"Then I want Edward [Footnote: The late Head Master of Eton] to
have the "Days of Creation," and Charles [Footnote: The present
Lord Cobham, Alfred's eldest brother] to have my first editions of
Shelley, and Arthur [Footnote: The late Hon. Arthur Temple
Lyttelton, Bishop of Southampton] my first edition of Beaumont and
Fletcher; and Kathleen [Footnote: The Late Hon. Mrs. Arthur
Lyttelton.] is to have my little silver crucifix that opens, and
Alfred must put in a little bit of my hair, and Kathleen must keep
it for my sake—I loved her from the first.
"I want Alfred to give my godchild, Cicely Horner,[Footnote: The present Hon. Mrs. George Lambton.], the bird-brooch Burne Jones designed, and the Sintram Arthur [Footnote: The Right Hon. Arthur Balfour.], gave me. I leave my best friend, Frances, my grey enamel and diamond bracelet, my first edition of Wilhelm Meister, with the music folded up in it, and my Burne Jones ''spression' drawings. Tell her I leave a great deal of my life with her, and that I never can cease to be very near her.
"I leave Mary Elcho [Footnote: The present Countess of Wemyss.] my Chippendale cradle. She must not think it bad luck. I suppose some one else possessed it once, and, after all, it isn't as if I died in it! She gave me the lovely hangings, and I think she will love it a little for my sake, because I always loved cradles and all cradled things; and I leave her my diamond and red enamel crescent Arthur gave me. She must wear it because two of her dear friends are in it, as it were. And I would like her to have oh! such a blessed life, because I think her character is so full of blessed things and symbols. …
"I leave Arthur Balfour—Alfred's and my dear, deeply loved friend, who has given me so many happy hours since I married, and whose sympathy, understanding, and companionship in the deep sense of the word has never been withheld from me when I have sought it, which has not been seldom this year of my blessed Vita Nuova—I leave him my Johnson. He taught me to love that wisest of men—and I have much to be grateful for in this. I leave him, too, my little ugly Shelley—much read, but not in any way beautiful; if he marries I should like him to give his wife my little red enamel harp—I shall never see her if I die now, but I have so often created her in the Islands of my imagination—and as a Queen has she reigned there, so that I feel in the spirit we are in some measure related by some mystic tie."
Out of the many letters Alfred received, this is the one I liked best:
HAWARDEN CASTLE,
April 27th, 1886. MY DEAR ALFRED,
It is a daring and perhaps a selfish thing to speak to you at a moment when your mind and heart are a sanctuary in which God is speaking to you in tones even more than usually penetrating and solemn. Certainly it pertains to few to be chosen to receive such lessons as are being taught you. If the wonderful trials of Apostles, Saints and Martyrs have all meant a love in like proportion wonderful, then, at this early period of your life, your lot has something in common with theirs, and you will bear upon you life-long marks of a great and peculiar dispensation which may and should lift you very high. Certainly you two who are still one were the persons whom in all the vast circuit of London life those near you would have pointed to as exhibiting more than any others the promise and the profit of BOTH worlds. The call upon you for thanksgiving seemed greater than on any one—you will not deem it lessened now. How eminently true it is of her that in living a short she fulfilled a long time. If Life is measured by intensity, hers was a very long life—and yet with that rich development of mental gifts, purity and singleness made her one of the little children of whom and of whose like is the Kingdom of Heaven. Bold would it indeed be to say such a being died prematurely. All through your life, however it be prolonged, what a precious possession to you she will be. But in giving her to your bodily eye and in taking her away the Almighty has specially set His seal upon you. To Peace and to God's gracious mercy let us heartily, yes, cheerfully, commend her. Will you let Sir Charles and Lady Tennant and all her people know how we feel with and for them?
Ever your affec.