FOOTNOTES:
[29] Kerenhappuck, her companion.
CHAPTER XXVII
LOVE FOR CHILDREN AND LAST DAYS AT THREE MILE CROSS
Love of little children was one of the noticeable characteristics of Dr. Mitford’s life, and it was one in which his daughter shared. That she entered most fully into the games and pursuits of the village youngsters is evidenced in Our Village, where we obtain delightful little portraits of Joe Kirby, Jack Rapley, Jem and Lizzie, which sufficiently indicate the author’s knowledge of the child-mind, to say nothing of those breezy, hilarious descriptions of the slide and the cricket-match.
Shortly after Dr. Mitford’s death there came into her life a little boy named Henry Taylor—frequently alluded to as “K——’s little boy” in her letters, and as “little Henry” in the Recollections, but not to be confounded with the “little Henry” of Our Village, who was a lad sometimes hired by the Doctor for the performance of odd jobs.
Henry Taylor was born in Reading—the child of K——, Miss Mitford’s companion and hemmer of flounces—and at the mistress’s own request the boy was brought to live at her cottage when he was just upon two years old. He came as a new and welcome interest into her life and, while she petted and spoiled him, gave him wise and tender counsel. “A little boy, called Henry,” she wrote of him in her Recollections, “the child of the house (son, by the way, to the hemmer of flounces), has watched my ways, and ministered unbidden to my wants and fancies. Long before he could open the outer door, before, indeed, he was half the height of the wand in question” [her favourite walking-stick], “there he would stand, the stick in one hand, and if it were summer time, a flower in the other, waiting for my going out, the pretty Saxon boy, with his upright figure, his golden hair, his eyes like two stars, and his bright, intelligent smile! We were so used to see him there, silent and graceful as a Queen’s page, that when he returned to school after the holidays, and somebody else presented the stick and the rose, I hardly cared to take them. It seemed as if something was wrong, I missed him so! Most punctual of petted children!”
Whilst the child was at boarding-school in Reading, a rather serious outbreak of smallpox in the town, and particularly in a house adjoining the School, necessitated his being sent home to the cottage without delay, though not, unfortunately, in time to prevent his being infected. He was extremely ill and his life, at times, despaired of, the mother and Miss Mitford taking it by turns to watch over and nurse him. In the Recollections there is a most touching reference to this incident, which proves how strong was Miss Mitford’s affection for the child, how much a mother’s heart was hers. Quoting from Leigh Hunt’s poetry, she says:—“There is yet another poem for which I must make room. Every mother knows these pathetic stanzas. I shall never forget attempting to read them to my faithful maid, whose fair-haired boy, her pet and mine, was then recovering from a dangerous illness. I attempted to read these verses, and did read as many as I could for the rising in the throat—the hysterica passio of poor Lear—and as many as my auditor could hear for her own sobs.” And then she quotes those beautiful verses:—“To T. L. H., six years old, during a sickness.”
“Sleep breathes at last from out thee,
My little patient boy;
And balmy rest about thee—
Smooths off the day’s annoy.
I sit me down and think
Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish with sudden shrink
That I had less to praise.
To say he has departed,
His voice, his face is gone!
To feel impatient-hearted
Yet feel we must bear on!
Ah, I could not endure
To whisper of such woe,
Unless I felt this sleep ensure
That it will not be so.”
