A CENTRE OF INTEREST
As Mary Russell Mitford’s fame as a writer began to spread wider and
wider her cottage became a centre of interest and attraction to all
those who had learnt to love her works. Her chief biographer[16]—a
contemporary—writes:
[Footnote 16: Rev. A. G. L’Estrange.]
“In the summer time when she gave strawberry parties, the road leading
to the cottage was crowded with the carriages of all the rank and
fashion in the county. By example as well as precept she ‘brightened
the path along which she dwelt.’ Her kindly nature did not exhaust
itself in a girlish enthusiasm for pets and flowers, but went forth to
meet her fellow-men and women whose virtues seemed to expand and whose
faults to vanish at her approach.”
Her conversation had a peculiar charm, considered by some “to be even
better than her books,” delivered, as it was, by a “voice beautiful as
a chime of bells.”
It was in the year 1847 that Miss Mitford first made the acquaintance
of Mr. James T. Fields—a distinguished American—both author and
publisher—whose “bright, genial, vivacious letters” and “spirited
lectures on ‘Charles Lamb,’ ‘Longfellow,’ and others” are highly spoken
of by contemporaries.
Mr. Fields writes in his interesting book entitled _Yesterday with
Authors_:—
“It was a fortunate hour for me when kind-hearted John Kenyon said,
as I was leaving his hospitable door in London one summer midnight:
‘you must know my friend Miss Mitford. She lives directly in the line
of your route to Oxford, and you must call with my card and make
her acquaintance.’ The day selected for my call at her cottage door
happened to be a perfect one in which to begin an acquaintance with
the lady of ‘Our Village.’ She was then living at Three Mile Cross ...
on the high road between Basingstoke and Reading [where] the village
street contained the public-house and several small shops near-by.
There was also close at hand the village pond full of ducks and geese,
and I noticed several young rogues on their way to school were occupied
in worrying their feathered friends. The windows of the cottage
were filled with flowers, and cowslips and violets were plentifully
scattered about the little garden. I remember the room into which
I was shown was sanded, and a quaint old clock behind the door was
marking off the hour in small but loud pieces. The cheerful lady called
to me from the head of the stairs to come up into her sitting-room. I
sat down by the open window to converse with her, and it was pleasant
to see how the village children, as they went by, stopped to bow and
curtsy. One curly-headed urchin made bold to take off his well-worn
cap, and waited to be recognized as ‘little Johnny.’ ‘No great
scholar,’ said the kind-hearted lady to me, ‘but a sad rogue among
our flock of geese. Only yesterday the young marauder was detected by
my maid with a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his pocket!’ While
she was thus discoursing of Johnny’s peccadilloes, the little fellow
looked up with a knowing expression, and very soon caught in his cap
a ginger-bread dog which she threw to him from the window. ‘I wish he
loved his book as well as he relishes sweet cakes,’ she sighed, as the
boy kicked up his heels and disappeared down the lane....
“From that day our friendship continued, and during other visits to
England I saw her frequently, driving about the country with her in her
pony-chaise and spending many happy hours in the new cottage which she
afterwards occupied at Swallowfield.
“... She was always cheerful and her talk is delightful to remember.
From girlhood she had known and been intimate with most of the
prominent writers of her time, and her observations and reminiscences
were so shrewd and pertinent that I have scarcely known her equal.
“When she talked of Munden and Bannister and Fawcett and Emery, those
delightful old actors for whom she had such an exquisite relish, she
said they had made comedy to her a living art full of laughter and
tears. How often have I heard her describe John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons,
Miss O’Neil and Edmund Kean, as they were wont to electrify the town in
her girlhood! With what gusto she reproduced Elliston, who was one of
her prime favourites, and tried to make me, through her representation
of him, feel what a spirit there was in the man....
“I well remember, one autumn evening, when half a dozen friends were
sitting in her library after dinner, talking with her of Tom Taylor’s
life of Haydon, then lately published, how graphically she described
to us the eccentric painter whose genius she was among the foremost to
recognize. The flavour of her discourse I cannot reproduce; but I was
too much interested in what she was saying to forget the main incidents
she drew for our edification during those pleasant hours now far away
in the past.”
