TO F. R. Oliphant.
Windsor,
9th January.
...I have done nothing but wade through Dean Stanley’s Life this last week in the intervals of doing perfunctorily a little work in the mornings. What a queer little being he was, — quite uninterested in any argument or harmony of religious opinion, but up like a little turkey cock at the first note of discord, and grappling all dissentients to his small bosom — Maurice, Colenso, Père Hyacinthe, Pusey, Newman, in their times of contradictiousness. Hampden and Goring (which are names you will know nothing of), every man who fibs — which is a wrong word to use — is in the moment of his fibbing a delight to Stanley. It is a curious characteristic.
To Mrs. Harry Coghill.
Hotel d’Italie, Mentone,
March 4.
I was very glad to get your letter, though you will think I have taken my time to answer it. I have been rather a cripple ever since I came here, very much taken up about my knees, which gave way in the most ridiculous manner when I attempted to walk, and gave me great pain; and though this of course did not prevent me from writing, it hampered me in many ways. However, I have been in the hands of a masseuse for ten days, and am getting right again, which I really did not think I should have done. And now we are approaching the end of our stay here, Cecco being anxious to go on to fresh woods and pastures new. He is tolerably well, but still much troubled with his breathing; and he has not gained much strength, I fear, but he is very full of Riviera work. I get him to drive as much as possible, and fortunately he begins to like driving. I must get him a little trap of some kind when we get home. He is so tremendously conscientious about seeing with his own eyes everything he intends to mention in his book, that he gives himself more labour than he need do. We have had warm and fine weather on the whole, but with many misty grey days such as I have never seen before on the Riviera — they must be peculiar to Mentone. We are on the east bay, which is much the finest so far as the view goes, though not the fashionable end. We have a tiny little sitting-room, but with a balcony attached, the view from which is wonderful, the old town rising up to the right in all its wonderful glow of colour, and the coast on the other side ending in Bordighera, which is the most persistently shining and smiling place I ever saw....
I should like very much to bear about N. It is a pity we cannot be all poor or all rich together; it would stop a great many heart-breakings — or perhaps heart-burnings would be a better word. It seems to me that money does most of the harm there is in the world, whether it is the want of it or the possession of it. I am glad to hear you are publishing your Staffordshire story. These publishers of yours seem the smartest going, in the American sense of the word. They seem to run up an author’s reputation by means of dividing one decent edition into three or four, and thus turning a moderate success into, to all appearances, a brilliant one. I don’t like tricks of that kind, I feel sure one of my books was treated in that way, though I have no information on the subject.
To Mr. Blackwood.
Windsor,
9th July.
…I had been thinking of offering to you a series of perhaps four articles, to appear at intervals, called the “Spectator” or the “Looker-on,” or some such title, a sort of review of the three or four months preceding, — the season, the autumn, the winter season, &c., — with a reflection of the Society and lighter morals, politics, art, and literature of the time. I don’t know if you would care for them, but I have rather a fancy for doing them, and there is plenty of material, Heaven knows. Let me know if you would like them, for in that case I should look again at some things before the season is over.
F. R. Oliphant to Mrs. Harry Coghill.
Windsor,
July 11.
...It is very kind of you to ask me to stay over Tuesday....You see even that means three days which must be days without work, and I can hardly afford to spare an hour. I am working hard against time to finish this Riviera book, which should if possible be out in October, so as to catch the first batch of people going south. Then we have to deal with one of these new young publishers, who of course tries to make one believe that it will take six months to set up a hundred pages or thereabouts. We don’t believe him, and are not afraid to tell him so, because we had originally thought of publishing this book on our own hook, and the possibility of at any time falling back on that course gives one a pleasant freedom in dealing with the publishing ogre. However, I promised at first to give him my manuscript in the end of this month, which I have since been obliged to change to the first fortnight in August, and I know I shan’t be ready then. I have still six chapters to write, and much looking up of books and authorities, which means days spent in the British Museum, the worst managed and noisiest reading-room in Europe. I only go into these details to show you that there is no humbug about it, because, as a general rule, I find my friends have a healthy disbelief in my having anything to do, or doing it if I have, perhaps on account of my not concealing the fact that I regard work of any kind with a cordial detestation, and would never do any if I could help it. In complete idleness alone is true happiness to be found. Fine weather is perhaps also necessary, and I prefer fine scenery. But there is much in doing nothing. You were kind enough to suggest that I could go on with my work at Coghurst; but I should have to bring a perfect chestful of books, as I never know to what I may want to refer, and I am not going to spoil my time at Coghurst with anything whatever to do....I hope to be able to get to town in the morning and see an hour or so of the Eton and Harrow match, which I have not seen since 1889. The University match I had to give up from want of time, though I have not seen that either for five years, and I was in town two of the days.
