine of life, and that, after all, is romance.' 
 And this faculty is lacking in many people who sneer 
 at the supposed goody-goodiness of Miss Yonge's 
 books. Goody-goodiness is just the defect they have 
 not. Some of them may be dull, or limited, or 
 wanting in plot, but goody-goody they are not. 
 
 We should like here to quote a letter to Miss 
 Ireland Blackburne : 
 
 'Here are two proofs of your conversation, which, 
 by-the-by, must be headed "A Conversation on 
 Books." It will not go in this time, so you will 
 have plenty of ojjport unity to do what you please 
 with it. A conversation on Archbishop Trench's 
 book must precede it, to give the old man a chance 
 of hearing it, as it is by a young relation of his own 
 — young, I mean, compared with him. If I have 
 this by the 1st of March, it will be all right. 
 
 'I once had the pleasure of meeting Lord 
 Houghton at Mr. Gibbs', and I remember talking 
 over with him some curious papers of Hawthorne's 
 that nobody else seemed to appreciate.
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 179 
 
 ' I am afraid that Life of George Eliot will do a 
 great deal of mischief. It has always seemed to me 
 a fearful thing that, for the sake of her genius and 
 power, her deliauce of all moral and religious prin- 
 ciple in her own life should be sunk and forgotten 
 as if it had been a sort of heroism. The underlying 
 feeling in till her books seems to be fatalism, and 
 the farther she drifted away from the training of 
 her youth, the more they failed even as works of 
 art. What a contrast between Adam Bedc and 
 Daniel Deronda ! I imagine, as the Saturday says, 
 that the real fact was that the essentially feminine 
 character (not genius) was rciilly mastered l)y 
 Lewes, and that a good man could have matlc her 
 do grandly good work -so that the whole seems 
 to me a lesson against delivering up our conscience 
 to any leader. It seems to me that what she had 
 was a marvellous power of drawing memorable 
 portraits, but that she gradually useil up lu'i- slock. 
 Besides this, Maggie Tulli\ cr is a special plciailing 
 for herself — and in that way very touching like 
 that little poem about brother and sister; but her 
 ideals, like Daniel Dci-onda liimself, are utter 
 failures. Jiomoln fails—the book, 1 mean— becaustj 
 she had no religious power left whercwitli to 
 appreciate Sa\onai'ola, and so mat-lc him ijolitical. 
 Of couiHe Tito is one of her terrible succesHOS.' 
 
 And MisH Yonge's roman<e is tlie romance of duty, 
 of obodicn**', of Inyjilty. ' D«?r (icborsam ist die 
 erste I'llichl,' she would have said witii tlu^ (irand 
 Master in Scliiller's IxiUad, and w«< wonder nmch if 
 she ever read Browning, .ni'l \n hat ^lie would liav«^
 
 180 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 made of Pompilia, of the Duchess whose llight 
 Browning so commends, of many another who broke 
 the bounds of conventionahty and of stereotyped 
 duty. No doubt she would have recognized that 
 here again were new fulfilHngs of the way of God. 
 
 She read enoi'mously, and it is dehghtful to see 
 how whole-hearted a lover of Scott she was. 
 
 Besides Scott and Shakespeare, iind, of course, the 
 Christian Year and Lyra Innocentium, she evidently 
 loved / Promessi Sposi, and, like so many of the 
 j)eople of the Oxford Movement, the romances of 
 De la Motte Fouque. Spenser she knew, and Pope, 
 and great writers of the eighteenth century. Her 
 much-loved Louis Fitzjocelyn reads to his lady-love 
 from the sonnets of Lope de Vega, and we are sui-e 
 Miss Yonge loved them. As was to be expected, 
 seveial eminent writers were disliked by her. 
 
 Miss Yonge knew her Homer and her Virgil, and 
 the tragedians of Greece. 
 
 The criticism in this letter, written in 1887, is not 
 unjust : 
 
 ' I have been reading an article in the National 
 Revieiv, showing how^ utterly Carlyle misquoted 
 Cromwell's speeches, and absolutely neglected 
 shoals of contemporary papers which would have 
 spoilt his conception of his idol. It is curious, but, 
 really, poor old Carlyle must have been a good 
 deal of a humbug for all his bluster.' 
 
 She read vast numbers of chronicles and memoirs. 
 One of her undated letters to Miss Barnett, probably 
 in the early sixties, says :
 
 ROOD SCREEN IN OTTERUOURNE CHURCH. 
 
 Erected to the memory of Charlolle Maiy Vongc. 
 
 From a photoi^rApb, tiy pcrmistiun o( Mr. Nonworlhy. 
 
 To /net /■fft I fvi.
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 181 
 
 ' I hope you have Eugenie de Guerin. You are 
 one of the people to Hke her especially and ex- 
 tremely, with her sweet religious, pastoral spirit 
 and . . . devotion to her hrother. I am exceedingly 
 in love with her myself.' 
 