“Little Henry” is one of the few survivors of those who knew Miss Mitford intimately, and he has many tender memories of the kindly woman who, as time went on, made him her constant companion when she walked in the lanes and meadows in and about the neighbourhood. Woodcock Lane, of which we have already made mention, was among her favourite haunts, and thither she would take her way, with little Henry and the dogs, and while she sat with her writing-pad on her knee, would watch the eager child gathering his posies of wild flowers. “Do not gather them all, Henry,” was one of her regular injunctions on these occasions, “because some one who has not so many pretty flowers at home as we have may come this way and would like to gather some”; and sometimes she would add, “remember not to take all the flowers from one root, for the plant loves its flowers, and delights to feed and nourish them”—a pretty fancy which the child-mind could understand and appreciate. “Never repeat anything you hear which may cause pain or unhappiness to others” was a precept which often fell from her lips when speaking to the child and it was a lesson which he says he has never forgotten and has always striven to live up to in a long and somewhat arduous life spent here and abroad. Miss Mitford had a great and deep-seated objection to Mrs. Beecher Stowe. It arose principally from disapproval of certain derogatory statements about Lord Byron and his matrimonial relations which Mrs. Stowe had expressed to friends of Miss Mitford’s and which, after Miss Mitford’s death, were published in the work entitled Lady Byron Vindicated. The reason for this attitude of mind on Miss Mitford’s part is not difficult to understand when we remember that her great friend, William Harness, was among the earliest and dearest of Lord Byron’s friends. Thus, when Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in this country, Miss Mitford refused to give any credence to the revelations it contained, and in this connection it is interesting to record that it was among the few books which she counselled the boy not to read.
The “House of Seven Gables,” a view on the road to Swallowfield.
For the children in the village she had ever a kind word and smile, inquiring why they did this or that when playing their games, and nothing delighted her more than to come upon a game of cricket being played by the youngsters, for then she would watch the game through, applauding vigorously and calling out encouraging remarks to the players, all of whom referred to her as the “kind lady.”
During the year 1844 Queen Victoria paid an unofficial visit to the Duke of Wellington at Strathfieldsaye, and Miss Mitford conceived the idea that it would please the Queen to be greeted on the roadside by the village children. With the co-operation of the farmers, who lent their wagons, some two hundred and ninety children were carried to a point near Swallowfield—some few miles from Three Mile Cross along the Basingstoke Road—each carrying a flag provided at Miss Mitford’s expense and by the industry of her maid, Jane, who was very skilful at such work. The wagons were decked out with laurels and bunting and made a very brave show when the Queen, escorted by the Duke, passed by them. “We all returned—carriages, wagons, bodyguard and all—to my house, where the gentlefolk had sandwiches and cake and wine, and where the children had each a bun as large as a soup-plate, made doubly nice as well as doubly large, a glass of wine, and a mug of ale”—rather advanced drinks for children, but probably thin enough to do no harm. “Never was such harmless jollity! Not an accident! not a squabble! not a misword! It did one’s very heart good.... To be sure it was a good deal of trouble, and Jane is done up. Indeed, the night before last we none of us went to bed. But it was quite worth it.”
All this sounds very delightful and light-hearted and truly the years seemed now to be passing very gently and kindly with the warmhearted woman who had, hitherto, suffered so much.
There were, of course, the usual ailments due to advancing age, which had to be endured, but, with short trips to town and a long holiday at Taplow, these ailments had no serious, immediate effect on Miss Mitford’s general health.
In 1846 the dear friend, Miss Barrett, was married to Robert Browning, an incident which proved—so Miss Mitford recorded—that “Love really is the wizard the poets have called him”. There is no mention of a wedding-present being despatched from Three Mile Cross—it will be remembered that the marriage was a somewhat hurried and secret affair, due to Mr. Barrett’s opposition to the whole idea—but we do know that when the happy couple left for Italy via Paris they took with them Flush, the dog, which Miss Mitford had sent as a gift to her friend some years before. Flush was a character, and figures very much in the Barrett-Browning correspondence from 1842 to 1848; he died much loved and lamented, and now lies buried in the Casa Guidi vaults.
All the world knows what a wonderful marriage that was—two hearts beating as one—and how remarkable and romantic was the courtship, the story of which, from Mrs. Browning’s own pen, is so exquisitely told in Sonnets from the Portuguese—the “finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare’s,” was Robert Browning’s delighted comment—“the very notes and chronicle of her betrothal,” as Mr. Edmund Gosse writes of them, when he relates how prettily and playfully they were first shown to the husband for whom they had been expressly written. But—and this is why we make mention of them here—before ever they were shown to the husband they had been despatched to Miss Mitford for her approval and criticism, and she urged that they be published in one of the Annuals of the day. To this suggestion Mrs. Browning would not accede, but consented at last to allow them to be privately printed, for which purpose they were again sent to Miss Mitford, who arranged for their printing in Reading—probably through her friend, Mr. Lovejoy—under the simple title of Sonnets: by E. B. B., and on the title-page were the additional words:—“Reading: Not for Publication: 1847.”
