FOOTNOTES:
[24] Louisa Anne Phillips; she was only sixteen when she made her début.
[25] W. Clarkson Stanfield—the famous marine-painter.
CHAPTER XXI
A GREAT SORROW
Prominent among the many and varied characteristics of Miss Mitford’s life is the remarkable and unfailing interest she ever displayed towards struggling genius. Nothing gave her more pleasure than news of some individual who, possibly humbly born, was making a strenuous fight for fame; while to be brought into personal relationship with the struggler was a circumstance which seemed at once to quicken her mothering instinct, and it would not be long before she became a self-constituted champion, using her influence to secure the interest and support of all who were likely to be of service to her protégé.
For Haydon she had an unfailing regard and would fight his battles with any who dared to disparage him or his work in her hearing. Of Talfourd’s achievements she was never tired of talking and writing, even after he had forfeited any claim to her interest by his stupid jealousy. Lough, the sculptor, son of a small farmer in Northumberland, excited her admiration when, barely two years after he had left his father’s cornfields, he achieved fame with his Statue of Milo. And now, following her own success with Rienzi, we find her interesting herself in young Lucas, the painter, of whom she wrote to Harness: “He is only twenty-one, was bound to Reynolds, the engraver, and practised the art which he was resolved to pursue, secretly, in his own room, in hours stolen from sleep and needful exercise, and minutes from necessary food. Last July he became his own master, and since then he has regularly painted. Everybody almost that sees his pictures desires to sit, and he is already torn to pieces with business. In short, I expect great things of him. But what I especially like is his character. I have seen nothing in all my life more extraordinary than his union of patience and temper and rationality, with a high and ardent enthusiasm.” That was written in the January of 1828. In the following November she wrote to Haydon: “I am now going to tell you something which I earnestly hope will neither vex nor displease you; if it do, I shall grieve most heartily—but I do not think it will. The patron of a young artist of great merit (Mr. Lucas) has made a most earnest request that I will sit to him. He comes here to paint it—and there is a double view; first to get two or three people hereabout to sit to him; next to do him good in London, by having in the Exhibition the portrait of a person whose name will probably induce people to look at it, and bring the painting into notice. The manner in which this was pressed upon me by a friend to whom I owe great gratitude was such as I really could not refuse—especially as it can by no accident be injurious to your splendid reputation, that an ugly face which you happen to have taken, should be copied by another. There is a project of having the portrait engraved, which would increase the benefit that they anticipate to Mr. Lucas, and would be so far satisfactory to us as it would supersede a villainous print out of some magazine, from a drawing of Miss Drummond’s, which is now selling in the shops.” To this Haydon good-naturedly replied that he would not be offended and that he should be glad to be of use to Mr. Lucas, or of any service to the print; but, as a matter of fact, he was not at all pleased and was really jealous of the young painter for a while.
Meanwhile the sittings for the Lucas portrait took place, and by January of 1829 the picture was advanced enough for its original to bestow her praise. Sir William Elford was, of course, among the earliest to learn the particulars. “The portrait is said by everybody to be a work of art. It certainly is a most graceful and elegant picture—a very fine piece of colour, and, they say, a very strong likeness. It was difficult, in painting me, to steer between the Scylla and Charybdis of making me dowdy, like one of my own rustic heroines, or dressed out like a tragedy queen. He has managed the matter with infinite taste, and given to the whole figure the look of a quiet gentlewoman. I never saw a more lady-like picture. The dress is a black velvet hat, with a long, drooping black feather; a claret-coloured high gown; and a superb open cloak of gentianella blue, the silvery fur and white satin lining of which are most exquisitely painted and form one of the most beautiful pieces of drapery that can be conceived. The face is thoughtful and placid, with the eyes looking away—a peculiarity which, they say, belongs to my expression.”
Assuming that these millinery and drapery details were understandable to Sir William, the catalogue must have given him something of a shock, for he would assuredly wonder what had come over his little friend, in the first place, to have become possessed of such a heap of finery and, in the second place, to have submitted to being decked out in it.