 She was extremely fond of reading aloud, and she 
 loved biographies. 
 
 Miss Youge had naturally very little knowledge 
 of the stress and strain of modern problems. She 
 was interested in Arthur Hamilton, an imaginary 
 biography which was Avritten by an eminent man of 
 letters in the early days of his distinguished career. 
 She writes of him as of a real person, and says to 
 the Dean of Lincoln : ' A. must have known him at 
 Trinity. He must have just missed Dr. Mobeily at 
 Winchester.' She goes on : 
 
 'What I think wants to be understood now 
 especially is how far want of faith is to b(; treated 
 as Sin. The Bible and the Clnncli have always 
 done so (query). And now even the good seem 
 to think it is only to be dealt with as a mis- 
 fortune, and that one does the most awful hanii 
 by denouncing it.' 
 
 Miss Y(jnge was always hopeful. She writes to 
 Miss Barnett once : 
 
 'I do not think tlie mass of llic worltl is as 
 morally bad as it was tlicii |iu the .Middle .\g('s|. 
 Tht; grcMit saints and tlm gre/il sinners ni-e iniicli 
 alike in all times, I suppriso, nnd I .'ini .•il'r.iid (liere 
 are fe\N<'r ignoi'ant simple saints. I'.ul Illiinktim 
 g()odn«tss of mediu;val times is altogether a de-
 
 182 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 liision ; and though I do not like "progress cant," I 
 think the good should be owned, and not only the 
 evil.' 
 
 It is convenient here to notice a second group of 
 historical stories, which, although not attaining to 
 the merits of the first group, are interesting; one 
 or two, at least, have something of the old charm. 
 
 Stray Pearls we noticed before. Unknown to 
 Hisfory is a story of a supposed daughter of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, and Both well, and gives us an inter- 
 esting, quiet picture of both Mary and Elizabeth. 
 One episode, the Anthony Babington conspiracy, is 
 admirable. Miss Yonge makes us feel the fascina- 
 tion of Mary, and realize the wretched perplexities 
 and miseries of Shrewsbury, who was so long her 
 custodian. 
 
 The Reputed Changeling is, to our mind, quite 
 admirable. The Puritan Major Oakshott, whose 
 son Peregrine became possessed with the belief that 
 he was the changeling his nurses believed him to 
 be ; the gentle heroine, Anne Woodford, and her 
 fortunes at the Court of King James, are described 
 in Miss Yonge's most spirited manner, and there is 
 plenty of adventure. 
 
 Grisley Grisell is a story of the Wars of the Roses, 
 and is an ingeniovis bit of work, suggested to the 
 author by the story of Patient Griselda. It is quite 
 worth reading, but the charm of the earlier stories 
 has vanished, and the number of historical characters 
 is not a little confusing. 
 
 There are several other historical stories which 
 weie published by the National Society.
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 18:3 
 
 Miss Yonge never lost tlie love for courage, for 
 heroism, for 'the Happy Warrior.' There is a letter 
 of hers to Mr. Palgrave, w hich may be quoted here, 
 which shows her feeling for Scott. Mr. Palgrave had 
 been writing to ask her about an article on Scott by 
 Keble. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Palgrave, 
 
 'The shortest way will be to send you our 
 number, to which you are very Avelcome as long 
 as it can be of any use to you — though I should 
 like to have it again ultimately. 
 
 ' You will see that a good deal of the scope of 
 the article goes to the inlluence of Scott's works 
 in pr(?paring minds for the Church movement, 
 but the suppT-('ss(»d ])oetry breaking out is tlie 
 main idea. I mean ratlier the suppressed inclina- 
 tions finding vent in poetry. Do you know the 
 account of a visit to Abbotsford given in thc^ Life 
 of Mrs. Ilemans? She seems to hav(i liad the 
 power (»f" drawing out l)is gi-and nature in cdnver- 
 sati(jn. 1 suppose that, though iier verses are 
 weak, she had a ran; power ol" political discern- 
 ment ; at least , ahnosl ail t li(^ subjects <»l' lu-r porn is 
 are ho poetical in t licmsc'lvt^s that \\\i'. poems 
 provok(5 me as it' slu; iiad been waleiing them 
 down. Hut it was she wlio recorded Scot t's gran<l 
 sp«'ech about noble Mood shed in a hopeless cause,* 
 and fctrtbat the world owes her hmkIi gratitude. 
 I think t hei'e is a j)oeni in tlw /-///" / ii nocrntimn. 
 HHgg<!Mt III by t hat desiiipt ion of Scot I as a young 
 
 * 'Hio Hayiritf of .ScoU'm Ih ipHitiMl in Thr Ihnufi I'lmiii : ' .N'c\(>r li-t 
 iiif> h«-!ir th.it hrnv)> lilorxl Iion Ik*uii slitui in v.iiii. It h<'|1(1h a r<»:krill^ 
 voice down tluoii^fli nil time.'
 
