I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or you could not have written “Isabel” or “Lilian”; and you must be kind and good, or you would not have given them to the world.
So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate, traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and make one more heart supremely happy.—One who loves you,
* * *
Three petitions, which touched my father, may here have place.
The first (1884) consists of some twenty letters, in very creditable English and excellent hand-writing, each saying some handsome thing about the “May Queen,” which they had learned, and now criticized with amusing naïveté, and asking for a line from Tennyson—signed with the children’s names, and dated from a German High School for girls: “who,” says their Mistress, “in the joy of their hearts tried to express their feeling of admiration in their imperfect knowledge of the English language.”
In the next a young girl from India, training in England with comrades apparently for Zenana work, thanks “Our dear aziz Sahib” for a copy of the Poems, and then proceeds, in neat round hand:
Oh how we wish we could see you even for one minute The Great and good Poet Laureate, whom everybody loves so much and we love you too dear sweet Sahib, we are going to learn that pretty Poetry “The May Queen” and several others out of that lovely Book. Will you please, dear Sahib, write out “The May Queen” and “The Dedication of the Idyols of the King,” with your own hand, we will keep it till the last day of our lives.
They then explain why the “Dedication” is asked for; “because we know how dearly Prince Albert loved you, and, also our beloved Queen Empress, and how you love them”: also how they long to go back “to our dear India,” and sing hymns, and nurse and dose “our own countrywomen in the Zenanas.”
Now good-bye our aziz (beloved) Sahib I am sending you some wild daisies and moss as you are so fond of flowers and everything beautiful in God’s world. May God give you a sweet smile every day, prays your little loving, Indian Friend,,