JWC TO JEAN CARLYLE; December 1828; DOI: 10.1215/lt-18281200-JWC-JCA-01; CL 4:424-425.
JWC TO JEAN CARLYLE
Craigenputtoch / Monday [December 1828]
My dear Jane
Here is a very old coat, and some fractions of old trowsers which Carlyle bids me send to your Mother—with what view, I cannot possibly imagine; unless it be to nail currant bushes—or rig out a pottato-boggle [scare-crow].
I take the opportunity of sending at the same time my tin dressing-box which you may perhaps find useful in holding little sundries— The whole ‘sendung’ is of the most precious description; and it is to be hoped you will welcome it in your choicest mood.1
We are all quite well here but exceedingly cold and illnatured. I hope Carlyle told your Mother how much I was gratified by her kind present. I assure you I am very vain of the beautiful little shawl so vain that I rode to Templand with it above my habit. Jemmy would tell you of the gallant expedition2 which Mary and I executed in Carlyles absence? But nobody can have told you how we were bitten with the cold— or what temptation we resisted to halt for whiskey at a public house by the way. I shall not travel in a winter day again without a small phialfull in my pocket.
My kind love to you [al]l and a kiss to your Father, if any of you dare give it him.
I shall certainly see your Mother before long— She will come up hither if there is grace left in her; at all events I will be down—
I hear you are very diligent and very good. I on the other hand am very idle and bad. I have done no one useful thing for a week except making thee two daidlies3—
Affectionately yours /
Jane W Carl[yle]
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