Miss Mitford often made complaint of the number of visitors who thronged her cottage, but now that she had none but herself to consider she seems to have found her chief delight in receiving and entertaining, in quiet fashion, the many literary folk who made pilgrimages to her, visits which were always followed by a correspondence which must have fully occupied her time. This year, 1847, brought Ruskin to the cottage through the introduction of Mrs. Cockburn (the Mary Duff of Lord Byron). “John Ruskin, the Oxford Undergraduate, is a very elegant and distinguished-looking young man, tall, fair, and slender—too slender, for there is a consumptive look, and I fear a consumptive tendency.... He must be, I suppose, twenty-six or twenty-seven, but he looks much younger, and has a gentle playfulness—a sort of pretty waywardness, that is quite charming. And now we write to each other, and I hope love each other as you and I do”—Miss Mitford’s note on the visit, written to another friend, Mr. Charles Boner, in America.
Miss Milford’s Cottage at Swallowfield.
(From a contemporary engraving.)
Hearing that William Chambers, the Edinburgh publisher, was that year in London, an invitation was sent to him to call at the cottage, and while there he, his hostess and Mr. Lovejoy discussed a project which had long been occupying the minds of Miss Mitford and her bookseller-friend, on the subject of “Rural Libraries.”
Mr. Chambers refers to the visit in his Autobiography. “The pleasantest thing about the visit was my walk with the aged lady among the green lanes in the neighbourhood—she trotting along with a tall cane, and speaking of rural scenes and circumstances.... I see she refers to this visit, stating that she was at the time engaged along with Mr. Lovejoy in a plan for establishing lending libraries for the poor, in which, she says, I assisted her with information and advice. What I really advised was that, following out a scheme adopted in East Lothian, parishes should join in establishing itinerating libraries, each composed of different books, so that, being shifted from place to place, a degree of novelty might be maintained for mutual advantage.”
In any case, this Mitford-Lovejoy project was well considered and, after many delays, the two friends issued a little four-page pamphlet (now very rare) with the front page headed “Rural Libraries,” followed by a circular letter in which was set forth the origin of the scheme—due to a request from the young wife of a young clergyman in a country parish who wanted to stimulate the parishioners to the reading of sound literature—and an invitation to interested persons to correspond with “M. R. M., care of Mr. Lovejoy, Reading.” The rest of the pamphlet was occupied with a list of some two hundred titles of books recommended, among them being Our Village, the inclusion of which caused Miss Mitford to tell a friend that she “noticed Mr. Lovejoy had smuggled it in.” Whether anything definite resulted from the distribution of this pamphlet is not certain, but the labour it entailed is a proof of the interest which both Miss Mitford and her coadjutor had in matters affecting the education of the people.
By the year 1850 the cottage again became so bad as to be almost uninhabitable—“the walls seem to be mouldering from the bottom, crumbling, as it were, like an old cheese; and whether anything can be done to it is doubtful,” and, acting under Dr. May’s advice, it was decided to leave the old place for good. The neighbourhood was scoured in the endeavour to find something suitable, and at last the very thing was found at Swallowfield, three miles further along the Basingstoke Road. “It is about six miles from Reading along this same road, leading up from which is a short ascending lane, terminated by the small dwelling, with a court in front, and a garden and paddock behind. Trees overarch it like the frame of a picture, and the cottage itself, though not pretty, yet too unpretending to be vulgar, and abundantly snug and comfortable, leading by different paths to all my favourite walks, and still within distance of my most valuable neighbours.”
The removal, “a terrible job,” involving, among other items, the cartage and re-arranging of four tons of books, took place during the third week of September, 1851, just in time to enable the household to get nicely settled in before the winter.