The truth is that Lady Madelina Palmer—wife of the Reading Member, Fyshe Palmer—had taken a leading part in the arrangement for this portrait and, determined that the author of Rienzi should make a brave show, had dressed up the homely figure in some of her own society garments. The effect was worse than that of a parlour-maid masquerading as the mistress, for Miss Mitford had neither the figure nor the artificiality which could set off the bedizenments of a duke’s daughter. Poor Lucas—“the sweet young boy,” Miss Mitford afterwards called him—fumed inwardly when he saw what he had to portray, daring not to criticize lest he offend the owner of the clothes, who was near by. He stuck manfully to his task, fretting at the bad taste of the whole thing, only to cancel the picture in the end. Fortunately an engraving of the picture has been preserved, of which we are able to present a copy in these pages. As a picture it is undoubtedly graceful and admirably proportioned, but as regards the tout ensemble it must be regarded as a failure.
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, 1829.)
During the sitting Miss Mitford composed some graceful lines to the painter, which are worthy of quotation here, because apart from their intrinsic value as a poetical tribute, they also contain a piece of self-portraiture most deftly interwoven:—
“To Mr. Lucas
(Written whilst sitting to him for my Portrait, December, 1828).
“Oh, young and richly gifted! born to claim
No vulgar place amidst the sons of fame;
With shapes of beauty haunting thee like dreams,
And skill to realize Art’s loftiest themes:
How wearisome to thee the task must be
To copy these coarse features painfully;
Faded by time and paled by care, to trace
The dim complexion of this homely face;
And lend to a bent brow and anxious eye
Thy patient toil, thine Art’s high mastery.
Yet by that Art, almost methinks Divine,
By touch and colour, and the skilful line
Which at a stroke can strengthen and refine,
And mostly by the invisible influence
Of thine own spirit, gleams of thought and sense
Shoot o’er the careworn forehead, and illume
The heavy eye, and break the leaden gloom:
Even as the sunbeams on the rudest ground
Fling their illusive glories wide around,
And make the dullest scene of Nature bright
By the reflexion of their own pure light.”
During the year Dr. Mitford developed a most curious and inexplicable dislike to his daughter’s friends and acquaintances. Possibly he was growing tired of the congratulatory callers, but even so, he must surely have recognized that this sort of thing was the penalty exacted of popularity. “My father,” she wrote to William Harness, “very kind to me in many respects, very attentive if I’m ill, very solicitous that my garden should be nicely kept, that I should go out with him, and be amused—is yet, so far as art, literature, and the drama are concerned, of a temper infinitely difficult to deal with. He hates and despises them, and all their professors—looks on them with hatred and with scorn; and is constantly taunting me with my ‘friends’ and my ‘people’ (as he calls them), reproaching me if I hold the slightest intercourse with author, editor, artist, or actor, and treating with frank contempt every one not of a station in the county. I am entirely convinced that he would consider Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Walter Scott, and Mrs. Siddons as his inferiors. Always this is very painful—strangely painful.
“Since I have known Mr. Cathcart I can say with truth that he has never spoken to me or looked at me without ill-humour; sometimes taunting and scornful—sometimes more harsh than you could fancy. Now, he ought to remember that it is not for my own pleasure, but from a sense of duty, that I have been thrown in the way of these persons; and he should allow for the natural sympathy of similar pursuits and the natural wish to do the little that one so powerless and poor can do to bring merit (and that of a very high order) into notice. It is one of the few alleviations of a destiny that is wearing down my health and mind and spirits and strength—a life spent in efforts above my powers, and which will end in the workhouse, or in a Bedlam, as the body or the mind shall sink first. He ought to feel this; but he does not. I beg your pardon for vexing you with this detail. I do not often indulge in such repining.”
It is difficult to read such a letter without experiencing a feeling of intensest indignation against the almost inhuman selfishness of Dr. Mitford, who, content to batten on the fruits of his daughter’s industry, would yet make her path more difficult by his unreasonable and capricious jealousy. The incident can only be likened to that of a brute creature biting the hand that feeds him. And what, after all, was the cause of this cruel conduct? Nothing other than that his daughter was interesting herself in a young actor whose welfare she hoped to promote.