 184 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 iliild dapping his hands and erying, " Bonnie ! 
 bonnie!" at every flash of lightning. There is 
 something very engaging in Crabbe's Life, but I 
 think most of his verses are more stories than 
 ])oems. S. Osj^th's is the one that seems to me 
 most poetical, and that is little more than a song. 
 Do yon not think that there are too many of Mrs. 
 Mozley's family living for her life to be really 
 sketched? I suspect it will be shadowed out in 
 her brother's, if he gets a tolerably worthy bio- 
 grapher (and hov/ can he ?). One thing struck me 
 much : how the line of argument in the Ajwlogia 
 resembled that in the Fairy Boiver — I mean, of 
 course, that part of the Apologia where Dr. 
 Newman vindicates his truth. Do you know her 
 last book, Family Adventures t She died while it 
 was in the press. People tell me it is very like the 
 Newmans in their youth. I only saw her once, 
 when I was quite a yovmg girl.' 
 
 We come now to the group of Miss Yonge's later 
 stories — Nutties Father, Chantry House, Two Sides 
 of a Shield, Beechcroft at Rockstone, That Stick, The 
 Long Vacation. 
 
 These need not detain us very long. In some of 
 them we meet old f rieds, Mays and Undeiwoods and 
 Mohuns, but the old charm has almost vanished, and 
 there is an absolute lack of atmosphere in the four 
 last named. Chaidry House to some extent breathes 
 the old aroma, and has a delightful ghost story. 
 
 ' I can't help being attracted by ghost discussions, 
 and there are some things that I very decidedly 
 believe.'
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 185 
 
 In botli Xufties Father and That Stick Miss Yonge 
 tries to draw villains, and fails, especially where she 
 wants to show us a really wicked man of the world 
 in the father of Nuttie. And Miss Yonge often fails 
 to see anything good in the modern girl. There is 
 an extraordinary- conDHoniiess about some of her 
 girls. Some years before she wrote a little tale in 
 the Blue Bell Series, a set of stories which seems to 
 have come to a ])remature end. In this, which is 
 called 'J'hc Diaturhiny Element, the girls are well 
 described, but they are terribly uninteresting in the 
 later stories. She felt herself that her modern 
 stories failed somewhat. She writes to Miss Black- 
 burn e : 
 
 'I d(m't care much for Nuttie mjself. I am 
 getting too old to write of the swing of modern 
 Hfe ; I don't see enough of it.' 
 
 Yet even in this book tliere are some vivid sketches, 
 especially of the l)right. bi-ave Sfott-h girl whom.'idc 
 so gallant a stand in po\ ci'ty. 
 
 In these later years tlu; asju'ct of politics was 
 oft (511 distressing to Miss Yonge. who was by natuie 
 and conviction a Conservative, .umI slic wiitrs \\\{\\ 
 dt'ligbtfid velH'inencc to Miss Jirlaiid Blnckbiiriif : 
 
 'Thank you lor your letter niid exposition of 
 Lord Hurt ington's views. I thiidv it is xcry liard 
 
 on Lords Salislmi-y and Fdtle-^leigli. \\ lio lia\'el ii 
 
 staneli, leligicHis ( 'iuiitliiMen all their lives, lo he 
 ac<used of ni/ikiuK' •' party ei-y of the ('hurch's 
 danger; ami it \sa^ imt they, hut the h'liiinl. \\hi» 
 pul)li-.he.| the -( hiiiif i>r tlic l(K) i-»»hl)ri's. It seems
 
 180 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 to me that, if Lord Hartiiigton and the " moderate 
 Liberals " did not love their party and their power 
 better than their Church, they would throw over 
 Chamberlain and his crew instead of tampering 
 with " the present " and Gladstone's shameful 
 talk of " dim and distant future " ; but they had 
 rather ruin the Church than not be in office or 
 lose their elections. . . . And then they say it is a 
 Tory cry ! Who put out the Radical programme ? 
 Were not the Tories to take it up ? They, at least, 
 have never tried to despoil the Church, whereas 
 Whiggery has murdered an Archbishop, expelled 
 our best clergy, and brought the dead Walpole 
 blight over the Church. I don't see how she can 
 be expected to love it. 
 
 ' Don't you think that Conservatism gets great 
 injustice done it in being supposed averse to all 
 improvements ? 
 
 ' One can't sweep a house when the enemy are 
 trying to destroy it. All one's powers are spent 
 in defence. 
 
