[‘Nothing but death or the gout’: Lord Haldane [Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane], Lord Chancellor.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to ‘Mrs Sturgis’ [George Meredith’s daughter], about plans for visits, one preceding dinner with the king.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letters are in good condition, lightly aged, and both folded once. Both addressed to ‘Mrs Sturgis’, and both signed ‘R B Haldane’. The year in both cases is in the first decade of the twentieth century, but the last digit is hard to decipher. ONE: 27 January [1901?]. 2pp, 12mo. On the first leaf of a bifolium. He fears that he will not reach Leatherhead (where the Sturgis had a country house) before ‘the late train after dinner on Sat. the 21st.’ He plans to ‘send down a servant ahead’, and himself ‘come at bedtime’. He will come straight from ‘an unwelcome but invaluable public function’, which he is forced to attend. TWO: 16 February [1904?]. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. He hopes to be with her ‘before midnight on Saturday & to stay till late in the Sunday afternoon’. He can stay no later, as ‘a “command” has come from Lord & Lady Howe on the instruction of the King that I am to dine at 8.30 at Curzon House on Sunday to meet him, as he desires to see me about something.’ As ‘Nothing but death or the gout will be accepted as an excuse’, he is afraid he ‘must go up by the 6 train’. At least he will be ‘able to walk’ in her company to Boxhill, ‘& that will be nice. And we shall have the day.’ From the autograph album of the novelist George Meredith's daughter Marie Eveleen (Mariette; 1871-1933), later the wife of Henry Parkman Sturgis (1847-1929), American-born banker and Liberal politician.