Contrast this episode with one of a few months later, which Miss Mitford was delighted to relate—it showed such admirable traits in the “dear papa’s” character, and could not go unrecorded. “Dash has nearly been killed to-day, poor fellow! He got into a rabbit burrow so far that he could neither move backward nor forward; and my father, two men and a boy, were all busy digging for upwards of two hours, in a heavy rain, to get him out. They had to penetrate through a high bank, with nothing to guide them but the poor dog’s moans. You never saw any one so full of gratitude, or so sensible of what his master has done for him, as he is.... My father was wet to the skin; but I am sure he would have dug till this time rather than any living creature, much less his own favourite dog, should have perished so miserably.”
In the tragedy of Rienzi there are some fine lines embodied in Rienzi’s injunction to his daughter, which we cannot refrain from quoting at this point:—
“Claudia, in these bad days,
When men must tread perforce the flinty path
Of duty, hard and rugged; fail not thou
Duly at night and morning to give thanks
To the all-gracious Power, that smoothed the way
For woman’s tenderer feet. She but looks on,
And waits and prays for the good cause, whilst man
Fights, struggles, triumphs, dies!”
Did we not know that Miss Mitford was incapable of a harsh thought towards her father, we should be inclined to read a satire into these lines. Who smoothed the way for her? What time had she wherein to wait and pray? Her days she spent in treading the flinty path of duty, made more rugged and hard by that one who, had he done his duty, would have exerted himself rather in smoothing the way.
Writing to Haydon late in the year to congratulate him on a success, she said:—“Be quite assured that my sympathy with you and with art is as strong as ever, albeit the demonstration have lost its youthfulness and its enthusiasm, just as I myself have done. The fact is that I am much changed, much saddened—am older in mind than in years—have entirely lost that greatest gift of nature, animal spirits, and am become as nervous and good-for-nothing a person as you can imagine. Conversation excites me sometimes, but only, I think, to fall back with a deader weight. Whether there be any physical cause for this, I cannot tell. I hope so, for then perhaps it may pass away; but I rather fear that it is the overburthen, the sense that more is expected of me than I can perform, which weighs me down and prevents me doing anything. I am ashamed to say that a play bespoken last year at Drury Lane, and wanted by them beyond measure, is not yet nearly finished. I do not even know whether it will be completed in time to be produced this season. I try to write it and cry over my lamentable inability, but I do not get on. Women were not meant to earn the bread of a family—I am sure of that—there is a want of strength.... God bless you and yours! Do not judge of the sincerity of an old friendship, or the warmth of an old friend, by the unfrequency or dulness of her letters.”
Added to all this weight of work and the forbearance exacted of her by her father, there was the worry consequent upon Mrs. Mitford’s failing health. Judging by the letters of the period it is evident that the mother’s condition was growing serious. Her mind was often a blank and, as the winter drew on, there was a recurrence of the asthma which sapped the little strength remaining to her. “My mother, whom few things touch now, is particularly pleased,” wrote Miss Mitford to William Harness à propos of a visit he had promised to pay them, and concerning which she added:—“You don’t know how often I have longed to press you to come to us, but have always been afraid; you are used to things so much better, and I thought you would find it dull.”
On Boxing-Day, 1829, Mrs. Mitford’s condition was very grave, for she was seized with apoplexy, and had to be put to bed. There she lingered hovering between life and death until the morning of January 2, 1830, when she passed away, in the eightieth year of her age. The account of her last illness and death is amongst the most touching things ever penned by her daughter—to whom sentimentality was abhorrent. It is too long for extensive quotation, but we cannot forbear making a brief extract describing the last sad moments.
“She was gone. I had kissed her dear hand and her dear face just before. She looked sweet, and calm, and peaceful: there was even a smile on her dear face. I thought my heart would have broken, and my dear father’s too.