 ' Can you explain to me the difference between 
 a Liberal and a Radical, or why Liberals always 
 make common cause with Radicals, and wish to 
 put it in their power to ruin the Church and expel 
 religious education ? They say, " Oh no, we don't 
 wish it." Then they help to do it all the same. 
 Can you expect the Church to trust them ? 
 
 ' I know, of course, that the Church must not be 
 political, but do not Liberals show themselves her 
 natural enemies ? What have they done to her in 
 France ? 
 
 ' You say that is a warning, but why are Church-
 
 ■ i|»ipi _ i^^**'l^yi»;^Ki m m ' w 
 
 |1i„tr, t,) W T. <.rp«i. 
 
 REREDOS, IN THE I.ADV CIIAI'KL, WINCHKSMR CATHEDRAI,. 
 Erected lo the incniory of Charlotte Mary Vonge. 
 
 To/a(f fiagt 186.
 
 RELIGIOUS BOOKS 187 
 
 peoplo to ^ive np their consciences and throw 
 away their loyahy for fear of being ])ersecuted? 
 
 I am utterly miserable about it all, for it seems to 
 me that the principle of Liberalism is to let the 
 multitude have its own way; and as there will 
 always be more folly and rapaciousness in the 
 world than wisdom and conscience, it seems to me 
 tliat the glory of England is gone. 
 
 'There! Please forgive me for writing bitterly, 
 but I do feel most cruoiiy the destruction of the 
 Church, and the attacks on all 1 have thought 
 good and great. 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 C M. YONGE.' 
 
 She writes again to Miss Blnckburno : 
 
 ' I could not get time to answer your last letter 
 imnicdiat(dy, as I have been very busy in various 
 u a_)s, and, as you may suppose, nuidi disap[)ointiHl 
 in the elections, in proportion in» doubt to yoin* 
 Hatisfactioii. Hut I see no safety now, humanly 
 Hpeaking, lor tin- ( 'linivh, or anything else that is 
 Worth pi'('scr\ iiig, unless the moderate LilxM-als 
 will nial<(! u stand, wliidi I see no signs of tiieir 
 intending. 
 
 'You Huy Mr. disa])pi'oves ol' the State 
 
 assisting in itji^ions e(ln<atiori. We havo come 
 to n pass in \s iiich no one (expects it t <» do so ; all wo 
 ask is that it shoidd nnt try to st ille religions 
 educat ion, and I think no one can deny tiiattiie 
 (/ouncil (»f I'lducation do ho as nmch as they dare, 
 
 II nd t h.il 1 he st rong and a\(>\\ ed desii'(? is to pre\ eiil 
 the clergy fi*om giving a < Iiuk h (dm a 1 ion e\ en 1o
 
 188 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 their own children in the religious hour, and that 
 if free education conies in, it will be at the cost of 
 religious education. 
 
 ' As to the colonies, I think representation of 
 them here would be a very good thing. I suppose 
 the long distances were the original hindrance. 
 
 'I believe Conservatives would be as glad as 
 anyone to facilitate (but not compel) transfer of 
 land. I can't understand how honest men could 
 be content to owe their election to the deceits put 
 about. I don't know if the stories were true about 
 taking a halter to the poll to bring home a cow, 
 but I do know of a man who expected a slice of 
 the squire's grounds, of belief that the Conserva- 
 tives would put a penny on the loaf, of free 
 schools being taken to mean being free not to send 
 your children to school, and a list of Mr. Strachey's 
 promises in the paper to-day is a strange thing. 
 Nor will Gladstone denounce attempts on the 
 Church. It is only " not just yet." You say not 
 this century ! Poor comfort when there are only 
 fourteen years moi-e to come. Alas ! alas ! I feel 
 they have given up to destruction all that is 
 precious and holy. 
 
 ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 ' C. M. YONGE.' 
 
 Whatwould Miss Yonge have said to the Education 
 Bill of 1906? 
 
 She says in another letter to the same friend : 
 
 'Next time I have to set down "Likes and 
 Dislikes," I shall put a General Election as my 
 chief antipathy.'
 
 LATER YEARS 180 
 
 Miss Yonge in her later years took up a fresh bit of 
 Avork. She edited a little pixpcv, Mothers in Council, 
 the organ of the more educated mothers of the 
 Mothers' Union, and contributed to it many papers. 
 Changes came to her in these last fifteen years. 
 Mr. Julian Yonge sold Otterbourne House, and died 
 very soon after ; Miss Yonge's companioii and friend, 
 Miss Walter, died in 1897, and once more she was 
 able to receive her friends at Eldcriield. The Vicar 
 of Otterbourne, Mr. Henry Bowles, had married one 
 of her nieces, and this was a great ])leasure to her. 
 
