TO MR. FRANK Wilson.
Crick Road, Oxford,
20th Feb.
...I came here more than a fortnight ago. I say I, for the boys had gone before me. It was excessively cold at the time, the end of the frost, and since it has been very wet and muddy. Unfortunately the house is a good way out of the centre of Oxford, as far off as Windsor is from Eton, which is much against us. On the other hand, it is pleasantly situated and among a great many pleasant people. Many of the great persons of Oxford have already called on me, and I have been asked to several solemn dinners, to one of which I am going to-night and to another to-morrow. The people are all very civil, but I am sometimes doubtful whether I have been wise in coming. Cecco seems to have begun very well indeed. It is difficult to realise him as a Balliol man, but such he is, and has taken to smoking, which I never thought he would do, and talks about “other men” as if he had not been the baby a very little while ago. He has a good many friends, and seems to be quite cheery and happy, which is a great satisfaction to me, for I was always a little nervous about his start....
Since I wrote the above I have been out to a dinner-party where all the people were profoundly learned and clever; the chief guest (after myself, in whose honour the party was given) being the rector of Lincoln, a man who is supposed to be the Casaubon of ‘Middlemarch’ — at least I believe his wife considers herself the model of Dorothea. He is a curious wizened little man, but a great light, I believe. He wrote a life of the great scholar Isaac Casaubon, which I reviewed some years ago, but this of course the good man does not know. I am going out again to dinner to-night. We leave here in about a month, and will return somewhere about the 18th of April.
To Mr. Blackwood.
4 Crick Road, Oxford,
Feb, 28.
I ought to have written last month to thank you and your able contributor for the flattering mention made of me in the article on Magazines, but the coming here complicated my other businesses, and I did not even read the article till somewhat late in the month. I am now again overwhelmed by Mr. Shand’s (is it Mr. Shand?) civilities in the present number. It is very kind of him, and of you, to whose good word I am sure I am indebted for so honourable a place. My best thanks to both. It is very pleasant, especially when one’s life has not been exempt from snubs, to have so kind and generous a recognition of one’s efforts — not to say that it is always a feather in one’s cap to appear as a member of that goodly fellowship, that noble army, which fights under the banners of ‘Maga.’
Your contributor seems to know various secrets of the craft which I have not found out. I suppose Mr. Trollope and Mr. Reade are deeply learned in all those by-ways, colonial and otherwise, which a poor woman out of the way never hears of. I have had various colonial applications made to me, but they never came to anything.
I have been thinking lately of asking you whether you would mind introducing me to Lord Salisbury with the view of asking him for a Foreign Office nomination for one of my boys. As they are now both in the last stage of their education, and Tids will be done with his in June, the question grows more and more important. The Bar of course is the finest career of all when successful, and if Tids takes a very good degree it will encourage me to screw myself up for barrister’s fees, and the legal education which has yet to come; but it is a horribly long process, and as there are two of them to provide for I should be very glad to have a public office nomination to fall back upon. Would this be asking too much of you? There seems no chance of getting at a Minister without introductions. Lord Salisbury’s sons were in Mr. Marindin’s house along with my boys, and I suppose he will know my name. I do not care to ask a mere society acquaintance for such an introduction, but no doubt I could get it, if you don’t care to do it.
To Mr. Blackwood.
Oxford,
16th March.
...I am glad you like the “Hamlet” paper, proof of which shall be returned directly. I will say a word or two about Irving’s unquestionable power over his audience. There is nothing so strange as popular success. I begin to think that it is only when one gives oneself credit for doing a thing with great difficulty and labour that one gets due credit with the public, and that what is apparently done with ease is never so impressive, even where it may be really better.
I have been seeing a great many notabilities here, without, I am afraid, being very much impressed by them. Almost everybody who is anybody has called, I think; but intellectualism, like every other ism, is monotonous, and the timidity and mutual alarm of the younger potentates strikes me a good deal. They are so much afraid of committing themselves or risking anything that may be found wanting in any minutiae of correctness. Scholarship is a sort of poison tree, and kills everything.