“On Saturday I did not see her; I tried, but on opening the door I found her covered by a sheet, and had not courage to take it down.... On Thursday I saw her for the last time, in the coffin, with the dear face covered, and gathered for her all the flowers I could get—chrysanthemums (now a hallowed flower), white, yellow and purple—laurustinus, one early common primrose, a white Chinese primrose, bay and myrtle from a tree she liked, verbena, and lemon-grass also. I put some of these in the coffin, with rosemary, and my dear father put some.
“We kissed her cold hand, and then we followed her to her grave in Shinfield Church, near the door, very deep and in a fine soil, with room above it for her own dear husband and her own dear child. God grant we may tread in her steps!... No human being was ever so devoted to her duties—so just, so pious, so charitable, so true, so feminine, so industrious, so generous, so disinterested, so lady-like—never thinking of herself, always of others—the best mother, the most devoted wife, the most faithful friend.... Oh, that I could but again feel the touch of that dear hand! God forgive me my many faults to her, blessed angel, and grant that I may humbly follow in her track!... She told Harriet Palmer (of whom she was fond) that she meant to get a guinea, and have her father’s old Bible—the little black Bible which she read every day—beautifully bound, with her initials on it, and give it to me. She told me, when Otto should be performed, she wanted a guinea—but not why—and would not take it before. It shall be done, blessed saint!”
CHAPTER XXII
“THE WORKHOUSE—A FAR PREFERABLE DESTINY”
“For my own part I have plenty that must be done; much connected painfully with my terrible grief; much that is calculated to force me into exertion, by the necessity of getting money to meet the inevitable expenses. Whether it were inability or inertness I cannot tell, but Otto is still but little advanced. I lament this of all things now; I grieve over it as a fault as well as a misfortune.”
So wrote Miss Mitford to William Harness on January 9, 1830, the day following her mother’s funeral. And truly there was plenty to be done and she would need all her woman’s courage, for now “the weight which Dr. Mitford had divided between two forbearing women had to be borne by one.”
A new volume—the fourth—of Our Village was now almost ready for publication, for which Whittaker agreed to give £150, and during the month an agent from a publisher had called at Three Mile Cross with a view to arranging for a work to be entitled Stories of American Life by American Writers, which were to be selected and edited, with prefaces by Miss Mitford. The suggested publisher was Colburn. This, of course, necessitated a great deal of labour, in the midst of which the negotiations for the American book nearly fell through by reason of a quarrel between the publisher and his agent.
It was a most trying period, for Dr. Mitford grew more exacting day by day, demanding more and more attention from his daughter, whom he expected—nay, forced—to play cribbage with him until he fell asleep, when, being released, she read and worked far into the night. Then, to make matters worse, the Doctor began to imbibe more wine than was good for him—it will be noticed that his creature comforts did not diminish—and, whilst returning alone from a dinner-party in the neighbourhood, was thrown out of the chaise and the horse and vehicle arrived empty at the cottage in the dead of night. His daughter, who had been waiting for him, made the discovery that he was missing and, rousing the man and servants, they all set off along the road to Shinfield, finding him lying stunned by the roadside a mile away, “Only think,” wrote his daughter, “what an agony of suspense it was! Thank Heaven, however, he escaped uninjured, except being stiff from the jar; and I am recovering my nervousness better than I could have expected.”
Very truly yours
M. R. Mitford
THE AUTHOR OF OUR VILLAGE
Miss Mitford “attended by a printer’s devil to whom she is delivering ‘copy.’” (From a sketch in Fraser’s Magazine, May, 1831.)
The success of Rienzi in America, and the previous re-publication in that country of a small volume of the Narrative Poems on the Female Character, had brought Miss Mitford’s name prominently before the American people, and towards the end of 1830 she was gratified by the receipt of a long letter of congratulation from Miss Catharine Maria Sedgwick,[26] an American author of some repute in her day, who had, that year, published a novel entitled Hope Leslie. The letter mentioned the despatch of an author’s copy of one of the writer’s books and asked for particulars of the village and home-life of Miss Mitford, whose volumes on Our Village were being read with avidity across the Atlantic. It drew a long and characteristic reply.
