Letter from Emma Hubbard to her cousin Arthur Phelps. Transcribed from a scan of the original in May 2014 by Penelope Forrest, born Phelps, great granddaughter of Arthur.

                                                                                                Bosworth  Sep^r 6  59

My dearest Arthur,

            As far as my small experience goes, it's not of much use writing to you – nevertheless, with a hopefulness worthy of a less advanced age, I am trying again. Not that I have written to you very recently – not for instance since the birth of our son George, who will be 6 months old on the 19^th of this month, & who is rather a nice great fellow, going to be good-looking some day, though he has not quite accomplished it yet. Dear old Joe is one of his Godfathers – & was here for the christening. The other, by way of not having too uniform a pair, is Richard Whitby.

            It was very pleasant to have old Joe here again for a little while. It brought back the old days very much to walk about with him. He is improved too – less conceited & less openly bigoted – his opinions are in the very bone of him I think – so I dare say they are not much modified, but they are not so obtrusive. I did so very much like the little I saw of Mary. She did not of course come here, but I saw her when I was at K. S¹. I have a faint recollection of her as she was 23 years ago in England – but that would not have helped me to recognize her I think. It must be very pleasant for Joe to have her out there. I cannot much regret Annette's having given him up after having kept him dangling so many years. I should be very glad to hear of his finding some nice wife – he wants one & he deserves one. Mind, you are not to marry anyone out there. Wait till you come home, & then apply to me for one, & I will choose you a very nice one.

            I have one thing to tell you which I have been thinking about ever since I began & which I am afraid you have not heard of yet. It is the death of dear Mad^lle Heres. Neither the Copes nor I had heard from her for some time – her last letters spoke much of the violent & incessant pain she suffered in her head – when there came a letter from a Miss Spooner, apparently an English governess in her school, to tell us that she had been attacked with rheumatic fever, which after a week, went on to brain fever, & after another week – during most of which she was insensible – she died. Her old home at Amorbach was not well adapted for a school, so she had just removed to another house, at Ilvesheim, & had only been there a week or so, when her illness began. The world seems so much the poorer for her loss – & if it does so to us, what must it do to poor Nina, & the widowed Bertha & her Mother. I do not know what they will do. They seemed so dependent on her for everything, as if they had neither energy nor judgement nor power to do anything without her. Her own family had no portrait at all of her, so M^rs Cope & I had copies taken of the photographs that we had of her, & sent them, & I had one done for you, for I know you will like to have it.

            9th Sep. I have just been packing it for you, & send it by the same mail as this, & hope it may reach you safely. I hope also that I am not endeavouring to defraud the government by sending it per book post. I flatter myself I have done it moderately well. Look inside one end of the paper wrapper, & you will find a sketch of the dear old Church which I did for you last year, & have never sent. It's nothing as a picture – I haven't the art of making pictures – but it is like, so I dare say you may like to have it. There is not such another Church anywhere.

            I send you another photograph too, taken in the spring, which will amuse you. It is of course of our Arthur, & equally of course it does not do a bit of justice to his sweet face, only it does give very well one funny sly & sagacious look of his, & I should like you to know a little what the boy is like. Look at it with a magnifying glass. I came in by accident as I was stooping down to talk to him & keep him quiet, so I thought you might like it none the worse for the mistake. Mamma took me at first for a trunk of a tree put in for pictorial effect, so I don't spoil it. I get very middle-aged as you see. This summer we fell in with Walter Stace, fresh from St Helena, at Farrance's, & he did not know me at first. Arthur has a very fair complexion & bright yellow hair – & the wisest little black eyes anywhere between here & Bombay. Also he occasionally looks like you, & sometimes like John Flower, & A^t Grover declares that he is the very image of what John Dickinson was at his age, so he has an eligible set of likenesses you see. But by far the strongest is to dear George – that black shade of George among those silhouettes of Papa, Mamma, Nurse & the rest all in one frame that I dare say you remember in Mamma's room, might almost have been taken from Arthur. So often, as I walk out with him here, the people stop & say how like he is to "Master George". He is a dear good boy, & talks all day long almost – all sorts of queer notions seem to get into the little head. Joe liked him so much. I think he liked all his little nephews & nieces very much but I hear he considered this quite A.1. among them.

            It is very strange, but I have never seen dear B's boy yet. I hear he is such a very nice one, as of course he ought to be, but you never appreciated Bassy. You are by no means singular in that, more's the pity. Even people who see how far above most folks he is in mind, don't half know or believe in all the gentleness & kindness & great unselfishness of his character. I heard lately from Mary of his teaching an ignorant servant they now have to read & write – & if you knew how tired he is when he comes home from his daily work & how anxious to have a little more time to himself to arrange &c his poems, which he is thinking of publishing some day before very long, you would confess that there are not many who would do it.