“And yet it was grief to go,” she wrote. “There I had toiled and striven, and tasted as deeply of bitter anxiety, of fear, and of hope, as often falls to the lot of woman. There, in the fulness of age, I had lost those whose love had made my home sweet and precious. Alas! there is no hearth so humble but it has known such tales of joy and of sorrow! Friends, many and kind, had come to that bright garden, and that garden room. The list would fill more pages than I have to give. There Mr. Justice Talfourd had brought the delightful gaiety of his brilliant youth, and poor Haydon had talked more vivid pictures than he ever painted. The illustrious of the last century—Mrs. Opie, Jane Porter, Mr. Cary—had mingled there with poets, still in their earliest dawn. It was a heart-tug to leave that garden.... I walked from the one cottage to the other on an autumn evening, when the vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling here for their annual departure gives, I suppose, its name of Swallowfield to the village, were circling and twittering over my head; and repeated to myself the pathetic lines of Hayley as he saw these same birds gathering upon his roof during his last illness:—
‘Ye gentle birds, that perch aloof,
And smooth your pinions on my roof,
Preparing for departure hence
Ere winter’s angry threats commence;
Like you, my soul would smooth her plume
For longer flights beyond the tomb.
May God, by Whom is seen and heard
Departing man and wandering bird,
In mercy mark us for His own
And guide us to the land unknown!’
Thoughts soothing and tender came with those touching lines, and gayer images followed. Here I am in this prettiest village, in the cosiest and snuggest of all cabins; a trim cottage garden, divided by a hawthorn hedge from a little field guarded by grand old trees; a cheerful glimpse of the high road in front, just to hint that there is such a thing as the peopled world; and on either side the deep, silent, woody lanes that form the distinctive character of English scenery.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
SWALLOWFIELD AND THE END
It will be remembered that some time after the correspondence with Sir William Elford had been well established, he suggested to Miss Mitford that much of the literary criticism contained in the letters was valuable and might be edited with a view to publication. To this Miss Mitford would not consent at the time, for, although the idea appealed to her, she feared that her rather outspoken comments on contemporary authors might, if published during their lifetime, lead to unpleasantness which it were wiser to avoid. Many years had now elapsed since the suggestion was made, and many changes had, in consequence, taken place. The death of a large number of the authors mentioned had removed Miss Mitford’s principal objection. She herself was now a comparatively old woman, with a maturer judgment, whose criticism was therefore more likely to command respect, and as the death of her father had increased her leisure for the performance of literary work—and she was still unwilling to tackle the long-projected novel—she arranged with Miss Elford (Sir William being dead) to gather the letters together and forward them to Three Mile Cross. The task thus undertaken was both congenial and easy, and by the time of her removal to Swallowfield she had made such progress that it was decided to publish without delay. Mr. Bentley, who was approached on the subject, suggested that the work be amplified and issued in three volumes under the title of Recollections of Books. Acting on this advice, Miss Mitford completed the work, after she had settled herself in her new home, and by 1852 the book was published under the more imposing title of Recollections of a Literary Life, and Selections from my Favourite Poets and Prose Writers. It was dedicated to Henry F. Chorley, one of a number of young men whose dramatic and literary talent had brought him under the author’s notice some years before and which, as usual, resulted in the establishment of a warm friendship between the two. The book was much sought after and, on the whole, was well received, although certain of the critics thought the title too ambiguous—a criticism which Miss Mitford disarmed, somewhat, by admitting, in the Preface, that it gave a very imperfect idea of the contents. News of her removal took many old friends to Swallowfield, anxious to see whether the change was for the better. Ruskin was delighted with it; so too, in a modified sense, was young James Payn, “that splendidly handsome lad of twenty-three—full of beauty, mental and physical, and with a sensibility and grace of mind such as I have rarely known.”
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Swallowfield, in 1913.