“I rejoice,” wrote Miss Mitford, “to find that your book is not merely reprinted but published in England, and will contribute, together with the splendid novels of Mr. Cooper, to make the literature and manners of a country so nearly connected with us in language and ways of thinking, known and valued here. I think that every day contributes to that great end. Cooper is certainly, next to Scott, the most popular novel writer of the age. Washington Irving enjoys a high and fast reputation; the eloquence of Dr. Channing, if less widely, is perhaps more deeply felt; and a lady, whom I need not name, takes her place amongst these great men, as Miss Edgeworth does among our Scotts and Chalmerses. I have contributed, or rather, am about to contribute, my mite to this most desirable interchange of mind with mind, having selected and edited three volumes of tales, taken from the great mass of your periodical literature, and called Stories of American Life by American Authors. They are not yet published, but have been printed some time; and I shall desire Mr. Colburn to send you a copy, to which, indeed, you have every way a right, since I owe to you some of the best stories in the collection.” Then followed a short description of the events which led up to the removal from Bertram House to the cottage at Three Mile Cross. “There was, however, no loss of character amongst our other losses; and it is to the credit of human nature to say, that our change of circumstances has been attended with no other change amongst our neighbours and friends than that of increased attentions and kindness. Indeed I can never be sufficiently thankful for the very great goodness which I have experienced all through life, from almost every one with whom I have been connected. My dear mother I had the misfortune to lose last winter. My dear father still lives, a beautiful and cheerful old man, whom I should of all things like you to know, and if ever you do come to our little England, you must come and see us. We should never forgive you if you did not. Our family losses made me an authoress ... and I should have abstained from all literary offence for the future had not poverty driven me against my will to writing tragic verse and comic prose; thrice happy to have been able, by so doing, to be of some use to my dear family.”
In response to the invitation contained in this letter Miss Sedgwick did call at the cottage when, some years later, she paid a visit to this country. It was a visit ostensibly undertaken to see the sights and meet the lions—particularly the literary lions. The record of the trip was embodied in two small volumes published in 1841 by Moxon, in London, and entitled Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home. Miss Sedgwick possessed a telling style, picturesque to a degree, and there can be no shadow of doubt that her “kindred at home” were delighted to have her spicy epistles, but they shocked Miss Mitford. “If you have a mind,” the latter wrote to a friend, “to read the coarsest Americanism ever put forth, read the Literary Gazette of this last week. I remember, my dear love, how much and how justly you were shocked at Miss Sedgwick’s way of speaking of poor Miss Landon’s death; but when you remember that her brother and nephew had spent twice ten days at our poor cottage—that she had been received as their kinswoman, and therefore as a friend, you may judge how unexpected this coarse detail has been. The Athenæum will give you no notion of the original passage nor the book itself—for John Kenyon, meeting with it at Moxon’s, cancelled the passage—but too late for the journals, except the Athenæum. Of course its chief annoyance to me is the finding the aunt of a dear friend so excessively vulgar. Do get the Literary Gazette—for really it must be seen to be believed.”
We quote the extract from the Literary Gazette of July 10, 1841.
“Our coachman (who, after telling him we were Americans, had complimented us on our speaking English, ‘and very good English, too’) professed an acquaintance of some twenty years standing with Miss M., and assured us that she was one of the ‘cleverest women in England,’ and ‘the Doctor’ (her father) ‘an ’earty old boy.’ And when he reined his horses up to her door, and she appeared to receive us, he said, ‘Now you would not take that little body there for the great author, would you?’ and certainly we should have taken her for nothing but a kindly gentlewoman, who had never gone beyond the narrow sphere of the most refined social life.... Miss M. is truly ‘a little body,’ and dressed a little quaintly, and as unlike as possible to the faces we have seen of her in the magazines, which all have a broad humour, bordering on coarseness. She has a pale grey, soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow; a wintry sign that has come prematurely upon her, as like signs come upon us, while the year is yet fresh and undecayed. Her voice has a sweet, low tone, and her manner a naturalness, frankness, and affectionateness, that we have been so long familiar with in their other modes of manifestation, that it would have been indeed a disappointment not to have found them.... The garden is filled, matted with flowering shrubs and vines; the trees are wreathed with honeysuckles and roses. Oh! that I could give some of my countrywomen a vision of this little paradise of flowers, that they might learn how taste and industry and an earnest love and study of the art of garden-culture, might triumph over small space and small means. In this very humble home she receives on equal terms the best in the land. Her literary reputation might have gained for her this elevation, but she started on vantage-ground, being allied by blood to the Duke of Bedford’s family.”
