Letter from Emma Evans to her cousin Arthur Phelps.  Transcribed from a scan of the original in March 2015 by Penelope Forrest, born Phelps, great granddaughter of Arthur.

                                                                                                                                15 Pelham Crescent, Hastings

                                                                                                                                             Oct^r 10^th [1853]

Dear Pompey,

            As my last letter to you was cut so unceremoniously short & as there seems very little letter writing time during the day here, & as my eyes are tired with seal cutting, I may as well rest them on you, as the 4 others are playing at rubbers this evening. These excuses for writing are intended to take down your conceit if you have any left after the severe series of notes I have favoured you with lately.

            If you will write a note to Mad^lle & let me have it this week I will enclose it to her. Her birthday is on the 18^th as perhaps you remember, and I have been at work lately making a seal for her – but I find I do not know much what a great I is like & can only find one in a Prayerbook of this 

  sort, which I believe is wrong & I know is ugly, so I must wait till tomorrow & buy myself a copybook. Having no new ideas, I have done another dog on the top – the fourth  have done – & a plait round underneath, which if you look is made of one cord

– & Clara affronts me by calling it a dog in a basket.

            I meant to tell you more about her last letter but had not time. I am not sure whether it is not written rather in confidence – but she is thinking of leaving the Domiels as she is of no use to Marie (poor thing she says I cannot think how humiliating she finds it to see how little good she has done there) & setting up a school. When she was in Germany, she found her sister Bertha's husband with some incurable disease (from what she says I should think softening of the brain) which is taking away the use of his mind & leaving her sister totally unprovided for, with 3 little girls. So Ida, always ready to devote all her energies & powers, all herself, for others, is thinking of coming to London in the first instance, where she has a friend – and trying to get up a connection there & to become sufficiently known to obtain a few pupils to take back to Germany with her & educate with her 3 nieces. Those lines of Keble's continually come into my head when I think of her, "Meek souls there are, who little deem

            Their daily task an angel's theme;

            Nor that the rod they take so calm

            Shall prove, in Heaven, a martyr's palm."

"All for the best" – a smooth life would have been wasted on her – it is only fit for the weak or cowardly. The only thing is that she is so very far from strong. The verses, as I thought, were not written out by herself, but by "mon frère", because a very little exertion of any kind gives her a nervous trembling in the hands that unfits her for doing anything. However, as I said before, all for the best.

            I often want you here old boy – partly selfishly, for then we could get out on the beach at night when the sea is the pleasantest, & watch the moon light. It seems to me almost wicked to sit here playing at cards, when we could be out there, learning better things than not to trump your partner's best card &c. The sea here is magnificent – & changes more rapidly here 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe' than any sea I ever knew. One day it will be furious, with great waves curling over in the grandest way, & the next it will perhaps be as it is today, like a great lake, with only just energy enough to send a little line of ripples running along the beach, & making the pleasantest music in the world to sit & dream to.

            There was a wreck here the other day, which Papa & Mamma saw – a collier of between 80 & 90 tons burden. It had unloaded & no one was on board. It went completely to pieces, breaking in two across the middle after the masts had gone over. It must have been a very fine sight. I was very sorry to have missed it.

            Neither of your sisters is so well as she ought to be, & Fanny talks of going back to A.H. on Saturday – which I don't think will be allowed. The Haywards mean to give a party on Thursday to commemorate the anniversary of Bessie's wedding day. They sail on the 19^th so one may easily imagine what a cheerful light-hearted reunion it will be. I think it is very foolish of them – but Bessie wished it. Mary likes being here. She finds the sea very much what she expected & enjoyed her first sail, which she took yesterday (Monday) very much indeed.

            It is a very nice place, but there is a lamentable lack of good faces in it. You would be amused at the popular Church here, built like a theatre in a horseshoe shape & lighted from above. You have to take tickets for it at the bath rooms, & pay more for a good situation. I don't know if they have pit & boxes as well as gallery.

            Papa has not been going on quite so well the last few days as he did at first. I think he fancied himself stronger than he really is, & did too much.

            Fancy my being late for the train at Athens when I came here – & having to go on to Nuneaton to catch the express – & to rush through London without waiting to see or do anything, when I had meant to spend several hours at the Haywards & do no end of shopping in the carpentry line. Gratifying, wasn't it? And to sit at Nuneaton for nearly 3 hours, in a very cold & dirty waiting room, most of the time with the rain beating against the window, trying hard to persuade myself that I was perfectly calm & in not a bit of a passion with myself or anyone else.

            Perhaps you don't like crossing till I have learnt to write better, so goodbye old boy.

            Ever your affectionate coz, Emma

There is an old Castle on the heights here, laid out as tea-gardens, in accordance with the English taste on such matters.

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