the vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling here for their annual
departure, gives, I suppose, the name of Swallowfield to the village,
were circling and twittering over my head.... Here I am in the
prettiest village, in the snuggest and cosiest of all snug cabins; a
trim cottage garden, divided by a hawthorn hedge from a little field
guarded by grand old trees; a cheerful glimpse of the high-road in
front, just to hint that there is such a thing as a peopled world;
and on either side the deep silent lanes that form the distinctive
character of English scenery.
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Miss Martineau did not like her.]
I must say that personally I did not like her so well as I liked her
works. The charming _bonhomie_ of her writings appeared at first
in her conversation and manners; but there were other things which
presently sadly impaired its charm. It is no part of my business to
pass judgment on her views and modes of life. What concerned me was
her habit of flattery, and the twin habit of disparagement of others.
I never knew her respond to any act or course of conduct which was
morally lofty. She could not believe in it, nor, of course, enjoy
it; and she seldom failed to “see through” it, and to delight in her
superiority to admiration. She was a devoted daughter, where the duty
was none of the easiest; and servants and neighbors were sincerely
attached to her. The little intercourse I had with her was spoiled by
her habit of flattery; but I always fell back on my old admiration of
her as soon as she was out of sight, and her ‘Village’ rose up in my
memory.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1877.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “Not flattery prepense.”]
I never say one word more than appears to me to be true. To be sure,
there is an atmosphere of love--a sunshine of fancy--in which objects
appear clearer and brighter; and from such I may sometimes paint; but
that is not flattery prepense, is it, my dear friend? I never mean
to flatter--no, never! But it is a great pleasure to me to love and
admire, and it is a faculty which has survived many frosts and storms.
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_ in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Visited by Americans.]
I suppose she was one of the earliest English authors who was
“interviewed” by the Americans. She was far from democratic, but always
spoke of that nation with great respect. What impressed me much more
was her admiration for Louis Napoleon; upon which point, as on many
others, we soon agreed to differ. She even approved of the _coup
d’état_, concerning which she writes to me, a little apologetically,
“My enthusiasm is always ready laid, you know, like a housemaid’s
fire”; which was very true.
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Enthusiasm.]
Carlyle tells us, “Nothing so lifts a man from all his men
imprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration”; and Miss
Mitford admired to such an extent that she must have been lifted in
this way nearly all her lifetime. Indeed she erred, if she erred at
all, on this side, and over-praised and over-admired everything and
everybody whom she regarded. When she spoke of Beranger, or Dumas, or
Hazlitt, or Holmes, she exhausted every term of worship and panegyric.
Louis Napoleon was one of her most potent crazes.... Although she had
been prostrated by the hard work and increasing anxieties of forty
years of authorship, when I saw her she was as fresh and independent as
a skylark. She was a good hater as well as a good praiser, and she left
nothing worth saving in an obnoxious reputation.... I have heard her go
on in her fine way, giving preference to certain modern poems far above
the works of the great masters of song. Pascal says that “the heart has
reasons that reason does not know”; and Miss Mitford was a charming
exemplification of this wise saying.
JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Devotion to her father.]
Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved. If I had not
known all about him (from my own folks of another generation who had
known him well), I should have thought her father had been a patriot
and a martyr. She spoke of him as if there had never been such a
father--which in a sense was true. He had spent his wife’s fortune, and
then another, and then the £10,000 [sic] which “little Mary” herself
had got for him by hitting on the lucky number in a lottery, and was
rapidly getting through her own modest earnings in the same free-handed
manner, when good fortune removed him; but she always deemed it an
irreparable loss. “I used to contrive to keep our house in order,” she
would say, speaking of her literary gains, “and a little pony-carriage,
and my dear, dear father.” To my mind he seemed like a Mr. Turveydrop,
but he had really been a most accomplished and agreeable person, though
with nothing sublime about him except his selfishness.
[Sidenote: Prejudices.]
She had the same exaggerated notions of the virtues and talents of
her friends (including myself); nay, her sympathies even extended
to _their_ friends, whom she did not know. Of course she had her
prejudices by way of complement; and when she spoke of those who
did not please her, her tongue played about their reputations like
sheet-lightning--for there was much more flash than fork in it.
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A country lady.]
She was a “country lady,” and if she caught any author growing a
snowdrop and crocus at the wrong time of the year, he never recovered
a place in her memory. On a certain occasion she had been speaking of
the rabbit-shooting at Bear Wood; and afterwards happening to propose
a visit there, I inadvertently remarked that I should be very happy
to accompany her, but that of late years I had taken to gymnastic
exercises, and quite given up all field-sports--besides, “I didn’t
care for rabbit-shooting.” It was the wrong season!--and the look and
exclamation that followed showed me that I had lost something of my
position in her mind forever.
RICHARD HENGIST HORNE: ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H.
Horne.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Tranquil old age.]