Speaking for ourselves, we are inclined to disagree with Miss Mitford’s strictures. The article is breezy, certainly, and short of the reference to the ’earty old boy and to herself as “the little body,” we confess to finding it little short of a very kindly tribute. As to the concluding sentence of the article, that was, perhaps, a case of “drawing the long bow,” but then both Miss Mitford and her mother frequently alluded to the distant connection of the latter with the Bedford’s, and the fact must have been mentioned by Miss Mitford in her visitor’s hearing.
As a companion to the Stories of American Life, Whittaker suggested a series of similar stories for children, and it was upon this project that Miss Mitford worked at the end of 1830 and into 1831. The work was to comprise six volumes—three for children over ten years of age and three for those of ten and under, and the publication was completed by the year 1832. Then, as Dr. Mitford’s exactions were still great and his purse had to be kept well filled, his daughter’s mind turned once more to the Drama and to the play of Charles the First, which lay neglected for want of official sanction. The Duke of Devonshire having, by this time, succeeded the Duke of Montrose as Lord Chamberlain, Miss Mitford made one more attempt to secure a licence for the banned play. A letter—a veritable model of courtesy and diplomacy—was despatched to His Grace with a copy of the work in question:—
“My Lord Duke,—
“The spirit of liberality and justice to dramatic authors by which your Grace’s exercise of the functions of Lord High Chamberlain has been distinguished, forms the only excuse for the liberty taken in sending my tragedy of Charles the First direct to yourself, instead of transmitting it, in the usual mode, from the theatre to Mr. Colman. To send it to that gentleman, indeed, would be worse than useless, the play having been written at the time of the Duke of Montrose, and a licence having been refused to it on account of the title and the subject, which Mr. Colman declared to be inadmissible on the stage. That this is not the general opinion may be inferred from the subject’s having been repeatedly pointed out by different critics as one of the most dramatic points of English history, and especially recommended to me both by managers and actors. That such could not always have been the feeling of those in power is proved by the fact that there is actually a tragedy, on the very same subject and bearing the very same title, written some sixty or seventy years since by Havard the player, in which John Kemble, at one time, performed the principal character, and which might be represented any night, at any other theatre, without the necessity of a licence or the possibility of an objection. It is the existence of this piece which makes the prohibition of mine seem doubly hard, and emboldens me to appeal to your Grace’s kindness against the rigorous decree of your predecessor.... I am not aware that there is in the whole piece one line which could be construed into bearing the remotest analogy to present circumstances, or that could cause scandal or offence to the most loyal. If I had been foolish or wicked enough to have written such things, the reign of William the Fourth and the administration of Earl Grey would hardly be the time to produce them.”
To this the Duke replied that he could not—consistently with his established rule not to reverse the decisions of his predecessor—license the play, and so the matter was dropped for a time.
Meanwhile active preparations were in progress for the fifth and last volume of Our Village, and, during the year, there was a mild rehearsal at the cottage of a Scena, entitled Mary Queen of Scots’ Farewell to France, which Miss Mitford had composed at the instigation of a Reading young man named Charles Parker, who had set the Scena to music—“a sweet and charming lad in mind and temper, a Master of the Royal Musical Academy of London, not yet twenty-one,” was Miss Mitford’s description of him.