Mrs. Oliphant to Mr. Blackwood.
Windsor,
22nd August.
I have an offer from America for a novel to begin in the end of next year or beginning of ‘96. I don’t care generally, feeling how uncertain life is, especially at my age, to enter upon engagements so long in advance, but still the book might be in existence even if I no longer were so. I want to ask you whether you would take the story to be published serially simultaneously with the American issue. Of course in these circumstances I should not stand out for any high price, but would ask to be paid only per page as for monthly contributions. The book would be of the usual length. I should not like to lose the advantage of the American offer, as I have had very little good as yet from America. As the New York people ask in what magazine the story would be published here, and at what time, I think it best to ask you if you would be inclined to make any bargain with me before answering them. Would you then kindly reply to this as soon as possible?
I have been thinking of sending you a paper for Christmas to be called “The Words of a Believer” — not of the class of the stories of the Seen and Unseen, but yet something in that way, containing, in fact, my own theories of the world and its management. Should you care to have it? — of course I give you the first offer; and will you give me your advice whether the Believer should be a man or woman? Naturally I should say the first, but the tendency of the day is so much (apparently) in the other direction that I hesitate. Of course it would be more actually true to make a woman the speaker, but a generation ago it would have given the adversary an occasion to blaspheme against old women and their maunderings. I doubt whether this would be the case now; but it is a curious question, and one on which I should like to have your advice.
At this moment, when, though she did not know it, but was still fighting to keep her terrible anxieties at bay, the last and crowning sorrow of her life was approaching, Mrs. Oliphant was cheered and interested by a suggestion made to her by Mr. Blackwood. This was that she might undertake the history of the great publishing house with which for forty-two years she had been so closely connected. Many of the old friends of that house had passed away; she herself was to lay down her task unfinished. But there could be no question of her superlative fitness for the work, and though it proved extremely laborious, it was more congenial to her in the last sad days of her life than the lighter kinds of writing from which she began to shrink. The following is her answer to Mr. Blackwood’s first letter on the subject: —
Windsor,
26th August.
I like your proposal, or rather suggestion, very much indeed. I have often wished that you would think of doing something of the kind. It ought to make a valuable as well as very interesting book, for the history of the Blackwoods would involve a most important piece of the recent history of literature, as well as many extremely interesting figures. Your grandfather and elder uncles must have been men full of character, and few people living can have a clearer recollection than I of your Uncle John, — your father too, always so kind, the kindest of all, I should undertake the work with the greatest of pleasure, and I think I could do something worthy of the subject. You must have boundless material, and it is always the kind of work I prefer to any other. There are a great many things that we should have to talk over or write about, and I should like to know your views on the subject more fully. It is possible that I may be going to Dundee in the beginning of the month if Cecco keeps well, and on my return I might perhaps stay for a day in Edinburgh for this purpose, but that would depend upon Cecco. He is tolerably well, but the terrible weather we have been having is very trying and depressing, and affects him a good deal. To-day, after nearly a week of rain and cold, it is quite hot again, and as bright as possible, which does one’s heart good. I hope we are going to have a good September. It is dreadful to see the golden sheaves getting all brown and shabby and soaked in the wet fields. I hope you have not felt the evil influence of the weather....
