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.