XV.
Woodbridge: Nov. 24, [1873].
Dear Mrs. Kemble,
A note from Mowbray to-day says ‘I think I can report the Father really on the road to recovery.’
So, as I think you will be as glad to know this as I am, I write again over the Atlantic. And, after all, you mayn’t be over the Atlantic, but in London itself! Donne would have told me: but I don’t like to trouble him with Questions, or writing of any sort. If you be in London, you will hear somehow of all this matter: if in America, my Letter won’t go in vain.
Mowbray wrote me some while ago of the Death of your Sister’s Son in the Hunting-field. [38] Mowbray said, aged thirty, I think: I had no idea, so old: born when I was with Thackeray in Coram Street—(Jorum Street, he called it) where I remember Mrs. Sartoris coming in her Brougham to bid him to Dinner, 1843.
I wrote to Annie Thackeray yesterday: politely telling her I couldn’t relish her Old Kensington a quarter as much as her Village on the Cliff: which, however, I doat on. I still purpose to read Miss Evans: but my Instincts are against her—I mean, her Books.
What have you done with your Memoirs? Pollock is about to edit Macready’s. And Chorley—have you read him? I shall devour him in time—that is, when Mudie will let me.
I wonder if there are Water-cresses in America, as there are on my tea-table while I write?
What do you think of these two lines which Crabbe didn’t print?
‘The shapeless purpose of a Soul that feels,
And half suppresses Wrath, [39] and half reveals.’
My little bit of Good News about our Friend is the only reason and Apology for this Letter from
Yours ever and always
E. F.G.