There is one penalty people pay for being authors, which is that from
cultivating vivid impressions and mental pictures they are apt to take
fancies too seriously and to mistake them for reality. In story-telling
this is well enough, and it interferes with nobody; but in real history,
and in one's own history most of all, this faculty is apt to raise
up bogies and nightmares along one's path; and while one is fighting
imaginary demons, the good things and true are passed by unnoticed, the
best realities of life are sometimes overlooked....
But after all, Mary Russell Mitford, who spent most of her time
gathering figs off thistles and making the best of her difficult
circumstances, suffered less than many people do from the influence of
imaginary things.
She was twenty-three years old when her first book of poems was
published; so we read in her letters, in which she entreats her father
not to curtail ANY of the verses addressed to him; there is no
reason, she says, except his EXTREME MODESTY why the verses should be
suppressed,--she speaks not only with the fondness of a daughter but
with the sensibility of a poet. Our young authoress is modest, although
in print; she compares herself to Crabbe (as Jane Austen might have
done), and feels 'what she supposes a farthing candle would experience
when the sun rises in all its glory.' Then comes the Publisher's
bill for 59 pounds; she is quite shocked at the bill, which is really
exorbitant! In her next letter Miss Mitford reminds her father that
the taxes are still unpaid, and a correspondence follows with somebody
asking for a choice of the Doctor's pictures in payment for the taxes.
The Doctor is in London all the time, dining out and generally amusing
himself. Everybody is speculating whether Sir Francis Burdett will go
to the Tower.* 'Oh, my darling, how I envy you at the fountain-head of
intelligence in these interesting times! How I envy Lady Burdett for
the fine opportunity she has to show the heroism of our sex!' writes
the daughter, who is only encountering angry tax-gatherers at home....
Somehow or other the bills are paid for the time, and the family
arrangements go on as before.
*Here, in our little suburban garden at Wimbledon, are the remains of
an old hedgerow which used to grow in the kitchen garden of the Grange
where Sir Francis Burdett then lived. The tradition is that he was
walking in the lane in his own kitchen garden when he was taken up and
carried off to honourable captivity.--A.T.R.
Besides writing to the members of her own home, Miss Mitford started
another correspondent very early in life; this was Sir William Elford,
to whom she describes her outings and adventures, her visits to
Tavistock House, where her kind friends the Perrys receive her. Mr.
Perry was the editor of the Morning Chronicle; he and his beautiful wife
were the friends of all the most interesting people of the day. Here
again the present writer's own experiences can interpret the printed
page, for her own first sight of London people and of London society
came to her in a little house in Chesham Place, where her father's old
friends, Mrs. Frederick Elliot and Miss Perry, the daughters of Miss
Mitford's friends, lived with a very notable and interesting set of
people, making a social centre, by that kindly unconscious art
which cannot be defined; that quick apprehension, that benevolent
fastidiousness (I have to use rather far-fetched words) which are so
essential to good hosts and hostesses. A different standard is looked
for now, by the rising generations knocking at the doors, behind which
the dignified past is lying as stark as King Duncan himself!
Among other entertainments Miss Mitford went to the fetes which
celebrated the battle of Vittoria; she had also the happiness of getting
a good sight of Mme. de Stael, who was a great friend of the Perrys.
'She is almost as much followed in the gardens as the Princess,' she
says, pouring out her wonders, her pleasures, her raptures. She begins
to read Burns with youthful delight, dilates upon his exhaustless
imagination, his versatility, and then she suggests a very just
criticism. 'Does it not appear' she says, 'that versatility is the true
and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius--versatility
and playfulness;' then she goes on to speak of two highly-reputed novels
just come out and ascribed to Lady Morley, 'Pride and Prejudice' and
'Sense and Sensibility.'
She is still writing from Bertram House, but her pleasant gossip
continually alternates with more urgent and less agreeable letters
addressed to her father. Lawyers' clerks are again calling with notices
and warnings, tax-gatherers are troubling. Dr. Mitford has, as usual,
left no address, so that she can only write to the 'Star Office,'
and trust to chance. 'Mamma joins in tenderest love,' so the letters
invariably conclude.
Notwithstanding the adoration bestowed by the ladies of the family and
their endearing adjectives, Mr. Harness is very outspoken on the
subject of the handsome Doctor! He disliked his manners, his morals,
his self-sufficiency, his loud talk. 'The old brute never informed his
friends of anything; all they knew of him or his affairs, or whatever
false or true he intended them to believe, came out carelessly in his
loose, disjointed talk.'
In 1814 Miss Mitford is living on still with her parents at Bertram
House, but a change has come over their home; the servants are gone,
the gravel turned to moss, the turf into pasture, the shrubberies to
thickets, the house a sort of new 'ruin half inhabited, and a Chancery
suit is hanging over their heads.' Meantime some news comes to cheer
her from America. Two editions of her poems have been printed and sold.
'Narrative Poems on the Female Character' proved a real success. 'All
who have hearts to feel and understandings to discriminate, must wish
you health and leisure to complete your plan,' so write publishers in
those golden days, with complimentary copies of the work....
Great things are happening all this time; battles are being fought and
won, Napoleon is on his way to St. Helena; London is in a frenzy of
rejoicings, entertainings, illuminations. To Mary Mitford the appearance
of 'Waverley' seems as great an event as the return of the Bourbons;
she is certain that 'Waverley' is written by Sir Walter Scott, but
'Guy Mannering,' she thinks, is by another hand: her mind is full of a
genuine romantic devotion to books and belles lettres, and she is also
rejoicing, even more, in the spring-time of 1816. Dr. Mitford may be
impecunious and their affairs may be threadbare, but the lovely seasons
come out ever in fresh beauty and abundance. The coppices are carpeted
with primroses, with pansies and wild strawberry blossom,--the woods are
spangled with the delicate flowers of the woodsorrel and wood anemone,
the meadows enamelled with cowslips.... Certainly few human beings
were ever created more fit for this present world, and more capable of
admiring and enjoying its beauties, than Miss Mitford, who only desired
to be beautiful herself, she somewhere says, to be perfectly contented.