 In a letter she writes to Miss Blackburne, who 
 was at Hyeres : 
 
 'I always fancied Hyeres the most of these 
 resorts, perhaps because my father was there to 
 take charge of a consumptive cousin in 181(5-17, 
 and he used to talk of the sheets of big blue 
 violets. He had })een at Waterloo, and was with 
 the army of occupafion, and tin's cousin came out 
 for the fashionable cure of living in a cow-house. 
 ... It must have answered in tin's case, for tlie 
 patient lived to dir an Admiral over seventy-, 
 though he had a cougli all his life.' 
 
 In 180;i a j>resentation was made to Miss Yonge 
 on lier He\ <'nt iri li biithday. If consisted <>t' ;im 
 aildress signed b\ .ill wlm caicd loi- her and lor bcr 
 books, and wlio would suljsci-ibc one shilling. The 
 sum subs(iil)ed amounted to X2()(), and out ol" this /i 
 lich-gate was given to Otterbourne (hnrchyard, 
 ;in(l .111 afternoon-tea table and set were bonglil \^y 
 her for herself. She writes to tjje Dean of Salisbury 
 after tile prosentntion of the liirt liil;iy adilress :
 
 190 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 ' It was a wonderful surprise, for the secret had 
 been very well kept, and the day before I had a 
 present from my former and present scholars 
 which gave me great delight. £200 came with the 
 autogi-aphs. . . . 
 
 'I do feel that Mr. Keble's blessing, "Prosper 
 Thou the work of her hands upon her," has been 
 most marvellously fulfilled, and this has brought 
 me to think that the peculiar care and training 
 that were given me by my father, Mr. Keble and 
 M. A. D. [Miss Dyson] seem to have been appointed 
 to make me a sort of instrument for popularizing 
 Church views that might not have been otherwise 
 taken in ; and so I am thankful to believe that is 
 my place as a polished corner.' 
 
 A few years later a sum of money was collected and 
 given to her, in order to found a scholarship for the 
 girls of Winchester High School, to be held at one 
 of the w^omen's colleges in Oxford or Cambridge. 
 
 The present writer may be permitted to add 
 another reminiscence. In 1896 I was staying at 
 Shawford, near Winchester, with the late Dr. Robert 
 Moberly and his family; we had taken rooms 
 together for a few^ days of the Easter holidays. 
 Miss Yonge, with whom I had had a slight acquaint- 
 ance, very kindly came to see me, and we walked 
 back to Otterbourne over the downs. As we went 
 she began to talk of Church matters, of the Lux 
 Mundi school of thought, of the Christian Social 
 Union. She could not, she said, feel in sympathy 
 with much of these newer phases of thought. I 
 ventured then to remind hei- of what she herself had
 
 LATEK YEARS 191 
 
 put into Dr. May's mouth, as to the Quest of the 
 Holy Grail and the perplexity it had caused King 
 Arthur. She smiled and seemed to like the allusion. 
 I longed to say much more and to ask her many 
 questions, but time was short and my shyness was 
 great. 
 
 We went to Evensong at Otterbourne. 1 have 
 always felt that evening to have been one of the 
 supreme moments of my life. It was an extra- 
 ordinary privilege to kneel just once by the writer 
 who had more than anyone else intluenced one's 
 mind in the early days of youth, had helped one to 
 care for the Church and for all that the Church 
 implies, ^vho had been one's first teacher. Miss 
 Yonge, indeed, had stood for much in the life of a 
 motherless child, who had very little outward help 
 or guidance, who had found in The Ddisrj Cfuiin her 
 first real friends, ami wIkj had learned from Miss 
 Yonge to love the C/irialiuiL I'car and many another 
 book. 
 
 There are greater writers ol' more original genius 
 to whom one owes mu<li, luit I tliiuU t heir .•ur iiom) 
 whom on(; thanks so gr;itrl'ullv l<>r what >lir taught 
 one to reverence and to love. 
 
 In this connect ion 1 may he pci n.lt te<| tocpintea 
 letter to myself. She wrote to me at t he t iuie <>r uiy 
 husband's dc^at h : 
 
 ' \\ ill you allow one wlio is /ilniost a sti-angei- to 
 you pers(;nally, to express my deep syiu|)ath_> antl 
 sorrow when I saw tiie uotice in the paper of 
 theauful hlowth/it has fallen on y<»U? I know 
 from A luiie Moherly of your great kindness on my
 
 192 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 birthday last yeai-, and that leads nie to hope that 
 you ^vill not feel a few words from an old woman 
 an intrusion ; though pray do not try to answer 
 them, as I shall hear of you from Annie. I have 
 thought of you in my piayers, and may you and 
 your children have full comfort and joy in com- 
 munion alike "vvith those gone before and with the 
 Comforter and great Head of the Church. 
 
