Woodbridge, June 24, [1882.]

My dear Mrs. Kemble,

You wrote me that you had bidden Blanche to let you know about her Father: and this I conclude that she, or some of her family have done. Nevertheless, I will make assurance doubly sure by enclosing you the letters I received from Mowbray, according to their dates: and will send them—for once—through Coutts, in hopes that he may find you, as you will not allow me to do without his help. Of that Death [243a] I say nothing: as you may expect of me, and as I should expect of you also; if I may say so.

I have been to pay my annual Visit to George Crabbe and his Sisters in Norfolk. And here is warm weather come to us at last (as not unusual after the Longest Day), and I have almost parted with my Bronchial Cold—though, as in the old Loving Device of the open Scissors, ‘To meet again.’ I can only wonder it is no worse with me, considering how my contemporaries have been afflicted.

I am now reading Froude’s Carlyle, which seems to me well done. Insomuch, that I sent him all the Letters I had kept of Carlyle’s, to use or not as he pleased, etc. I do not think they will be needed among the thousand others he has: especially as he tells me that his sole commission is, to edit Mrs. Carlyle’s Letters, for which what he has already done is preparatory: and when this is completed, he will add a Volume of personal Recollections of C. himself. Froude’s Letter to me is a curious one: a sort of vindication (it seems to me) of himself—quite uncalled for by me, who did not say one word on the subject. [243b] The job, he says, was forced upon him: ‘a hard problem’—No doubt—But he might have left the Reminiscences unpublisht, except what related to Mrs. C.—in spite of Carlyle’s oral injunction which reversed his written. Enough of all this!

Why will you not ‘initiate’ a letter when you are settled for a while among your Mountains? Oh, ye Medes and Persians! This may be impertinent of me: but I am ever yours sincerely

E. F.G.

I see your Book advertised as ‘ready.’