It is curious enough that the idea of a book on the House of Blackwood as a thing that should be, though not in any connection with myself, passed through my mind with some vividness a little while before I heard from you. It must have been a brain-wave!
A gleam of something like happiness, or at any rate pleasure, came at this time with the birth of a little daughter of Mrs. Valentine. It was only a gleam lost in the terrible grief that followed, but still the little Margaret was very sweet and interesting to her “Grannie.”
To Mrs. Harry Coghill.
Elmwood, Lochee, Dundee,
Sept. 13.
I feel myself unpardonable not to have written to you at first hand to tell you about Madge, but I was at the moment distracted by bad news from home, and lost my head, I fear, altogether....
The baby is a fine little thing with a pair of big very bright eyes, but a most determined little person, a real struggle-for-lifeur or -euse, — certain that there is nothing in the world so important as that she should have her food in due season....
I came on the morning of the 3rd September, leaving home with very great reluctance, for Cecco had been very poorly. Since I came he has had another bad turn, and I have been torn in pieces between the two. Thank God, my news since Sunday has been better, but he is in so weak a state that any additional trouble breaks him down altogether. I have been myself so worn out with the constant strain of anxiety and miserable helplessness, that the relief of the good news almost broke me down also. And I feel as if I could not get up my hopes again as I used to do: however elastic a cord may be, it breaks its fibre at the last, and I feel the prospect very dark before me. I sympathised with you very much when I saw the death of Mrs. S., knowing you would feel it so much, and intended to have written then, but I was not sure where you were, if you were still in St. Andrews. Poor, little, soft, kind woman, it makes one’s heart ache to think of so gentle a creature suffering, and I suppose she had a great deal of trouble. Thank God that there comes an end to all that, at the last....The baby will be Margaret, I suppose, like all her female forebears. I am going home on Tuesday, 18th, at the latest.
On the 1st of October Cecco died. Even now the words cannot be written without a pang, though the desolate mother found courage to tell the sad story herself to the one who writes them.
Windsor,
2nd October.
I am writing what letters I can myself simply to keep me from distraction, — I must do something, whatever it is. My Cecco died last night. He is gone from me, my last, my dearest, and I am left here a desolate woman with the strength of a giant in me, and may live for years and years. Pity me, — it seems as if even God did not, and yet no doubt He had a higher reason than pity for me. The dreadful thing is that I can’t go too: I am forced to live, though everything in life is gone.
You know that my dearest boy has been very poorly all the summer — not from the complaint which we were all so much afraid of, which I believe was as much got under as it could be, and in complete abeyance. Monday night, the 17th, he was taken ill with inflamed throat and tongue, and I got home from Scotland on Wednesday morning to find him ill in bed, but nothing to be alarmed about. He got well of that, though very weak, and was downstairs for two or three days. Then he had a relapse, but got over that too. Yesterday morning, after a bad night, he was so ill and restless that I sent in a hurry for Dr. Miller, who said it was exhaustion, and poured in stimulants, but with little or no effect. At about half-past eleven at night, after he had been quite given up, he made a wonderful rally, and even I was for a moment deceived. The doctor left expressing hopes, but had not been gone ten minutes when he sank again all at once, and peacefully like a child breathed out his last breath. He lies now on his own bed, a perfect image of repose, his face rounded out as if he had never known illness, his look so peaceful and so sweet. And here am I, his desolate, heart-broken mother, childless, and yet as strong as iron, as if I should live for ever....My Cecco, always my baby, never parted from me, always mine; and now I shall never hear his constant call upon me again, never until we meet where all will be so different. I write to try and deaden myself a little, and in the hope of getting tired and done like other people, but that is what I never seem to be.