 ' A very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Gibbs, whose 
 name you know in connection with Keble College, 
 used to say that the losses of her husband and 
 several of her children had made " Therefore with 
 Angels and Archangels," etc., more to her than 
 ever. If you do not know William Tupper's 
 sonnet, "Ye saints in Heaven, dear Jesu's Body 
 Glorious, From Abel to the babe baptized but now," 
 ask Annie to show it to you. Mrs. Keble used to 
 keep a copy in her pocket. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 ' C. M. YoNGE.' 
 
 A short time before this Miss Yonge wrote about 
 Newman, whose letters had just been published : 
 
 ' What seems to me to be the fact ... is that, 
 having been brought up in the Protestant school 
 of thought, and worked out Catholicity for him- 
 self, when everybody thundered at the Tracts, 
 etc., he thought the fault lay in the Church of 
 England, not only in the blundering of indi- 
 viduals, and he did not wait to see her clear herself. 
 And then I think that he had, apparently, never 
 thoroughly followed the times between the separa-
 
 LATER YEARS 193 
 
 tion from the Gi-eok Church and the Reforma- 
 tion. Hurrell Froude was doiii<; it, but tliere has 
 been so much less research [about that period ?] 
 that H. F. takes for granted that Roman Ritual 
 is necessarily Apostolical, without (api)arently) 
 having found out about ecjually Apostolical rites 
 that Rome had cruslnMl — c (j., (Jallican, Spanish, not 
 to say our own Uses, And now we have all thiit 
 was like a day-dream to them.' 
 
 She writes from Salisbury : 
 
 ' Dean Church's beautiful book* came in time for 
 me to work it in with the Cardinal {Nexcinnns 
 Letters]. It is a sort of key. By the way, there 
 is a mistake — 1 don't know whether J. II. N.'s or 
 Miss Ml (/ley's about the consecration of a church 
 U) whi<-ii he could not go in iSiJS: it is said to ho. 
 Hursley, but it really was OttiMboiiiiie. Ilursley 
 was not consecrated, of course, till years after. I 
 read lIuiTell Fromie immediately' a it <i- . . . then I 
 read Dean ('hui'-li, \\b(( is most (leli;4lii t ul ^^\^'vy 
 way, and how he does scathe tJje Ib-bdomadal 
 Board I How like it \\a^ to the s<»ed bvnsting and 
 bi'inging tortli iiiikIi tViiit I W'bat l)eautirul 
 sketi'hes there are <•! Mr. 1\( l>le and ( barlesi It 
 seems to me the i-e;il portrait of Mr. Keble. 
 
 'Thf)se letters bet \\ een " .leniini.a "' a ml .1. II. A, 
 are most I siiouid say interesting, but that tlu^ 
 word has been H])oilt, It is alt oget liei- ,i wonder- 
 ful book, I still think that pal ieme w as ^^ ant ing, 
 but |)artly from the not ba\ing grown \i\> in the 
 love of the >bitliei- ( 'liui<ll.' 
 
 ♦ IliDliinj of Ihr O.r/ord Movrmrnt.
 
 194 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE; 
 
 We are reaching the end now. Miss Yoiige was 
 liappy and full of interest, and devoted to her work 
 ;vnd her teaching of the Otterbourne children. 
 
 One old friend after another passed away, and she 
 was left almost the only one of her generation. 
 Miss Dyson and Miss Barnett were gone. She wrote 
 of the approaching death of Miss Bigg- Wither, one 
 of her earliest friends : 
 
 ' My dear Mrs. Norsworthy, 
 
 ' I must write a few lines to thank you for 
 your account of my dear old friend, who, I feel, 
 is lying in the land of Beulah, though broken by 
 these times of distress. It ^vas something the 
 same with good old Judge Patteson, father of the 
 Bishop. He had a throat complaint that he knew 
 must bring final choking. And when it had very 
 nearly come, as he revived, he said, " The beautiful 
 angel is gone, but he will soon come again !" I am 
 very glad you can be constantly with her. . . . 
 With niuch love to my dear M. A. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 ' C. M. YONGE.' 
 
 Miss Yonge was spared all gradual decay ; she lay 
 down one spring afternoon, just as the daffodils 
 she loved so well were coming into bloom, and she 
 jmssed away after her last Communion, on the Eve 
 of the Annunciation, 1901. 
 
 She lies in Otterbourne Churchyard, and we who 
 loved her and who realize how bravely, how cheer- 
 fully she had worked, and striven, and borne dis- 
 appointments, perplexities, bereavements — we who.
 
 Tc/ate ^gr 194.
 
 LATER YEARS 195 
 
 even though we cannot now see truth exactly as 
 she saw it, yet know that to her we o\ve love an^ 
 gratitude for the ideal she held up, the hopes she 
 inspired, the love she kindled — feel Otterbourne is 
 for ever to us a hallowed spot. 
 
 Requiem (jeternmn dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua 
 luceat ei. 
 