This composition was declared, so the author said, to be “as fine as anything in English music,” and those who were privileged to hear the village rehearsal were charmed with it, although they heard it to disadvantage, “for it makes fifty pages of music, and requires the united bands of Drury Lane and the Royal Musical Academy and above fifty chorus-women. The first five lines (an almost literal translation of Mary’s own verses,
‘Adieu! plaisant pays de France’),
are the air—then the blank verse in exquisite recitative—then a magnificent chorus—then the song again—and then a chorus fading into the distance. No woman in England except Mrs. Wood can sing it; so that whether it will be performed in public is doubtful; but it is something to have furnished the thread on which such pearls are strung.” Unfortunately the composition never did obtain a hearing, so far as we can discover. Following this, and late in the year 1831, with a view to helping forward the fortunes of Mr. Parker, Miss Mitford became again “immersed in music.” “I am writing an opera for and with Charles Parker; and you would really be diverted to find how learned I am become on the subject of choruses and double choruses and trios and septets. Very fine music carries me away more than anything—but then it must be very fine. Our opera will be most splendid—a real opera—all singing and recitative—blank verse of course, and rhyme for the airs, with plenty of magic—an Eastern fairy tale.” This was Sadak and Kalasrade, of which an unkind but truthful critic wrote: “It was only once performed. Wretchedly played and sung as it was, it hardly deserved a better fate. The music, by a now forgotten pupil of our Academy of Music, was heavy and valueless, and the dramatist, though graceful and fresh as a lyrist, had not the instinct, or had not mastered the secret of writing for music.” This, of course, meant so much wasted time and energy at a period when both were valuable and needed conserving as much as possible.
It was unfortunate that the opera proved such a failure, for on its success the Mitfords were relying for the replenishment of their exchequer. “Shall we be able to go on if the Opera is delayed till February?” wrote Miss Mitford in September, 1832, to her father, then staying at the Sussex Hotel in Bouverie Street. She had been busy during the spring and summer in making up lost time on the preparation of the last volume of Our Village. It was published in the autumn, but as its author made no mention of the matter in her letter to her father, we presume that an advance payment on account had been received and used. In the same letter she alludes to a notice of objection to the Doctor’s vote, “not on account of the vote, but for fear it should bring on that abominable question of the qualification for the magistracy. Ask our dear Mr. Talfourd whether the two fields, forty shilling freehold, will be enough, without bringing out the other affair. In short, it worries me exceedingly; and if there were any danger in it one way or other it would be best to keep out of the way and lose the vote, rather than do anything that could implicate the other and far more important matter.” In so far as the magistracy was concerned it was astonishing that the matter had never been questioned.
With her father in London—the seat of his temptations—spending her hard-earned income, she grew low-spirited and ill. Her complaint, she explained in a letter to William Harness, was one brought on by anxiety, fatigue or worry, and she told him how she hesitated consulting a physician, knowing full well that his prescription would be “not to write.” The bread had to be earned and the means secured which would give her father plenty wherewith to enjoy himself. Added to this were the “levees”—as she called them—which she was forced to endure all day long by reason of the folk who came from far and near to call upon her. “Every idle person who comes within twenty miles gets a letter of introduction, or an introduction in the shape of an acquaintance, and comes to see my geraniums or myself—Heaven knows which! I have had seven carriages at once at the door of our little cottage—and this is terrible when one is not well.”
While the Doctor was still in London an offer came from one of Miss Mitford’s cousins—a Mrs. Raggett—suggesting that she should give up authorship altogether and live with her and her husband, the scheme being that Miss Mitford should act as reader and secretary to Mr. Raggett, who was nearly blind, and be a companion to his wife. “The offer had great temptation,” she told William Harness, “and I have no doubt we should have been happy together, but it is clear my father’s comfort would have been destroyed by such an arrangement; the sacrifice of his old habits—his old friends—the blameless self-importance which results from his station as Chairman of the Reading Bench—and his really influential position in this county, where we are much respected in spite of our poverty, would have been far too much to ask or to permit. I refused it therefore at once.”
To her old friend, Sir William Elford—not often written to in these driving days—she wrote: “I must be obliged to get out another book this spring, although how I shall be able to write it God only knows. I am glad you like my last volume; I myself hate all my own doings, and consider the being forced to this drudgery as the greatest misery that life can afford. But it is my wretched fate and must be undergone—so long, at least, as my father is spared to me. If I should have the misfortune to lose him, I shall go quietly to the workhouse, and never write another line—a far preferable destiny.”