Mr. Payn’s Literary Recollections, published in 1884, contain some delightful pen-portraiture of his old friend, whom he calls “the dear little old lady, looking like a venerable fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a laugh that carried you away with it.” Here, too, came Charles Boner from America, and Mr. Fields, the publisher, the latter bringing with him Nathaniel Hawthorne—“whom he found starving and has made almost affluent by his encouragement and liberality”—with each of whom a constant correspondence was afterwards maintained. Many of the letters to Mr. Boner are to be found in his Memoirs, published in 1871, while Mr. Fields gives a charming reminiscent sketch of Miss Mitford in his Yesterdays with Authors, published in 1872. Like all the visitors to Swallowfield, Mr. Fields took a great fancy to “little Henry,” and at Miss Mitford’s own request he agreed that when the boy should be fourteen years of age he should be sent to America to be apprenticed to the publisher’s business of which Mr. Fields was the head. The arrangement was one which gave the keenest delight to Miss Mitford, who was most anxious that her little companion should be properly and adequately provided for. Unfortunately (or fortunately—for little Henry eventually became a Missionary), the arrangement fell through, but Miss Mitford did her best to provide for the boy’s welfare by making him her sole legatee.
Among the letters of 1851, written just prior to her removal, Miss Mitford frequently mentioned Charles Kingsley, who had by this time made himself felt as a strong man in the neighbouring village of Eversley, in addition to the fame which his literary work had brought him. “I hope to know him when I move,” wrote Miss Mitford, “for he visits many of my friends.” In another letter she remarked:—“ Alton Locke is well worth reading. There are in it worldwide truths nicely put, but then it is painful and inconclusive. Did I tell (perhaps I did) that the author begged Mr. Chapman to keep the secret?” [of the authorship], “and Chapman was prepared to be as mysterious as Churchill on the ‘Vestiges’ question, when he found Mr. Kingsley had told everybody, and that all his fibs were falsehoods thrown away!”
It was not long, however, before Mr. Kingsley called at the cottage and commenced a friendship which lasted until Miss Mitford’s death. She found him “charming—that beau-ideal of a young poet, whom I never thought to see—frank, ardent, spirited, soft, gentle, high-bred above all.” It was a friendship which ripened rapidly, for Kingsley loved to discuss deep social questions with this learned little woman who, although at first she did not like his opinions, came to see that he was not far wrong and indeed developed into one of his most ardent supporters. In the October of 1852, the first year of their friendship, Kingsley wrote a sonnet which he dedicated
“To the Authoress of ‘Our Village.’
“The single eye; the daughter of the light,
Well pleased to recognize in lowliest shade
Each glimmer of its parent ray, and made,
By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright;
The style severe, yet graceful, trained aright
To classic depths of clearness and repaid
By thanks and honour from the wise and staid;
By pleasant skill to blame and yet delight,
And hold communion with the eloquent throng
Of those who shaped and toned our speech and song;
All these are yours. The same examples here,
You in rich woodland, me on breezy moor,
With kindred aims the same sweet path along,
To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor.”
It was a beautiful tribute, which naturally touched the warm heart of its recipient.
“Oh! my dear Mr. Kingsley,” she wrote, “how much surprised and touched and gratified I have been by that too flattering but most charming sonnet! Such praise from such a person is indeed most precious. I will not say that I never dreamt of your sending any compliments to myself, because I am sure that you would not suspect me of such vanity, but I must tell you how heartily I thank you, especially for the lines which join us together in intention and purpose.... I wonder whether you always leave people liking you so very much more than they seem to have a right to do! and whether it is your fault or mine that I talked to you as if I had known you ever since you were a boy! Pardon the impertinence, if it be one, and believe me ever
“Your obliged and faithful friend,
“M. R. Mitford.”
One result of the residence at Three Mile Cross, amid the dilapidations of the later years, was the acute rheumatism from which Miss Mitford began to suffer before her removal and which, as the years crept on, got a firmer hold of her system. The consequence was that often, for weeks at a time, she was not able to walk a step, and had to be carried bodily downstairs by Sam, her new man-of-all-work, assisted by K——, whom he had married. This absence of walking exercise was a great hardship, for it was among her chief delights to ramble round the lanes with the dogs, seeking the earliest wild blooms and, with the aid of her favourite crook-stick, gathering the honey suckle as it rioted in the hedge-tops. So, with such exercise impossible, recourse was had to the pony-chaise, wherein, with either Sam or K——, for driver, they would amble quietly around the countryside or into Swallowfield Park, near by, where, if they were at home, there was always a sure welcome from Lady Russell or her daughters.
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, 1852.)