It is indeed a sad task to recall the silent house: the mother sitting desolate, deserted by all the children who had been the heart and soul of her life; feeling herself physically strong still, though she seemed to others only the white shadow of what she had been; able to talk of her boy with tears, indeed, but with calmness, until some too poignant thought made her start up and steal away into solitude. And close beside her, in the boy’s room which he would never consent to have altered, lay the last of all her treasures — those treasures that were her very own, and for which she had waged so brave a fight. Day and night she scarcely left him for an hour, until he was carried away to be laid beside his brother at Eton; and even then she stood beside him, feeling, as she wrote afterwards, as if the “two other boys,” her own Cyril and Frank, long ago dead in India, stood one on each side of her and supported her through the anguish of the parting.
For a week or two after this there was a stillness and exhaustion of grief over the house. In the quaint study in which Cecco had gathered his books, queer volumes of heraldry, special editions of his favourite classics or his best beloved poets — where all sorts of weapons, pipes, and curiosities decorated the walls — his chair still stood by the writing-table, and, left as when he had risen from his last day’s work, the half-written page, and the pen laid down for ever, seemed only waiting for his accustomed presence. But it was all over. The goad, urging her to perpetual exertion, which his frail life had supplied to his mother, had failed her suddenly and completely. There was no longer pleasure or hope either, — nothing but such patient endurance as God’s grace might vouchsafe to her.
But after that dreadful pause work did begin again: a paper called “Fancies of a Believer” came from her heart, and was perhaps the very best kind of occupation she could have found. And she finished and sent off to Mr. Blackwood a paper called “An Eton Master,” a sketch of the Rev. Edward Hale, one of the earliest and most valued of the friends who had gathered about her during her boys’ school-life. Mr. Hale had died shortly before Cecco, and this little memorial of him was really a labour of love.
To Mr. Blackwood.
Windsor,
10th October.
It grieves me not to be able to keep my engagement about the “Looker-on,” but you will feel that it is impossible at present. God has stricken me so sorely that I am sure you will excuse and forgive. As soon as it is in flesh and blood to do it, I will. I have sent the little article on Mr. Hale, and I shall, if I can, send “The Words of a Believer” before Christmas. I received your box safely. If I live — which I most heartily pray God I may not, but one knows how vain are one’s desires in the face of His decrees — it will be a great relief from other work to undertake your family history: in any case, I will keep the materials safely and in their proper order. I have never been able to thank you for the kind thought that made you suggest this work to me as a kind of prop and support in the midst of my many expenses and cares. These are now diminished along with my life, and I earnestly hope that the blow which has taken my all from me may have so loosened the tenacity of existence that I may not abide long after him; but God only knows. In the meantime, bear with me in respect to the other things which I had pledged myself to do. Thank you for your sympathy.
To the Hon. Emily Lawless.
Windsor,
15th October.
Dearest Emily, — I send a little note to be given to your dear mother if you think it fit. The girls, Denny and Fanny Tulloch, who has made herself so one with us in our calamity that we are never likely to part, have been looking for a house in London to which we could remove at least for a time, partly to make the journey a little more easy for Madge, who, we have been hoping, would come to us soon, partly in the first impulse of leaving this desolate house. But both these motives have been shaken in the last few days. Madge is not doing so well as we hoped, and has got at present an attack of rheumatism about which I am anxious, and we may go to her instead of waiting for her to come to us. And I begin to feel that the world outside is more desolate still than this poor bereaved house, which was my boys’ home for almost all their dear lives, and where their trace is upon everything. But anyhow, we shall probably go to London for a time, and if I can so command myself as to meet dear Lady Cloncurry with something less than a miserable face, I will come, and be thankful to come, often to her. You must judge if I am fit to see her. I am not fit to see any one, but I would do much for her dear sake. Pity me, for I am always well, horribly well, and all my life hot and strong in me — nothing to soften one pang or get me any respite. I am all emptied out, hope and motive all gone, nothing but sorrow and anguish left. But I know you do pity me. Thank you for the letter which came straight out of your heart.
Birnam Hotel, Birnam,
Oct, 25.