William Howett had paid a visit to the cottage at Three Mile Cross in
the late summer of 1835, which he described in an article that appeared
in the _Athenæum_. As he drove from Reading he says:—
“The sound of the sheep bells came pleasantly from the pastures where
the eye ranged over wide level fields cleared of their corn and all the
wayside was hung with such heavy and jetty clusters of blackberries
as scarcely ever were seen in another place.... And now I came to
the sweetest lanes branching off right and left under trees that met
across them and lo! ‘Three Mile Cross!’ ‘But which is Miss Mitford’s
cottage?’ That was the question I asked of two women that stood in the
street. ‘Oh, sir, you’ve passed it. It is where that green bush hangs
over the wall.’ I knocked and who came but Ben Kirby and no other,
and who quickly presented herself but Mary Russell Mitford! The very
person that every reader must suppose her to be, the sunny-spirited,
cordial-hearted, frank, kind, unaffected, genuine, English lady.
“We had known each other before, though we had never seen each
other, and we shook hands as old true friends should do; and in the
next moment passed through that ‘nut-shell of a house’ (her own
true expression) into a perfect paradise of flowers, and flowering
fragrance. We passed along the garden into the conservatory, and found
her father Dr. Mitford, the worthy magistrate, and two accomplished
ladies her friends.
“Now, if anyone should ask me to describe more particularly this place
what can I say but that it is most graphically described by the writer
herself? Has she not told you that her garden is her great delight?
Has she not told you that in summer she and her honoured father live
principally in the conservatory (a ‘rural arcade’ as she calls it) and
is it not so? And is it not a sweet summer abode with that glowing,
odorous bee-haunted garden all lying before it?
“As we drove [later] along those umbrageous lanes, and crossed the
sweet pastoral Loddon, she stayed her pony phaeton [at times] to admire
some goodly house, or picturesque parsonage, [and I noticed that] every
rustic face we met brightened into smiles, and for every one she had
a counter smile, or a kind passing word. Everything you see of her
only shows how truly she has spread the vitality of her heart over her
pages, and everything you see of the country with what accuracy she
sketches.”
Mary was much pleased and touched by this graceful and warm-hearted
account by Mr. Howett of his visit to Three Mile Cross, and she wrote
to him on the subject.
In his answer, written at Nottingham, after expressing his great
satisfaction at her pleasure, he goes on to say: “I shall send you
a paper to-morrow containing the account of the great cricket match
played here between Sussex and Nottingham.... We wished you had been
there—a more animated sight of the kind you never saw....
“I could not help seeing what a wide difference twenty years has
produced in the character of the English population. What a contrast in
this play to bull-baiting and cock-fighting! So orderly, so manly, so
generous in its character.... A sport that has no drawback of cruelty
or vulgarity in it, but has every recommendation of skill, taste,
health and generous rivalry. You, dear Miss Mitford,” he continues,
“have done a great deal to promote this better spirit, and you could
not have done more had you been haranguing Parliament, and bringing in
bills for the purpose.”
There are many letters extant from Mary Howett to Miss Mitford, and
we should like to give the following written in February, 1836: “This
new edition of _Our Village_ I have been coveting ever since I saw
the advertisement of it, and I will tell you why. It is one of those
cheerful, spirited works, full of fair pictures of humanity which,
especially when there are children who love reading, and being read to,
becomes a household book, turned to again and again, and remembered and
talked of with affection. So it is by our fireside, it is a work our
little daughter has read and loves to read, and which our little son
Alfred, a most indomitable young gentleman, likes especially.... He is
as yet a bad reader and therefore he is read to; and his cry is ‘Read
me the _Copse_!’ or ‘Read me the _Nutting_,’ or a ‘_Ramble into the
Country_!’
“Such, dear Miss Mitford, being the case when I saw the new edition
advertised, I began to cast in my mind whether or not we could buy it,
for perhaps you know that _literary_ people, though _makers_ of books,
are not exclusive _buyers_ thereof, you may think then what was my
delight—and the delight of us all—when a parcel came in, the string
was cut, and behold it contained no other than those long-coveted and
favourite volumes! Thank you, therefore, dearest Miss Mitford; you have
conferred a benefit upon our fireside which will make you even more
beloved than formerly, for now we shall always have you at hand.”
Miss Mitford held communion either personally or by correspondence with
several warm-hearted Americans, besides her friend Mr. James T. Fields.
George Ticknor, the celebrated author of _The History of Spanish
Literature_, and a partner in Mr. Fields’ publishing firm, when on a
visit to England in 1835, made a pilgrimage with his family to Three
Mile Cross. He writes in his diary of this visit:—
“We found Miss Mitford living literally in a cottage neither _ornée_
nor poetical, except inasmuch as it had a small garden, crowded with
the richest and most beautiful profusion of flowers. She has the
simplest and kindest manners, and entertained us for two hours with the
most animated conversation, and a great variety of anecdote, without
any of the pretensions of an author by profession, and without any of
the stiffness that generally belongs to single ladies of her age and
reputation.”