It was during one of these drives that the accident occurred which was to render her still more helpless and to hasten her end. It was caused by the overturn of the chaise, which threw the occupants with great force on to the hard gravelled road. No bones were broken, but the nerves of the hip and thigh were bruised and shattered, and there was some injury to the spine which, though not noticed at the time, soon developed seriously. A long and painful illness was the result, during which the patient suffered the greatest agony, frequently unable to move in order to change her position while in bed. Lady Russell was a frequent and daily visitor, coming through the mud and rain—for it was winter—to bring comforts for mind and body to her sick friend. The spring of 1853 saw a slight change for the better, and among the old friends who came to visit the invalid was Lucas, the painter, who succeeded in getting his old patroness to sit for another portrait. Miss Mitford was delighted with the result—the expression she thought was wonderfully well-caught, “so thoughtful, happy, tender—as if the mind were dwelling in a pleasant frame on some dear friend.” With the approach of summer she had gained sufficient strength to walk out into the garden, where, under a great acacia tree, and near to a favourite syringa-bush, she had a garden-seat and wrote, when not too weary. Here, and in her bedroom, she worked at last on the novel, so long put off. By the end of 1853 it was in the printer’s hands, and every effort was being made to publish it early in 1854. “ Atherton has twice nearly killed me,” wrote Miss Mitford to William Harness, “once in writing—now, very lately, in correcting the proofs.” Talfourd, hearing of his old friend’s illness, went to see her in March of 1854 and sat by her bedside much affected at the change he saw in her. “All the old friendship came back upon both, as in the many years when my father’s house was a second home to him. We both, I believe, felt it to be a last parting”—and that, indeed, it was, for Talfourd died, while delivering a judgment, a fortnight later! The news of his death was a severe shock to Miss Mitford.
Early in April, 1854, Atherton was published in three volumes by Messrs. Hurst & Blackett, and, to the author’s great delight, Mr. Hurst sent her word that Mr. Mudie had told him the demand was so great as to oblige him to have four hundred copies in circulation. The Dedication was “To her Dear Friend, Lady Russell, whose Sympathy has Cheered the Painfullest Hours, as her Companionship has Gladdened the Brightest,” and in the Preface she set forth in detail the awful sufferings which she was forced to endure while writing the work, “being often obliged to have the ink-glass held for me, because I could not raise my hand to dip the pen in the ink.”
Mary Mitford.
(copy of a sketch made from memory
in 1853. E. H.)
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a pencil sketch lent by W. H. Hudson, Esq.)
Frequent letters from Mrs. Browning, in Rome, came to cheer her, urging that, if the invalid could not write herself, perhaps K——, could send a line of news now and again. William Harness came for a day and, finding his old playmate and friend so distressed, stayed three weeks. He could see, all too plainly, that the frail body would not last long, and he also found that she was troubled in spirit, troubled at her lack of faith and by wandering thoughts which obtruded in her prayers. Every day, and frequently during the day, either Lady Russell or one of her daughters came and sat with the invalid, being sometimes accompanied by a mutual friend, the Rev. Hugh Pearson, Rector of Sonning—a parish nearly ten miles distant—who drove over as often as he could be spared from his parochial duties. To him, as to William Harness, Miss Mitford talked long and earnestly on spiritual matters, while he tried to remove her doubts and bring comfort to her anxious soul. As a means to this end he arranged to administer the Sacrament to her, but was frequently put off because, as she said, the thought of it agitated her so much. “Be sure, dearest friend,” she wrote, “that I do not fail in meditation, such as I can give, and prayer. It is my own unworthiness and want of an entire faith that troubles me. But I am a good deal revived by sitting at the open window, in this sweet summer air, looking at the green trees and the blue sky, and thinking of His goodness who made this lovely world.”
