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*VIII-CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

BY FREDRICK DOLMAN

HARLOTTE MARY YONGE is one
of the most venerable figures of
literary England. The titles of
her books occupy eight of the
capacious pages of the catalogue
of the British Museum Library,
and in addition to fiction, belong
impartially to history, biography,
science and belles-lettres.

Her books have been written-with but
few exceptions-at a picturesque, oldfashioned
manor-house in the county of
Hampshire. Elderfield is the ancestral
seat of a branch of the Yonges of Puslinch,
Devonshire, a family which lays high claim
to long descent, and which, about the
middle of the seventeenth century, provided
Plymouth with a member of the House of
Commons, Sir Thomas Yonge. William
Cranley Yonge, the father of the authoresss,
was a Waterloo hero, an officer of the
Fifty-second Regiment, who, before indulging
in the leisured ease of a country gentleman
on his estate. saw some hard service
in the war with France. Charlotte Mary
was his only daughter and for seven years
his only child. Miss Yonge believes that,
in consequence, an unusual amount of care
was lavished
upon her. She
could read at eh
age of four, and
in her sixth year
actually read
aloud to her
mother Rollin's
"Ancient History"
with some
understanding of
what she was
reading.

In the making
of her books Miss
Yonge's parents,
by the training
they gave their
only daughter,
have had a direct
and all-powerful
influence. She
has made translations
from the
French, compiled
reading books
for elementary
schools, edited
Shakespeare and
selections from
classical authors,
written histories
of Rome, England,
France
and Germany,
biographies of
persons, eminent
and otherwise,
not to mention
the works of fiction
which are
almost innumerable.
But throughout
all her literary
productions, as
throughout her daily life, she has been true
to her High Church training, faithful to
the theological doctrines and ecclesiastial
system on which she has been reared.

Miss Yonge entertains the pleasantest
recollections of her girlhood. Her recollections
are probably the more pleasant as
they are undoubtedly the more vivid because
she is still living in the garden
where she played as a child, reads in the
shrubbery where she first discovered the
hibition of 1851." The first edition of
seven hundred and fifty copies was exhausted
in a few weeks, and from that time
to this there has been a steady and unfailing
sale for the book. From the large
profits of the book Miss Yonge was able to
fit out the "Southern Cross," Bishop Selwin's
missionary steamer. In other ways
foreign missions have been benefited
by Miss Yonge's literary success. With
the proceeds of her very successful series
of stories called "The Daisy Chain" she
has been able to build a missionary college
at Auckland, New Zealand.

Miss Yonge's face is indicative of physi-

Editor's Note- This series of papers, "A Daughter
at Sixteen," designed to give in five articles the
best possible counsel to mothers, was begun in the
Journal of March, 1894. Copies of the issues containing
the series will be sent, postpaid, no receipt of
fifty cents. Address The Curtis Publishing Company,
Philadelphia, Pa.