            I was rather surprised to see you speak of Arthur as your hero. It seems strange too that I had not known it before. It is something to thank God for to have had four such brothers. It is such a happiness to see dear old Jack looking happy again. They came & spent a couple of days with us here on their way home from their fortnight's wedding tour. I had not at all thought that Jack would marry again, & was considerably astonished when the notion was first put in my head. I am most heartily glad he has done so though – he & his home looked so desolate before. Miss Stewart goes on very happily there. She spent a fortnight with us very quietly & pleasantly this summer.

            They have had a young Hugo Pearson, nephew of the Col's, staying a little while with his cousin Jane at Osbaston – such a very nice young fellow of about your age, who was with Havelock in all his late battles – 13 of them I think. The 2 Cope boys look very grown up. Tom is going to Cambridge this month. He means to be a lawyer. Ian thinks of taking orders – & will I dare say make a very good straightforward kind-hearted clergyman. They have a lathe & are both very fair hands at turning, which is a very great advantage to any man in my eyes of course. Have you not a very pleasant memory of the old tool-room, & the aromatic smell of freshly cut wood, & French polish in it? I have not quite given up carving yet. I am now chipping away at a string box for Mamma out of a bit of one of the old walnut trees,

which is to be very pretty some day, with 5 ivy wreaths twisting round it.

Do you do anything in the way of drawing &c now? You ought, for I think you are more of an artist than any other Phelps, except perhaps Janey & she, poor thing, like myself, has her art rather overlaid by her ingenuity.

            The Headmaster here, M^r Walters, goes on quietly enough with his two little pupils. There is much talk of his intended marriage to a Miss Knowles of Nailstone, cousin of the large Charles, a girl of 18 without much education. Whether it will be or not I don't know, but he is there so constantly that he can hardly mean nothing by it.

            I have not seen your friend Miss Hook very lately, but I believe she is very well. John Edwards I often meet out walking – he looks much as usual. Emily is the only one at home with him now. Cox has been engaged to be married for a long time now, which sounds sufficiently absurd. The young lady is I believe a very agreeable one, with 2 or 3 hundred a year of her own, an orphan. Cox has I believe given up his notion of being a doctor, & means to be a clergyman instead. The Smales go on just as usual. We are always on very friendly terms with them, of which I am glad.

            Anne is coming here on Tuesday. She too is little changed, except for the thinner. In fact I don't believe that people ever do change. She has been working hard this year under a M^r Lucas at thorough-bass, which is very right of her.

            I wonder when I shall get a letter from you. Tell me all about yourself if you can. You don't know how often I think about you, & how I care for all about you. Where or what is Calaba? & has it any reference to calabash? & what is a Bazar Master? & are you one still? To one's English notions it is suggestive of the Oxford St Pantheon, & one fancies you setting the prices of dolls, or looking after damaged rattles, arranging mock jewellery & the like.

            Do you see or hear anything of Staffy Haines, who is I hear to be called Fred in these days, now? Don't you remember his Mother's attempt to insert Bettesworth into his name? I heard lately from poor Nellie Mules, with no good tidings of her Father. Why does not he pass the Court & have an end to all this business?

            It is rather out of date now, in Sep, but I send you some Burns Rhymes of B's which I think very good, & more in Burns's own style than any of the many rhymes one saw on the occasion². They set him to make the speech on the occasion of the anniversary dinner, so B did it in rhyme. He had hardly any time to write it in – 2 evenings I think he told me – & the ink was still wet when he put it in his pocket to take. He was asked for so many copies that he had to have it printed in self defence. I wish we saw more of him here. He is now with Elizabeth & B minor at Weymouth. The doctors ordered him to the sea to get rid of pains in his head, teeth & ears, & I hear he is much better.

            I see by the paper today that the Great Eastern is fairly off at last. One hopes it will answer. What a very serious thing the general move of the Indian troops home is! I wonder what is thought of Lord Canning in your parts. How long will it be before we can hope to see your old face in these parts again?

            John is as usual out, but I shall send his love to you all the same. We lead such a happy life together. Clara's wedding is I hear to be on the 7^th of Jan, but I know Fanny is writing by this mail, so I need not say anything about her, nor about Uncle John's illness, nor that Mamma & Aunt Fanny are with A^t Grover at Brighton & the 3 sisters very happy together.

            Goodbye dearest Arthur. God bless you. Don't forget me if you can help it.

            Always your very loving

                        Emma

1. Kensington Square

2. 25 January 1859 was the centenary of Robert Burns's birth.

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