To Mr. Frank Wilson.
Oxford,
20th March.
...The term at Oxford is just finishing, and we go home next week. I can’t say that I have much enjoyed being here. There has been a good deal of bad weather, and in bad weather Oxford is depressing to the last degree. Now spring is beginning very unwillingly with many relapses into winter, but I hope next term will be pleasant....Everybody at Oxford of any importance, or almost everybody, has called on me, and I have been asked to a good many dinner-parties, to which I have gone resignedly. My last was at the Max Müllers to meet our old friend Mr. Ralston, whom you will remember. He came here to tell stories, which has become his speciality. He does it very well, and is very amusing. He had a large audience in a sort of theatre connected with the Museum here — heaps of children, whose attention and awe and amusement were very funny and a very pretty sight. He is as long and as thin as ever; but though he is always having bad illnesses, he looks much better than he used to do....
Cecco gave us a luncheon to-day at Balliol. Cecco as a man continues to be a constant wonder and amusement to me. His set is entirely distinct from Tiddy’s.
To Miss Blackwood.
Windsor,
11th April
...We came home about a fortnight ago, and in a week more will be back in Oxford if all is well, the vacation being so short. My stay there last term was both pleasant and unpleasant: the weather was simply horrible, and of all abominable places in bad weather Oxford is one of the worst. Besides, our house was a good way from the centre, in a sort of suburb, full indeed of very notable persons and Dons of all descriptions, male and female, but not otherwise attractive. I reserve my opinion as to the attractiveness of the said Dons. A great many people called on me, and I had a sprinkling of dinner-parties of the most superior description; in short, everybody was very kind, and I got a great deal of attention. I rather think I was set up as the proper novelist in opposition to Miss Broughton, who has gone to live at Oxford and has much fluttered the dove-cotes, though I don’t exactly know how. Cecco was all the more comfortable in his beginning from having his home at hand, and has got thoroughly into the Oxford life, which is a great comfort to me, and I think Tids’ work too was all the better for his mother’s presence. The latter personage has his final examinations next term, which is a very anxious business. They all seem to expect him to do well. He is just now at Malvern on a visit to the Master of Balliol, who seems to have a very peculiar opinion of the meaning of the word holiday. He and his guests work all day with brief intervals for meals and walks. Tids regarded the prospect of this visit before he went with rueful gratification, but he does not seem to dislike it, being there, and I hope it will have done him good. Mr. Jowett has been on the whole very kind....
I am quite unsettled about my summer arrangements. I am trying very hard to let my house for six months from now till October, but with no success as yet....If I don’t succeed in getting a tenant, which is most probable, I should be very glad to see you here in July, but I am all uncertain. Education is a fearsome business. Two young men at Oxford cannot, so far as I can see, cost less than five hundred a-year; and even when Tids takes his degree, there are his law studies to come on. All the other young men seem to have to go on studying, one here, one there, and Heaven knows when their profitable work is to begin! It is rather appalling for a person in my position. However, it is to be hoped that I shall be able to hold out for a few years longer and pull them both through, though sometimes my heart fails me a little.
In the autumn of this year Mrs. Oliphant lost her faithful and warmly valued friend Mr. John Blackwood. He had been for a considerable time in failing health, and died at his house, Strathtyrum, near St. Andrews, at the end of October 1879.
Oxford,
3rd Nov,
My dear Isabella, — So it is all over — all your anxiety and trouble, and dear John’s suffering and patience. I felt that you were prepared for it, and that, notwithstanding the hope to which you clung, this was all that was to be looked for. What can we say but thank God that for him at least it is all over? We none of us can look forward to that passage with less than some pang of fear as to how we shall get through, and he has passed it safely and got over upon the other side. Amen. And thank God for him....
