M. St. Quintin could not chide, for, apart from his own adoration of Molière, an adoration he did not extend to music, he was convinced that no proficiency in any art could be gained without natural qualifications and sincere goodwill. So he joined in the tearful laughter, and when he could compose himself, complimented rather than rebuked the pupil upon her relish for the comic drama. More than this, he spoke plainly to the dear papa, with the result that the harp and Miss Essex went together, that music was henceforth abandoned, and the event crowned with the gift of a cheap edition of Molière for the wayward little maid’s own reading.
These were the foundations skilfully laid and built upon by Miss Rowden. They marked the beginnings of a distinct and strong literary taste and a passion for the Drama which, had she and her father but known at the time, were to furnish and equip her for the stern battle of life in which she was to engage, a battle for the bare necessities of life for herself and the provision of luxuries for the careless and thriftless parent upon whom she doted and spent herself.
In August, 1802—she would then be fifteen years of age—she writes to her father: “I told you that I had finished the Iliad, which I admired beyond anything I ever read. I have now begun the Æneid, which I cannot say I admire so much. Dryden is so fond of triplets and alexandrines, that it is much heavier reading; and though he is reckoned a more harmonious versifier than Pope, some of his lines are so careless that I shall not be sorry when I have finished it. I shall then read the Odyssey. I have already gone through three books, and shall finish it in a fortnight ... I am now reading that beautiful opera of Metastasio, Themistocles; and when I have finished that, I shall read Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. How you would dote on Metastasio; his poetry is really heavenly,” a letter which, apart from the excusable conventional school-girl gush of its closing words, is not only remarkable for its style, but for its display of a critical faculty really astounding in a girl of fifteen.
Later, in the same month, she wrote to her mother: “I am glad my sweet mamma agrees with me with regard to Dryden, as I never liked him as well as Pope. Miss Rowden had never read any translation of Virgil but his, and consequently could not judge of their respective merits. If we can get Wharton’s Æneid, we shall finish it with that. After I have read the Odyssey, I believe I shall read Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I shall be very glad of this, as I think they are extremely beautiful.... I am much flattered, my darlings, by the praises you bestowed on my last letter, though I have not the vanity to think I deserved them. It has ever been my ambition to write like my darlings, though I fear I shall never attain their style.”
A week later, she followed this with another in similar strain: “M. St. Quintin was perfectly delighted with my French on Saturday. Signor Parachiretti is sure that I shall know Italian as well as I do French by Christmas. I know you will not think it is through vanity that I say this, who should not say it; but I well know you like to hear that your darling is doing well, and I consult more your gratification than false modesty in relating it to you. I went to the library the other day with Miss Rowden, and brought back the first volume of Goldsmith’s Animated Nature. It is quite a lady’s natural history, and extremely entertaining. The style is easy and simple, and totally free from technical terms, which are generally the greatest objection to books of that kind. I am likewise reading the Odyssey, which I even prefer to the Iliad. I think it beautiful beyond comparison.”
These few extracts from the letters not only serve to show the singular thirst for knowledge which the child possessed, but also indicate the perfect understanding which existed between the mother and child, resembling, as the Rev. A. G. L’Estrange justly remarks, “those of one sister to another.”
In return Mrs. Mitford retailed all the gossip and news of Reading, giving the eager child the fullest accounts of the dinners and suppers and card-parties which formed a regular interchange of courtesies between neighbours in that town a century ago. These accounts, only intended by the fond mother, as we may properly suppose, to bridge the distance between school and home, were carefully stored away in the wonderful memory of their recipient, there to rest until, many years after, they were revivified and placed on record for all time—as we hope—in the pages of Belford Regis, the work which, quite apart from Our Village, has endeared its writer to all ardent Reading lovers in that it affords them a true and living picture of the ancient borough as it was in the opening years of the nineteenth century.
In regard to this correspondence between the mother and daughter, it has been elsewhere remarked that “no word of advice, moral or religious, is ever mingled,” and the question: “Was this wisdom?” is answered by the querist himself that, ruling out the possibility of carelessness or indifference as the motives which actuated Mrs. Mitford and “knowing what a devoted daughter Mary Mitford became, we may be well induced to believe that her mother’s silence on these more serious arguments originated in deep reflection; and that she had judiciously determined simply to attach and amuse her child by her correspondence, and trusted to the impressive persuasion of her example for the inculcation of higher things.”[7]
With every desire to pay the sincerest tribute to the learned editor in his difficult task, we are inclined to disagree with him as to the wisdom of Mrs. Mitford’s plan. If by “example” we are to understand that the Christian virtues of forbearance with a selfish and overmastering father and fortitude in adversity are intended, then we agree that Mary Russell Mitford well learned her lesson, but—and herein is the basis of our disagreement—had mother and daughter been less content, for the sake of peace, to pander to the every whim and caprice of Dr. Mitford, much, if not all, of the miserable poverty of later years would have been avoided, and the tragedy of Miss Mitford’s life, with its last days of spiritual doubts and fears, been averted. The result on her father’s career may be speculative, but we are inclined to hope that had the two women more boldly asserted their claims to consideration, the good that was in Dr. Mitford and which is to be found in all men, would have been roused, and the cruel selfishness of his life been checked if not altogether effaced.
These letters from home undoubtedly gave the fullest details of the daily occurrences, and must occasionally have tickled the schoolgirl immensely, if we may judge by one of the replies which they evoked.