P.S. I should not myself have written so soon again, but to apprise you of a brace of Pheasants I have sent you. Pray do not write expressly to acknowledge them:—only tell me if they don’t come. I know you thank me. [9]
IV.
[27 Feb., 1872.]
Dear Mrs. Kemble,
Had I anything pleasant to write to you, or better Eyes to write it with, you would have heard from me before this. An old Story, by way of Apology—to one who wants no such Apology, too. Therefore, true though it be there is enough of it.
I hear from Mowbray Donne that you were at his Father’s Lectures, [10a] and looking yourself. So that is all right. Are your Daughters—or one of them—still with you? I do not think you have been to see the Thanksgiving Procession, [10b] for which our Bells are even now ringing—the old Peal which I have known these—sixty years almost—though at that time it reached my Eyes (sic) through a Nursery window about two miles off. From that window I remember seeing my Father with another Squire [10c] passing over the Lawn with their little pack of Harriers—an almost obliterated Slide of the old
Magic Lantern. My Mother used to come up sometimes, and we Children were not much comforted. She was a remarkable woman, as you said in a former letter: and as I constantly believe in outward Beauty as an Index of a Beautiful Soul within, I used sometimes to wonder what feature in her fine face betrayed what was not so good in her Character. I think (as usual) the Lips: there was a twist of Mischief about them now and then, like that in—the Tail of a Cat!—otherwise so smooth and amiable. I think she admired your Mother as much as any one she knew, or had known.
And (I see by the Athenæum) Mr. Chorley is dead, [11] whom I used to see at your Father’s and Sister’s houses. Born in 1808 they say: so, one year older than yours truly E. F.G.—who, however, is going to live through another page of Letter-paper. I think he was a capital Musical Critic, though he condemned Piccolomini, who was the last Singer I heard of Genius, Passion, and a Voice that told both. I am told she was no Singer: but that went some way to make amends. Chorley, too, though an irritable, nervous creature, as his outside expressed, was kind and affectionate to Family and Friend, I always heard. But I think the Angels must take care to keep in tune when he gets among them.
This is a wretched piece of Letter to extort the Answer which you feel bound to give. But I somehow wished to write: and not to write about myself;
and so have only left room to say—to repeat—that I am yours ever sincerely