Writing to her afterwards he says: “We shall none of us ever forget the
truly delightful evening we spent in your cottage at ‘Our Village.’”
Daniel Webster, the orator and patriot so greatly valued in the United
States, also made his appearance in Three Mile Cross, together with
some members of his family, in their transit from Oxford to Windsor.
“My local position between these two points of attraction,” writes
Mary, “has often procured for me the gratification of seeing my
American friends when making that journey; but during _this_ visit a
little circumstance occurred so characteristic, so graceful, and so
gracious that I cannot resist the temptation of relating it.
“Walking in my cottage garden we talked naturally of the roses and
pinks that surrounded us, and of the different indigenous flowers
of our island and of the United States.... We spoke of the primrose
and the cowslip immortalized by Shakespeare and by Milton; and the
sweet-scented violets, both white and purple of our hedgerows and
our lanes; that known as the violet [yellow] being, I suspect, the
little wild pansy (viola tricolor) renowned as the love-in-idleness of
Shakespeare’s famous compliment to Queen Elizabeth.... I expressed an
interest in two flowers known to me only by the vivid descriptions of
Miss Martineau; the scarlet lily of New York and of the Canadian woods,
and the original gentian of Niagara. I observed that our illustrious
guest made some remark to one of the ladies of his party; but I little
expected that so soon after his return as seeds of these plants could
be procured, I should receive a packet of each, signed and directed by
his own hand. How much pleasure these little kindnesses give! And how
many such have come to me from over the same wide ocean!”
On New Year’s Day, 1830, Mrs. Mitford died after a short illness. An
affecting account of her last hours was written by her daughter, in
which she says: “No human being was ever so devoted to her duties—so
just, so pious, so charitable, so true, so feminine, so generous....
Never thinking of herself, the most devoted wife and the most faithful
friend. She died in a good old age, universally beloved and respected.”
Mrs. Mitford was buried in Shinfield Church—the parish church of Three
Mile Cross and the other surrounding villages where the Mitfords used
to worship. We have visited the place, which does not seem to have
changed much since Miss Mitford described it in one of her village
stories.
She speaks of “the tower of the old village church fancifully
ornamented with brick-work, and of the churchyard planted with broad
flowering limes and funereal yew-trees, also of a short avenue of
magnificent oaks leading up to the church.
“It stands,” she says, “amidst a labyrinth of green lanes running
through a hilly and richly wooded country whose valleys are threaded by
the silver Loddon.”
In the month of June of this same year Mary received an interesting
letter from the American authoress, Miss Sedgwick, whose works,
especially those for children, were much read in this country some
years ago.
“You cannot,” she remarks, “be ignorant that your books are re-printed
and widely circulated on this side of the Atlantic, but ... it is
probably difficult for you to realize that your name has penetrated
beyond our maritime cities, and is familiar and honoured and loved
through many a village circle, and to the borders of the lonely depths
of unpierced woods—that we venerate ‘Mrs. Mosse’ and are lovers of
‘Sweet Cousin Mary’ ... and, in short, that your pictures have wrought
on our affections like realities.
“... My niece, a child of nine years old, who is sitting by me, not
satisfied with requesting that her _love_ may be sent to Miss Mitford,
has boldly aspired to the honour of addressing a postscript to her,
and I ... not forgetting who has allowed us a precedent for spoiling
children, have consented to her wishes. Forgive us both, dear Miss
Mitford.”
In her little letter the child asks after the various characters in the
stories that have taken her fancy, not forgetting the pretty greyhound
Mayflower.
Miss Mitford responds in the following way:—
“My dear young friend,
“I am very much obliged to you for your kind enquiries respecting the
people in my book. It is much to be asked about by a little lady on the
other side of the Atlantic, and we are very proud of it accordingly.
‘May’ was a real greyhound, and everything told of her was literally
true; but alas! she is no more.... ‘Harriet’ and ‘Joel’ are not married
yet; you shall have the very latest intelligence of her. I am expecting
two or three friends to dinner and she is making an apple-tart and
custards—which I wish with all my heart that you and your dear aunt
were coming to partake of. The rest of the people are all doing well in
their several ways, and I am always, my dear little girl,
“Most sincerely yours, M. R. MITFORD.”