THE MARCH OF MIND
In the month of June, 1814, that memorable period in our history, Mary
Mitford was again visiting her friends the St. Quintins in Hans Place.
London was then swarming with crowned heads, victorious generals and
distinguished foreigners of all kinds, to rejoice with us upon the
downfall of Napoleon.
Even the ultra-Whigs, to which Mary and her family belonged, had long
ceased to entertain any hopes of him as a benefactor to the human
race, and she had declared to Sir William Elford in 1812 that she “was
no well-wisher to Napoleon—the greatest enemy to democracy that ever
existed.”
On the 18th June Mary and her friends went to the office of the
_Morning Chronicle_ (Mr. Perry, the editor, being an intimate friend
of the Mitfords) to behold the grand procession of royal personages
to the Merchant Taylors Hall. Writing on the following day to her
mother, she says: “The _Chronicle_ will tell you much more of the
procession than I can ... suffice it to say that we got there well and
pleasantly, and saw them all most clearly; that the Emperor and Duchess
are much alike—she a pretty woman, he a fine-looking man—both with
fair complexions and round _Tartar_ faces—no expression of any sort
except affability and good-humour; that the King of Prussia is a much
more interesting and intelligent-looking man, though not so handsome;
and that the Regent got notably hissed, in spite of his protecting
presence.” And writing a few days later she says:
“Yesterday I went, as you know, to the play with papa, and on our
road thither had a very great pleasure in meeting Lord Wellington,
just arrived in London, and driving to his own house in an open
carriage and six. We had an excellent sight of him, so excellent
that I should know him again anywhere; and it was quite refreshing
after all those parading foreigners, emperors, and so forth to see an
honest English hero, with a famous Mitford nose, looking quite happy,
without any affectation of bowing or seeming affable. He is a very fine
countenanced man, tanned and weather-beaten, with good dark eyes....
Very few of the populace knew him, but the intelligence spread like
wildfire, and Piccadilly looked like a hive of bees in swarming time.”
Writing to Sir William Elford in July, 1815, Mary apologises for not
having sent him, as she had proposed to do, a facsimile copy of _Louis
le Desiré’s_ letter to Lady Charles Aynsley. “As kings of France are
come in fashion again,” she remarks, “I hastened to repair my omission
by copying as well as I was able the aforesaid epistle.... I heard a
great deal respecting that very good but weak and bigoted man from
a French lady, Madame de Gourbillon, who was one of the favourite
attendants of his late wife. His memory exceeds even that of our own
venerable king. If you mention the slightest, the least remarkable fact
in natural history, in the belles-lettres, in history, or anything he
will say, ‘Ay, Buffon, or La Harpe, or Vertot speaks of it (quoting the
very words) in such a volume, such a chapter, such a page and such a
line.’ He is always correct, even to a monosyllable!”
This recalls to one’s mind the old aphorism applied to the Bourbons:
“They forgot nothing and they learnt nothing.”
“Another fact,” continues Mary, “which I ascertained respecting the
King of France is that he is afraid of my friend _la Lectrice de la
feue Reine_ as ever child was of its schoolmistress, and really it
is no impeachment to his courage, for I am not at all sure that
Buonaparte himself could stand against her.... Papa and she regularly
quarrelled once a day on the old cause, ‘France versus England,’ varied
occasionally into ‘French versus English,’ for she very reasonably used
to attack Papa for his utter want of French, in which, I believe, he
scarcely knows _ouí_ from _non_; and he, with no less reason, would
retort on her want of English, she having condescended to vegetate
twelve years in this island of fogs and roast beef without being able
at the end of that time to distinguish ‘How do you do?’ from ‘Very
well, I thank you!’”
During Miss Mitford’s stay in town in the summer of 1814 she had an
interesting and unlooked-for experience of which mention is made in the
_Morning Chronicle_ of June 25th.
The writer of the article remarks: “The friends of the British and
Foreign School Society dined together yesterday at the Freemasons’
Tavern. The Marquis of Lansdowne took the chair, supported by the Dukes
of Kent and Sussex, the Earls of Darnley and Eardley, and several other
eminent persons. The health of the Chairman and Vice-Presidents was
drunk, and then that of the female members of the Society. After this
a poetical tribute of Miss Mitford’s was sung, and ‘Thanks to Miss
Mitford’ was drunk with applause.”
The following lines occur in the poem:—
“The mental world was wrapt in night.”
* * * * *
Oh, how the glorious dawn unfold The brighter day that lurk’d behind?
The march of armies may be told, But not the march of mind.”