...You ask do I read? I would read night and day if I could, or work — these two things keep me going, since go I must, and no softening of incapacity or weakness is ever allowed me. You can’t imagine how I long to be ill or stupefied in some way; but, on the contrary, I am all strung up, and fit for everything. We have been very anxious about Madge, but she has now taken a good turn and is recovering rather slowly, but I hope all right. The baby is quite well, and a very dear little thing; they are either coming with us or soon to follow us to London, and indeed it is partly on her account that I want to be there, for she has had something happen to her eye, an internal haemorrhage, and must consult an eye doctor. This has been a very dreary experience, as any experience must have been at such a time. Denny and I say to each other that Cecco would have liked the place, but that only makes its beauty more sad. God bless him! he was our chief motive in everything.
I hope dear Lady Cloncurry will recover her strength as soon as it is possible to hope for it, and that you, when she gets well, will be able to have a change. I don’t write to her — what can I say? You will give her my tenderest love, and tell her how often I think of her, and how sorry I am she will not be within reach. I can’t write, and yet I can, and feel as if it were a moment’s ease to let my heart overflow to you. But I will not say any more, dear Emily, for your sake rather than mine. I hope that ‘Maelcho’ will do very well, and that you will be pleased with it in print, which always makes a difference. God bless you for all your kind thoughts.
To Mrs. Cornish.
Birnam,
Sunday, 28th Oct.
I have meant to reply to your kind letter for some time, but the courage has always failed me. When last God called upon me to give up what was the half of my being, I could speak a little and express the anguish that was in me; for then I had still my Cecco, his ever-ready arm to lean on, and a motive and object for every self-denial. But now I have lost all, everything on this earth that came from me and was wholly mine. I thank God for my dear little Denny, to whom I seem to do wrong by speaking as if she were not mine, which she is by every tenderest tie. But only God knows, who has not spared, what Cecco was to me — my child still, though a man, my dearest friend and closest companion. It seems strange that with all the assurance I have that God would not have stricken me with this dreadful blow had it not been best, and indeed necessary for him, I should bear it no better than if I had no hope at all; but nature is very weak and humanity very short-sighted, and the distance that is between him and me and the silence seem more than flesh and blood and an old worn-out soul can bear. There was never a day when he was away from me that he did not write to me; during these years of his weakness he has liked always to have me by his side, his call to me, “Mamma,” as he always said, was continual, in everything he wanted me, till we made a joke of it, in the happy days in that other world which came to an end scarcely a month ago, though it looks like a hundred years. Yes, you are right; I was more blessed in him than most mothers are, the more and the greater is my desolation now. But yet I know that I ought to bear it better, only that my prayers are all silent — I seem to have so little now to ask for, nothing but that I may soon be united again to my dearest boys in that little house at Eton where they are waiting for me, and in that above, which is dim, of which we know so little. And the less prayers one has to say the farther off one seems to get from God, who is all that is left in the ruin of my earthly hope.
Since I wrote this I have been called down to see Bishop Wilkinson, who is a good man and has said many things to me which will perhaps do me good after a while; but, alas! one knows everything or almost everything that can be said, and has said it to oneself over and over with so little effect. I find a little comfort in fantastic thoughts that float into my mind I cannot tell how. You and your dear husband say many kind things to me of my Cecco, and Mr. Cornish bound me to him by saying how he had wished in the time to come to make a friend of my dearest boy. And I know my Cecco in his heart loved good company and was fain to make friends, but was kept back by the reserve of his nature and a shyness to believe in the interest of others in himself. And the other morning it came into my head that he would now have the noblest of company, and would doubt no more of the affection of others, but know as he was known. And this for a little gave me great and sweet consolation, to think of him among some band of the young men like himself whom I have a fond fantastic thought that our Lord draws to Him, because He too in His flesh was a young man, and still loves His peers in human age, and gathers them about Him, for some great reason of His own. You will feel how fantastic all this is, and yet it gives me more gleams and moments of consolation than anything else.
