Such pure and perfect taste, that scarce the applause
Can be to low triumphant words chained down
Or more triumphant smiles. Yes, this is he,
The young and eloquent spirit, whose renown
Makes proud his birth place! a high destiny
Is his; to climb to honour’s palmy crown
By the strait path of truth and honesty.”
During the year 1817, Sir William Elford lost his wife. She was a most estimable woman, and although her husband had, occasionally, called on the Mitfords—turning aside, for that purpose, from the main road which ran through Reading—in his journeys from the west to London, she had never made their acquaintance and only knew of them by repute and what she gathered from the voluminous correspondence which passed between her husband and his literary friend. News of this lady’s death drew from Miss Mitford a charming letter of condolence which must have proved to Sir William how large a place he held in her thoughts: “Your very touching letter, my dear friend, brought me the first intelligence of the dreadful loss you have experienced. I had not even any idea of danger, or surely, most surely, I should never have intruded on you those letters whose apparently heartless levity I am now shocked to remember. I write now, partly in pursuance of your own excellent system, to avoid, as much as may be, prolonging and renewing your sorrow, and partly to assure you of our sincere and unaffected sympathy. We had not, indeed, the happiness of a personal acquaintance with Lady Elford, but the virtues of the departed are best known in the grief of the survivors. To be so lamented is to have been most excellent. And the recollected virtue, which is now agony, will soon be consolation. God bless and comfort you all!
“I hope soon to hear a better account both of yourself and your daughters; but do not think of writing out of form or etiquette. Write when you will, and what you will, certain that few, very few, can be more interested in your health or happiness than your poor little friend.”
From this date the correspondence between the two underwent a considerable change in tone and feeling. It became less stilted, suggesting to the unbiassed reader the idea that the existence of Lady Elford had, hitherto, forced the young person at Bertram House to mind her P’s and Q’s, “which I detest having to do.” She may, possibly, have adopted this freer style of writing in the hope of diverting Sir William from thinking of his bereavement. In any case the happier style of writing thus begun was never abandoned, and the consequence was that, thereafter, they contained more of that life and spirit which her friend Harness thought so characteristic of her writings when she let her words drop without any premeditation, at the prompting of her emotions.