 13—2
 
 THE SECRET OF MISS YONGE'S INFLUENCE 
 
 There are comparatively few women now surviv- 
 ing ^vho can speak from personal experience of the 
 influence exercised over their young days by Char- 
 lotte Yonge's books. Nor can I entirely come my- 
 self under that category, inasmuch as, having been 
 ci-adled, so to speak, in the arms of the Oxford 
 Movement, I can hardly specify which one out of the 
 many influences surrounding my childhood spoke to 
 me most powerfully. 
 
 Not nuich in the way of ' High Church ' doctrine 
 "was ever definitely taught to us as children l)y word 
 of mouth, but the utmost care was taken as to the 
 choice of our books and hymns. The quaint doggerel 
 to which Watts thought it necessary to stooj) when 
 writing for children, the dismal Calvinism of The 
 Fab-child Family, the irreverent familiarity of the 
 Peep of Day and Line iqjon Line, were unknown in 
 our nursery and schoolioom. Our earliest ' Bible 
 book ' was one containing the history of the Fall 
 and the Gospel story in the words of Scripture, 
 compiled by Bishop Samuel Wilberf(irce ; and we 
 Avere brought up upon his allegories and those of 
 Adams and Monro ; upon Mrs. Alexander's hymns — 
 as devout, spiritual, iind tender as they are dog- 
 matic ; upon the Christian Year, Neale's stories 
 of saints and martyrs, Paget's Tales of the Villarje 
 Chikh-en; and, among other beloved books, Ivo 
 and Verena and The Birthday. I am glad to say, 
 however, that Pilyrims Prof/ress, unabridged and 
 
 19(!
 
 SECRET OF MISS YOXGES INFLUENCE 197 
 
 delightfully illustifited, was aiiioii^ our great 
 favourites. 
 
 But while conscious that all these had their 
 marked effect, I should certainly place in the first 
 rank of hooks that influenced my girlhood Miss 
 Sewell's and Miss Yonge's. I j)lace them in this 
 order, not as their order of merit, hut hccausc we 
 hegan with Linieton Parsonaye and Amy Herbert, 
 which, I think, appeared before Miss Yonge's stories 
 for childn'n. We first made ac(iuaintance with Miss 
 Yonge in the pages of the Montlilij Piuket, \\ hich set 
 out u])on its long and useful career in 1851, 
 
 This periodical, edited by Miss Yonge, and es- 
 jiecially inten.ded for girls of schoolroom age 'and 
 aftei',' sujjjjHcil a great need, and must have ])layed 
 a great part in awakening and fostering Chuich feel- 
 ing and pi-inciph*s among young jx'oplc In our 
 lai'gc ianiily it was faii-ly read to pieci's. 
 
 Old - fasliionetl Sunday' iiabils reigiK'il in our 
 home, relieved, however, from the gloom of earlier 
 times by sjx'cial joys .iml little indulgences \\hich 
 made Sunday the hai)piest i\n\ of llie week. In 
 tin; matt«'i' of reading, our rides were stri<'t. 
 I'leasant and int<'resting 'Sunday books" we always 
 had, but tliey were <lifT«M*ent fi'om our week-day 
 ones. \oV(Os and faii\ t;de>,, and even Dickens's 
 Chr'istmas stories, were forbidden. Hut whatever 
 WHS contaiiieij in the Monf/i/t/ l*<iil<rl was ahvaNs 
 peiinit fi'd. and it wa-. a happy hunting-ground 
 indeed, for girls and boys alike, on Sundays. 
 
 Miss Yonge'H stonoM wero its crowning at t ract ion. 
 
 77/' I. mil f)ii/:i, ritr /.iiiii-rs tif /.i/ii iriiiu/. Till' ('tn/r(f 
 /y/fn/, gave u.s vi\ id picture's of early Norman and 
 Iiritish bist«>rv. l»otb ei\il /mil eccb'sia'^t ical '/'hr
 
 198 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGB 
 
 Pigeon Pie awoke fervent cavalier sentiment, and, 
 indeed, but for counteracting influences, would 
 have made us firm believers in the Divine right of 
 kings. 
 
 Then began the series of longer stories which 
 took our whole generation by storm, and w^hich I 
 w^ould fain believe will never die. Certain it is that 
 they are still read and beloved, even in these de- 
 generate days of unwholesome literature. 
 
 The Daisy Chain was the first that came ovit in 
 the Monthly Packet, but The Heir of Redely ffe and 
 Heartsease occupy special thrones in my memory, 
 inasmuch as they were the first modern novels that 
 I was allowed to read. 
 