You will have heard that we came here hurriedly on account of Madge, who was ill and still continues very delicate. I hope to bring her down to London next week, where we shall be for a month or two; but unless my house should be let, which I scarcely expect, yet should not refuse, we shall come back after Christmas to the melancholy empty place, which yet was the home of my boys, and in which I should like to die too, when God pleases. I want to send Mr. Cornish the last book which my Cecco ever bought, which had been taken to his bedroom for him to see, and was still there when he passed away from all the fancies and likings of this life. It is a Baskerville Ariosto, valuable, I believe, for the printing: your husband, I think, shares that taste too. Give him my love and thanks for all his good thoughts of my dearest boy, and to you too, dear.
When the visit to Scotland was over, Mrs. Oliphant took possession for a few weeks of a house in London, where her two adopted daughters and little Margaret, the baby whom she could not but care for and pet, were her companions. Thence she writes; —
To Mr. Blackwood.
85 Cadogan Place, S.W.,
Nov. 3.
...I am working now at the “Words of a Believer” with, I fear, but indifferent success; for I am very restless, and find it difficult to settle at my work for any time, even though it is the only thing that does me any good. I have been in Scotland for a fortnight, having been taken there by the illness of Madge, who has been in a very delicate state ever since her baby’s birth, or rather since our great calamity fell upon her just at the moment when she was least able to bear a shock. I have brought her and her child here with me, and we shall remain in London I think for about two months. If I possibly can I will try to do the “Looker-On” for your January number. Work is the only thing for me, but I do not think I have ever been so unfit to avail myself of that opiate.
I hope to begin your work, ‘The House of Blackwood,’ early in the year. I would very fain make this my last work, if God will be so good to me as to let me go by the time I have finished it. I should not in any case take more than two years to it, and would probably do it much sooner if there was any need for hurry. I can think of nothing better, if I must go on with this weary life so long, as to conclude everything with this book. We rarely get what we wish for in this way, but it would be very sweet to me, and I can at least hope for it. You were kind enough to say you would like it to be a kind of annuity to me while it lasted, which would be a great comfort too, as making me independent of chance work. You will perhaps tell me what your views are on this subject, but in no hurry. I think I could make a very much more interesting book of it than the Murray book. I began my married life by my first story in ‘Maga’ — the proofs of which (‘Katie Stewart’) I received on my wedding-day: I should like to wind up the long laborious record (which seems to me now to have been so vain, so vain, my life all coming to nothing) with this.
For once, at least, her desires were accomplished. This book was the last.
“The Words of a Believer”21 appeared in ‘Blackwood’ for February. Certainly it appealed to many hearts.
85 Cadogan Place, S.W.,
Nov, 16.
I fear that you will perhaps find this too serious, and perhaps will agree with it too little to put it into the Magazine. I don’t even know if it is very suitable for the Magazine. You must decide solely as you think best. It is not what is called orthodox, nor is it unorthodox, and it is perhaps fantastic — that I am sure it is anyhow. It is even perhaps too much the musing of a very sore heart to be fit for the public at all. But only there are so many sore hearts. I do not, however, wish to bias your judgment in any way.
In the midst of her sorrow she was never insensible to the sufferings of others, and the following letter, written to one in great trouble, will show how keen her sympathies were: —
To Mrs. Harry Coghill.
85 Cadogan Place.
Seeing you yesterday was such a mere flash, like a dream of trouble and pain, that I must say a word to you to-day, though indeed I have very little to say. It is so easy to bid you have courage. It was the first thing that came into my head this morning....How full the world is always of trouble and sorrow! I don’t know how I shall get through Sunday, knowing what I know. I steal out now in the early morning to Mr. Eyton’s church, round the corner, to the early communion. I have lost confidence in any prayer of mine, but as one must pray whether one will or not, I will carry you there with me, my dear, and ask strength for you and ease and complete restoration, and you may be sure, if they know, the boys will add their word, knowing better than we do. I dreamt this morning I was reading one of Cecco’s letters, and he said, “Everything here is covered with gowans, as you call them.” Now, I never do call daisies gowans; was it not strange? and doesn’t it give you the idea of a great sunshiny flowery mead that he must have been in? I am very foolish in my maunderings. You won’t forget that I will come to you at any moment that I can be of the least use or comfort to you, which will be good for me too. We are sending you a couple of books. Have you read the ‘Raiders’? As it is rather old now, I suppose you must...