To William Harness she wrote, in August, telling him that she had, at last, received the Sacrament at Mr. Pearson’s hands, together with Sam and her friend, Mrs. C. Stephens. “I wish you had been here also,” she pathetically added. Later, in September, she wrote—“I wish you were sitting close to me at this moment, that we might talk over your plans ... Swallowfield churchyard, the plain tablet, and the walking funeral have only one objection—that my father and mother lie in Shinfield Church, and that there is room left above them for me. But I greatly dislike where the vault is—just where all the schoolboys kick their heels. After all, I leave that to you—I mean the whole affair of the funeral. It is very doubtful if I shall live till October. At present I am better ... and now put my feet upon your chair. You will not like it the less for having contributed to my comfort. I am still as cheerful as ever, which surprises people much.” So she lingered, writing whenever possible to distant friends, keenly anxious to hear the latest literary news and delighting in the knowledge that a novel ( Philip Lancaster) had just been dedicated to her.
Swallowfield Churchyard, wherein Miss Mitford lies buried.
To Mr. Kingsley she wrote:—“The kindness of your letter, dearest Mr. Kingsley, and those sweet words of sweet Mrs. Kingsley did me literally good. My heart warmed to her from the first, as the only realization I have ever seen of my vision of a Poet’s Wife. May God in His mercy restore her health and spare you long to each other and to the world. There are few such couples.”
In the autumn she received the following charming lines from Walter Savage Landor, whom she first met, many years before, at Talfourd’s dinner-table:—
“The hay is carried; and the Hours
Snatch, as they pass, the linden flowers;
And children leap to pluck a spray
Bent earthward, and then run away.
Park-keeper, catch me those grave thieves,
About whose frocks the fragrant leaves
Sticking and fluttering, here and there,
No false nor faltering witness bear.
“I never view such scenes as these
In grassy meadow, girt with trees,
But comes a thought of her who now
Sits with serenely patient brow
Amid deep sufferings. None hath told
More pleasant tales to young and old.
Fondest was she of Father Thames,
But rambled in Hellenic streams;
Nor even there could any tell
The country’s purer charms so well
As Mary Mitford.
“Verse! go forth
And breathe o’er gentle breasts her worth.
Needless the task ... but, should she see
One hearty wish from you and me,
A moment’s pain it may assuage—
A rose-leaf on the couch of Age.”
On January 7, 1855, Miss Mitford wrote to a friend:—“It has pleased Providence to preserve to me my calmness of mind, clearness of intellect, and also my power of reading by day and by night, and which is still more, my love of poetry and literature, my cheerfulness, and my enjoyment of little things. This very day, not only my common pensioners, the dear robins, but a saucy troop of sparrows, and a little shining bird of passage, whose name I forget, have all been pecking at once at their tray of bread-crumbs outside the window. Poor pretty things! how much delight there is in these common objects, if people would but learn to enjoy them: and I really think that the feeling for these simple pleasures is increasing with the increase of education.” On the next day she wrote to Mr. Pearson, urging him to decide when he would come and dine with a mutual friend, for “if you wish for another cheerful evening with your old friend, there is no time to be lost.”
Two days later, at five o’clock in the afternoon, with her hand in that of Lady Russell, who had been with her all day, she passed peacefully away, so calmly that her friend was scarcely conscious of the passing.
Thus ended the life of this remarkable woman—remarkable alike for her versatile genius as for her abiding faith in her father and the fortitude with which she accepted and patiently bore the many vicissitudes through which she was forced to pass.
On January 18, 1855, she was laid to rest in Swallowfield Churchyard, in a spot which she had chosen. Originally it was not within the churchyard proper, being on the fringe of Swallowfield Park; but, to humour her, the railings were diverted and the little plot was thus made available. It was a simple funeral, the only mourners at the graveside being her two executors—the Rev. William Harness and Mr. George May, her physician—and her two servants, Sam and his wife, K——.
The grave is now marked by a simple granite cross, the cost of which was borne by a few old friends.
FINIS
Printed by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
No attempt has been made to reconcile the spelling and hyphenation between the author’s writing and Mitford’s.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
[Pg. 9]: “painting by Slater” changed to “drawing by Slater” to match illustration caption.
[Pg. 38]: “eminnently” replaced with “eminently”.
[Pg. 189]: “persuance” replaced with “pursuance”.
[Pg. 249]: “soi-distant” replaced with “soi-disant”.
[Pg. 318]: “hypocricy” replaced with “hypocrisy”.