 It has often been said that these novels inculcated 
 Church principles. But it is to be noted that they 
 do not do this anything like as directly as do Miss 
 Sewell's stories. Miss Yonge's novels awake and 
 commend Church princij)les far more by what they 
 assume and imply than by w^hat they preach. No 
 doubt they make us acquainted with perhaps a 
 Utopian number of excellent clergy and of ' High 
 Church ' laymen. But these characters win our 
 hearts, not by or what they ' inculcate,' but by their 
 livingness. Miss Yonge surely has few rivals in 
 this particular gift. Her people are never puppets. 
 The eleven Mays, the thirteen Underwoods — each 
 and all stand out as distinct and most living indi- 
 viduals. We know their family likenesses and 
 diversities ; their several faults, idiosyncrasies, and 
 merits ; their charm, their provokingness, their 
 humour or their want of it — in short, they become 
 as living people to us. We find even the disagree- 
 able ones interesting, while the lovable ones become
 
 SECRET OF MISS YONGE'S INFLUENCE 199 
 
 lifolon<ir fi'ioTifls. Tlin>j, as %vith real poo]ilo, ^ve take 
 them witli their atmosphere, and Miss Yonge's at- 
 mosphere bein<^ saturated with Church eonvictions, 
 her readers, half unconsciously, inil)ibe them. 
 
 Except for certain allusions to parish work and 
 other religious undertakings, and to the Holy Com- 
 munion, it woidil he ilifHcult to find in Tlw Ilclr of 
 liedclijjfi' any distinctively ' High Cluirch ' teaching. 
 In Heartsease there is still less, and yet this same 
 atmosphere is unmistakably present. 
 
 The episode of Cocksmoor in Tlie Daisy Chain 
 brings Ix-fore us A\ith great skilfulness and jxjwer 
 the splendid work done for scijools in tlu' villages, 
 when separating religion from education was so far 
 from l)eing (h-eamt of that religion w as the inspiring 
 force of all that was un<lertaken, and t lie chief thing 
 tviught. while the Church was the aclviiowli^dged 
 foster-mot hei- (»f all the cjnldi<'n. 
 
 I cannot l)Ut believe that Jiiany a real ( '< »ck<iii()oi' 
 has b(*en tjiken in li.nnl iiinli'r the inlliiciici- df 7'Ac 
 Dai SI/ Chili II. 
 
 There is h more distinct Church imte struck in 
 Till' i'liinu/ Strpviothrv and sexcrai of tlie later 
 novels; but, at the same t ime, t h«' aut hor lias sulli- 
 cient gifts of humour and disi-ernnnMit lo bring out 
 wit h afliiiirable point notal)l_\' in /A- /*illars of t/ir 
 Ifouse -iho weak side ot lligli" ( Imrchmanshij) 
 wlu'ti tainted with ext ernalism or with spiritual 
 pride ;iiid r»a?'rownes^. 
 
 Indeed, while Miss Vongj* is deliberat eiN- blind of 
 one ©yo oh to Kinf^ Cliarh's I., politic-^. Women's 
 Hights, f/ishions in drcHH, oM-faKhioned propriet i(>s, 
 and other E»iily Victori/in opinion'*, it is striking to 
 obser\e in bei- 1/ifer Ijocik'^ a binader tuleratioii in
 
 200 CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE 
 
 matters of religion than we meet with in her first 
 stories, although her oAvn convictions remain un- 
 changed. 
 
 During some consecutive years Miss Yonge pub- 
 lished in the MontJibj Packet a really valuable series 
 of Conve7'sations on the Catechisyn, which ought not 
 to have been allowed to go out of print. It forms 
 an excellent handbook of Anglican theology, and 
 shows wide i-eading and much knowledge. Taking 
 it up again in my old age, I have been struck by the 
 degree to which it forms the basis of my own reli- 
 gious thought. 
 
 In the novel which I unhesitatingly place highest 
 among Miss Yonge's woi-ks, The Chaplet of Pearls, 
 we find, among many other merits (it is the only 
 one that has a good plot), an admirable grasp of 
 the Catholic and Huguenot positions, and scru- 
 pulous justice, nay — more, sympathetic apprecia- 
 tion — accorded to each side. The via media of the 
 Englisli Church is drawn out in vivid and favour- 
 able contrast to the violent extremes of religious 
 factions in France duiing the terrible times of 
 Catherine de Medici. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the writings of Char- 
 lotte Yonge have inspired more than two genei-a- 
 tions of readers with enthusiastic belief in the truth 
 and office of the Church of England, and in its his- 
 toric continuity with the Chui'ch of Augustine and 
 Anselm. 
 
 LUCY C. F. CAVENDISH. 
 
 BILUNO AND 80N8, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
 
 NOV 21 1979 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 
 PKINTEO IN US. A.
 
 PR59I3 R6 
 
 Romanes, Ethel (Duncan) 
 
 Charlotte Mary Yonge. 
 
 yC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 IBBIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIII 
 
 AA 000 614 992 6 
 
 3 1210 00197 7345