Mary was present on the occasion, being seated, together with her
friends, in the gallery of the hall. She writes to her mother: “I
did not believe my ears when Lord Lansdowne, with his usual graceful
eloquence, gave my health. I did not even believe it when my old
friend the Duke of Kent, observing that Lord Lansdowne’s voice was not
always strong enough to penetrate the depths of that immense assembly,
reiterated it with stentorian lungs. Still less did I believe my ears
when it was drunk with ‘three times three,’ a flourish of drums and
trumpets from the Duke of Kent’s band, and the unanimous thundering and
continued plaudits of five hundred people. I really thought it must be
[for] Mr. Whitbread, and though I wondered how he could be ‘fair and
amiable’ I still thought it him till his health was really drunk and he
rose to make the beautiful speech of which you have only a very faint
outline in the _Chronicle_.” This speech was made à propos of a toast.
“The Cause of Education throughout the World,” Mr. Whitbread remarking,
“Miss Mitford has designated it ‘The March of Mind.’”
Whilst Mary Mitford was thus growing in fame, her father, through his
many speculations, was frequently involved in money difficulties. In
the year 1811 it seems he was actually detained in the debtors’ prison,
and arrangements had to be made for the sale of the pictures at Bertram
House in order to obtain money for his release. His wife, who in her
warm affection was almost too forbearing, wrote to him: “I know you
were disappointed in the sale of the pictures; but, my love, if we have
less wealth than we hoped, we shall not have less affection; these
clouds may blow over more happily than we expected.”
Again she writes: “As to the cause of our present difficulties it
avails not how they originated. The only question is how they can be
most speedily and effectually put an end to. I ask for no details which
you do not voluntarily choose to make. A forced confidence my whole
soul would revolt at.”
Mary writes to her father on the occasion with the same
self-sacrificing love, but, it seems to us, with more judgment. She
suggests that they should let Bertram House, sell books, furniture,
everything possible to clear their debts, and then retire to some
cottage in the country or to humble lodgings in London. Then she goes
on to say: “Where is the place in which, whilst we are all spared
to each other, we should not be happy?... Tell me if you approve my
scheme, and tell me, I implore you, my most beloved father, the full
extent of your embarrassments. This is no time for false delicacy
on either side, I dread no evil but suspense.... Whatever those
embarrassments may be, of one thing I am certain that the world does
not contain so proud, so happy, or so fond a daughter. I would not
exchange my father, even though we toiled together for our daily bread,
for any man on earth, though he could pour the gold of Peru into my
lap.”
Miss Mitford’s biographers have justly censured her father’s evil
courses, some considering him as altogether worthless; but surely there
must have been many redeeming qualities in one who called forth such
love from such a daughter?
For the time being the crisis described was averted; but in 1814 Dr.
Mitford was again in great difficulties, caused by his speculations in
two enterprises that proved failures—one in coal, the other in a new
method for lighting and heating houses, invented by the Marquis de
Chavannes, a French refugee. In this latter scheme the doctor actually
invested £5000, and when the crash came he lost more money in carrying
on a protracted law suit in the French courts in the vain hope of
forcing the penniless nobleman to restore his lost property.
Mary, writing of her father’s money losses in later life, says: “He
attempted to increase his own resources by the aid of cards (he was
unluckily one of the finest whist players in England) or by that other
terrible gambling, which ... even when called by its milder term of
_speculation_ is that terrible thing gambling still.”
Early in the year 1814 Mary Mitford received a proof of the warm
approval accorded to her poems in America, which gave her heartfelt
pleasure.
Mrs. Mitford, writing of the event to her husband, says:—
“With your letter and the newspaper this morning arrived a small parcel
for our darling, directed to Miss Mary Russell Mitford.... This little
packet contained,—what do you think? No less than _Narrative Poems on
the Female Character in the various Relations of Life_, by Mary Russell
Mitford. Printed at New York, and published by Eastburn, Kirk & Co.,
No. 86 Broadway. The volume is a small pocket size, well printed and
elegantly bound, and the following is a copy of the letter which
accompanied it across the Atlantic:—”
NEW YORK, _October 23, 1813_.
MADAM,
We have the honour of transmitting to you a copy of our second edition
of your admirable _Narrative Poems on the Female Character_. All who
have hearts to feel and understandings to discriminate must earnestly
wish you health and leisure to complete your plan.
We shall be gratified by a line acknowledging the receipt of the copy
through the medium of our friends Messrs. Longman & Co....
We have the honour to be, madam,
Your most obedient servants, EASTBURN, KIRK & CO.
Mary writes to her father on the receipt of the parcel: “You will
easily imagine that I was flattered and pleased with my American
packet; but even you can scarcely imagine how much. I never was so
vain of anything in my whole life. Only think of their having printed
two editions (for the words ‘second edition’ are underscored in their
letter) before last October!”
The recognition which she received in America so early in her career
was never forgotten, and she used to say in after life, “It takes ten
years to make a literary reputation in England, but America is wiser
and bolder and dares to say at once, ‘This is fine.’”
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