Dear Isabella, I know you will be heart-broken. I wish I had been with you, but you will have many round you. Many a sad thought of the others who are gone will be passing through your mind. I think I know how you will be feeling, perhaps better than most people, and now Edinburgh will be a desert to you indeed.
I was away from home last night, and therefore have had no letters. I feel sure I will find something from you when I return, and then I will write to you again. In the meantime, dear Isabella, God be with you! Try to take what comfort you can in the thought that he at least, dear John — I can’t call him anything else this sad day — is no longer in any pain or trouble. — With love from the boys, and the tenderest sympathy, affectionately yours.
November 4,
I have just got your letter. Very hurriedly I wrote to you yesterday, and was interrupted at the conclusion and obliged to end when I had much to say. I wish so much you had added the one word “Come” to your telegram. I would so gladly have gone to you; but knowing how deep your feeling would be, I could not convince myself that you would like any one with you but your very own, otherwise it would have been a comfort to me to be there. The flowers, a very beautiful wreath, were sent off on Saturday, directed 11 Charlotte Square. I hope they did reach in time; if not, and they still come, may they be laid upon the grave? I shall be sadly disappointed if nothing of me, not even my wreath, was there. I told you we had a little service in St. Stephen’s at two o’clock, and followed him in spirit with prayers for you all to that last resting-place. How grieved I am that I was not bold enough to go to you at once. I do not like to ask now what you are going to do. Remember that you will always be welcome here....
I am glad to think that dear John Blackwood was laid to his rest by his own chosen friends. Every one of us, present and absent, feel what we have lost in him. Thinking about my book on Cervantes the other day, I felt suddenly as if I had come to a dead stop. Who is there now for whose opinion one will care as one did for his?
To Mr. Craik.
Windsor,
December 8.
I am most grieved to be so negligent. For the last fortnight I have been, first in the most terrible anxiety and then in the deepest grief for my dear boy Frank Wilson, my nephew whom I brought up, and who died in India now five weeks ago of typhoid fever. I had trained him with pain and trouble, and sent him out to India with every hope and blessing four years ago, and here is the end, so far as this sad world is concerned. We were for a week waiting an answer to a telegram which never came — in an anxiety I cannot describe, and which ended on the 29th in an official announcement of his death.
This is my only excuse for the neglect. The proofs came, I suppose, in the midst of this terrible suspense. I will get them off as soon as I possibly can.
To Mrs. Craik.
Windsor,
Christmas Eve.
It is very kind of you to write to me. I have had a long spell of peace and quiet, all well with my children, which is the one thing that matters after all. And of all the family my boy Frank was the one I was most secure about and had least anxiety for. All seemed so well with him, he was so robust and vigorous, nothing wrong about him either real or fanciful. And now in a moment all is over — for this world. It is the most inscrutable blow. Thank you most warmly for your sympathy. It is good to have an old friend to think of one in one’s trouble. We have seen little of each other for many years, but we will not forget how long it is since we first joined hands, young and fresh to life. God keep your doors, dear friend, from the shadow that has so often darkened mine, and give you many happy years with those you love. I have my three orphan nieces, now deprived of the last prop that absolutely belonged to them, under my roof this Christmas. The children, thank God, always make shift to be happy, by times at least, even in the midst of trouble, but you will give a pitying thought I am sure to these three poor girls.
My best and warmest wishes for yourself, Mr. Craik, and your child, and with love and thanks, believe me.
To Mr. W. Blackwood.
Windsor,
Christmas Eve.
I had not the heart to enter upon business matters when I saw you, the shadow of death was so much about us, and my own heart so full of anxiety....
After all this long array of business it seems out of place to return to private friendship and good wishes. But at the same time these are never out of place, and I hope that under your reign, as under that of dear and kind John Blackwood, private and old friendship will always continue to sweeten our business transactions. Will you give your mother and sisters my kindest good wishes and greetings?— “Merry Christmas” is out of my way this dark and heavy year, but I wish you every blessing and prosperity.