God bless you, dear, and give you strength. You came to me in my great trouble. I hope all good angels will be with you.
An article entitled “In Maga’s Library,” published in the Magazine for December, has a notice of Mrs. Oliphant’s work, and — what she valued much more — a short but very just appreciation of such writings of Cecco’s as had appeared in those familiar pages.
To Mr. Blackwood.
85 Cadogan Place,
Dec. 4.
You will be surprised that I have not written before to thank you and your contributor for what he has so kindly said both about me and my dearest boy. Will you say to him that I shall be ever grateful to him for his kind words? Whatever touches my Cecco is precious to me, and about the only thing in which I can take any real interest in these dark days. It is only this moment that, turning to the article to see whether by any chance I might have mentioned in my article any book already mentioned in that, I found my own name and my Cecco’s. I presume it is Mr. Allardyce who is the author: I am very grateful to him, and do not delay a moment in saying so, though you must have thought me very indifferent. There have been several very kind notices in the papers. It is a pleasure, if anything can be a pleasure, to see it in “the Magazine,” as my boys used to call it, as if no other magazine existed.
85 Cadogan Place,
7thDecember.
I did not think it was necessary to reply to your telegram last night, as there was no hurry, but I think I must explain more fully what my meaning is. I said to you that I hoped ‘Who was Lost,’ &c., would be the last novel I should write. (There is, however, one to come out in ‘Longman’s Magazine’ which was written before.) I have a Life of Joan of Arc to do, one of the Heroes of the Nations series, and a child’s book about Scotch history, and besides that my desire is to undertake nothing but to give myself up to your great book. I had calculated I might take two years to it, and though the other calculation I know is presumptuous, I had hoped that these two years might perhaps see me to the end of my life....It seems in my mind to shape itself to three volumes, and it would please me thus to bring my life’s labours to a conclusion. It is true that this is calculating without the will of God, which is, after all, the great thing, and He has refused so many of my prayers that I have perhaps no right to expect better for this; but still, as I am nearly sixty-seven, there seems reason for hope at least.
85 Cadogan Place,
December 19.
...I forgot to say to you when writing last that I have various chapters of my own experiences written, which if I live long enough to finish them might make a book not without interest. It has sometimes given me a little amusement to write it, meaning it for my sons. Its character may be changed now, but it will be more adapted perhaps for the public....It is premature to speak of it in its present state, but I think it well to let you know that there is such a thing to be calculated upon.
The autobiographical work, never completed, forms the first part of this present book. What Mrs. Oliphant says in these letters she repeated without word of change on her deathbed. Only it would seem as if in those last hours of failing strength she did not quite remember how prematurely her narrative broke off.
To Mrs. Harry Coghill.
85 Cadogan Place, S.W.,
Dec. 31.
It was very kind of the girls to go and look after the house, and still more kind of you to write as you did, when you have so much to think of in your own person, but I must go home after all. I do not know how I will fare when I get there. If I can bear it at all, it will probably be better and sweeter to be there than anywhere else. It was the home of my dearest boys, to which they were both attached and liked better than any other place. Cecco said to me a few days only before he left me, when I was talking about changing the position of his bed, that he had slept there for more than twenty years. All the associations of his life are there, and I should like to die there. I think it will be better for me, for the little time that remains to me, there than anywhere else....
I am instinctively forming all my plans for two years: it would be so comfortable if all should be wound up then, and myself dismissed to the narrow little house at Eton and all well. God grant it may be so! It would be dreadful to begin all over again, and struggle for work once more. Then another reason: if I stay at home, I may be able to afford to go away here or there when it becomes intolerable, which with a more expensive house and a new settling I could not do. This looks a little like a bull, that I should stay at home in order to be able to go away, but you will know what I mean.