A Lady of England: The Life and Letters of Charlotte Maria Tucker

I often like to read Spurgeon’s sermons. They are full of apt illustrations, and he never repeats himself. I find them so useful in my writings; and I know hardly any other work...

One matter of marked interest in the year 1887 was the retirement of Bishop French from the Bishopric of Lahore, and his return to the humbler post of simple Missionary. This st...

Once more Miss Tucker settled down in Batala--for life! She would only leave the place again for her short and well-earned holidays; and at the last for her passing away.

It is clear that Charlotte Tucker was profoundly impressed with the sense of living, as she said, in the First Century, instead of the Nineteenth. In another letter, soon to be...

About the middle of August Miss Tucker went for change to Allahabad; and very soon after her arrival she was able to speak of herself as ‘less tired’ than before leaving Batala;...

Though Miss Tucker had by no means fallen in love with Dalhousie during her former visit to the Hills, she was again this August to be, as she said, ‘almost trapped’ into going...

The year 1888 closed with another sharp attack of illness, not so severe or so prolonged as that of 1885, but sufficient to cause anxiety. On the 16th of December, though ‘far f...

The greater part of 1881 passed much as 1880 had passed; Miss Tucker continuing to live in the old palace, busy and happy among her Indian friends, and cheery with the boys, hav...

So severe an illness could not fail to leave traces; and Charlotte Tucker came out of it more distinctly an old lady than she had ever been before. Ten years of perpetual toil h...

The Evening of Miss Tucker’s life was passing fast away. Sixteen years of her long Indian campaign were over. Only two years remained. But the end of her Evening was to be Day,...

In the previous spring, when first Charlotte Tucker decided to go out, she wrote in one letter a statement of the financial plan to be followed. ‘I have arranged with the Societ...

Up to the end of October Miss Tucker had seemed to be on the whole much the same as usual; though more than one watcher had noted a gradual failure of strength. The expedition t...

It must have been at about this time that Charlotte became increasingly anxious for more of definite outdoor work among the poor. Her wish was to be allowed to visit in the Mary...

The year 1877 dawned full of work and full of hope, in Batala. Fresh openings were appearing on all sides; and to the four Zenanas which at first could alone be entered, others...

More than half of Charlotte Tucker’s first year in India was now over; and still no thought of work for herself in Batala had arisen. She knew about Batala, and was interested i...

Letters at this late period of Miss Tucker’s life become so abundant, from numerous quarters, that the main difficulty is in selection, the main cause of regret is that so few c...

The annals of 1879 are as usual very abundant, and space can only be found for a limited selection of extracts. Miss Tucker was much distressed about the Afghan war; not because...

Changes again were impending. Mr. and Mrs. Weitbrecht, after two years’ work in Batala, were to quit the place; and in their stead would come Mr. and Mrs. Corfield,--the former...

In the last few chapters we have had glimpses of Charlotte Tucker’s life rather from within than from without; chiefly in reference to her successive losses, and her own feeling...

In December 1876 Charlotte Maria Tucker entered upon the final stage of her earthly career. Final in a sense; for though more than once Batala had to be temporarily deserted, th...

One-half of the life of Charlotte Tucker was now over; a quiet and uneventful life thus far. If we like, we may mentally divide her story into four quarters, each about eighteen...

In the second week of October 1875, Miss Tucker left English shores, never to return. The voyage was uneventful, differing therein from her trip to Canada. On its very next voya...

The series of extracts from letters, through the year 1879, given in the last chapter, will convey a fair general idea of how many succeeding years were passed. To quote with eq...

Charlotte Maria Tucker was born on the 8th of May 1821, not within the sound of Bow bells, but, as already stated, at Friern Hatch, in Barnet, no long time before the family set...

In the year 1854 Mr. St. George Tucker again came home from India; and in the autumn he took his Mother and sisters for three months to The Mote, an old country house about six...

One letter at about this time gives particulars of how Charlotte tried to influence, not without results, a poor Roman Catholic woman, whom she came across in the Infirmary. Ano...

It is not quite easy to say at what precise date the idea first seriously presented itself to the mind of Charlotte Tucker, that she might go out to India as a Missionary. Some...

With the coming of autumn, accounts of Mrs. Hamilton’s state grew steadily worse. In the middle of October Miss Tucker went for a few days to Rawal Pindi; and the last letter wh...

One after another the brothers of Charlotte went out to India. Henry Carre, the eldest, well known in Indian story, had left in 1831, when she was only ten years old; and in 183...

The afternoon shadows were again to darken around Charlotte Tucker; and one blow after another had to fall. Her mother was growing old, and in no long time would be called away....

There can be no mistake about Charlotte Tucker’s enjoyment of fresh sights and scenes across the Atlantic, or about the fact that increasing years had at least not dimmed her ap...

Charlotte Maria Tucker, known widely by her _nom de plume_ of A. L. O. E.,--signifying A Lady Of England,--as the successful author of numberless children’s books, deserves to b...

In 1847 a new interest entered the life of Charlotte Tucker. The three little ones of her brother Robert and his wife,--Louis, Charley, and Letitia,--came to live at No. 3, and...

NELLIE. O my dear old Tutor, I shall be so sorry to lose you! I wish that my good Father had kept to his old plan, and instead of sending Bob to College had kept both you and hi...

Three more years only remained to Charlotte of life in the dear old home of her infancy. Those three years passed quietly, marked by no stirring events. On the 11th of December...

CHARLES. I have spent the last few months there, Madam, though I was not born in Scotland. They were unfortunate months to me. I came to England on my Company’s being broken up.

DARESBY. Of what am I charged? Who is my accuser? what wretch dares? [_HORATIA repeats the signs._] What is the meaning of all this nonsense? Do you wish to make a fool of me? I...

RAVENSBY. ‘Th’ intensity of grief destroys itself. The torturer beholds his Victim stretched Unconscious, pain itself o’ercome by pain. Fate dooms me now to death; last punishme...

COL. Most comfortable. No traces of the pigs, ha, ha! none the worse for the chimney-top; ha, ha, ha! That Comet has a tail, I guess. Well, Weasel, how has all gone on these two...

O’SHAN. A could, misty, morning, and I am left here to keep watch without a drop of the cratur to cheer my heart or keep my spirits from sinking. There’s all the rest of them go...

Some little time before this Mr. Baring had, for various reasons, decided to leave Batala, though not, it seems, to give up his interest in the High School. His departure was fi...

CHARLES. Something better than a vault this, methinks. I could not have found a hiding-place more to my mind. Excellent cherry-brandy she makes, this Mrs. Judith. I have entered...

CHARLES. But I do not like promenading at this hour in winter! Is it a country fashion? I am very cold, and tired, and sleepy, and I would rather retire to rest.

CHARLES. A cold, wet, and misty evening, and above all to one whose pockets are not lined! My foolish fancy for the Stage has brought me to a declining stage, if not a stage of...

HORATIA. What a sleepless night I have passed, what anxiety, what excitement! and yet how unlike is he to what I had imagined! so timid, so petulant! and that perpetual punning!...

CORP. Silence! Silence! halt! advance bending down and with your bayonets presented. Comrades, this is a glorious day, and if we catch the Pretender we shall have little cause t...

Though verging now on her thirtieth year, Charlotte Tucker was still unknown to the public as an Author. If the initials A. L. O. E. existed in her mind as a future possibility,...

‘Constant discipline in unnoticed ways, and the hidden spirit’s silent unselfishness, becoming the hidden habit of the life, give to it its true saintly beauty, and this is the...