I think I should have recognized her anywhere. The short, plump body,
the round, cheerful old face, with cheeks still as rosy as a girl’s,
the kindly blue eyes, the broad, placid brow, and bands of silver
hair peeping from beneath the quaint frilled cap, seemed to be all
features of the picture which I had previously drawn in my mind. But
for a gay touch in the ribbons, and the absence of the book-muslin
handkerchief over the bosom, she might have been taken for one of those
dear old Quaker ladies, whose presence, in its cheerful serenity, is an
atmosphere of contentment and peace. Her voice was sweet, round, and
racy, with a delicious archness at times. Sitting in deep arm-chairs,
on opposite sides of the warm grate, while the rain lashed the panes
and the autumn leaves drifted outside, we passed the afternoon in
genial talk.
BAYARD TAYLOR: ‘At Home and Abroad.’ New York: G. P. Putnam, 1862.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Conversation and voice.]
She was always cheerful, and her talk is delightful to remember. From
girlhood she had known and had 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. Her voice
had a peculiar ringing sweetness in it, rippling out sometimes like
a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told a comic story,
hitting off some one of her acquaintances, she joined in with the
laugh at the end with great heartiness and _naïveté_. When listening
to anything that interested her, she had a way of coming into the
narrative with “Dear me, dear me, dear me,” three times repeated, which
it was very pleasant to hear.
JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Voice and laugh.]
I seem to see the dear little old lady now, looking like a venerable
fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a
laugh that carried you away with it. I never saw a woman with such an
enjoyment of--I was about to say a joke, but the word is too coarse for
her--of a pleasantry.
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “Heart-whole.”]
The remark has often been made that we meet with no romance in Miss
Mitford’s history--no trace of even a passing predilection or an
unfortunate attachment. In her earlier years she was sometimes twitted
about partialities for her cousin, Bertram Mitford, and others, but
no impression seems to have been made. That she was heart-whole was
evident, for she could be jocose on the subject.
REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A helping hand.]
She was constantly saying good words for unfledged authors who were
struggling forward to gain recognition. No one ever lent such a helping
hand as she did to the young writers of her country.
JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: In old age.]
I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the
little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up to the ceiling, on
to the floor--the little figure with clothes on, of course, but of no
recognized or recognizable pattern; and somewhere out of the upper end
of the heap, gleaming under a great, deep, globular brow, two such eyes
as I never, perhaps, saw in any other Englishwoman--though I believe
she must have had French blood in her veins to breed such eyes, and
such a tongue; for the beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it
was that) face, and the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live
coals--perfectly honest the while, both lips and eyes--these seemed to
me to be attributes of the highest French, or rather Gallic, not of
the highest Englishwoman. In any case, she was a triumph of mind over
matter, of spirit over flesh.
CHARLES KINGSLEY: _Letter to James Payn_, quoted in ‘Some Literary
Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Pride in her plays.]
She was much more proud of her plays (which had even then been
well-nigh forgotten) than of the works by which she was so well known,
and which at that time brought people from the ends of the earth to see
her.
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Greater values of her tales.]
I was early fond of her tales and descriptions, and have always
regarded her as the originator of that new style of “graphic
description” to which literature owes a great deal, however weary we
may sometimes have felt of the excess in to which the practice of
detail has run. Miss Austen has claims to other and greater honors; but
she and Miss Mitford deserve no small gratitude for rescuing us from
the folly and bad taste of slovenly indefiniteness in delineation. Miss
Mitford’s tales appealed to a new sense, as it were, in a multitude of
minds--greatly to the amazement of the whole circle of publishers who
had rejected, in her works, as good a bargain as is often offered to
publishers. Miss Mitford showed me at once that she undervalued her
tales, and rested her claims on her plays. I suppose everybody who
writes a successful tragedy must inevitably do this. Miss Mitford must
have possessed some dramatic requisites, or her success could not have
been so decided as it was; but my own opinion always was that her mind
wanted the breadth, and her character the depth, necessary for genuine
achievement in the highest enterprise of literature.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
Her ‘Belford Regis’ should probably take rank as her best work; it
has most power and most character; and is somewhat less uniformly
soft and green than ‘Our Village’ is. The ‘Village,’ however, is, by
association, my favorite. If read by snatches, it comes on the mind as
the summer air and the sweet hum of rural sounds would float upon the
senses through an open window in the country, and leaves with you for
the whole day a tradition of fragrance and dew. She is in fact a sort
of prose Crabbe in the sun, but with more grace and less strength; and
also with a more steadfast look upon scenic nature--never going higher
than the earth to look for the beautiful, but always finding it as
surely as if she went higher. She is “matter-of-fact,” she says, which
may be so, but then she idealizes matter of fact before she touches it,
and thus her matter of fact is as beautiful as the matter of fantasy of
other people.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Browning’s estimate.]
In my own mind--and Mr. Kenyon agrees with me--she herself is better
and stronger than any of her books; and her letters and conversation
show more grasp of intellect and general power than would be inferable
from her finished compositions. In her works, however, through all the
beauty there is a clear vein of sense, and a quickness of observation
which takes the character of a refined shrewdness. Do you not think so?
And is she not besides most intensely a woman, and an Englishwoman?
ELIZABETH BARRETT: ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H.
Horne.’ New York: James Miller, 1877.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ‘Our Village.’]
I think you will like ‘Our Village.’... Charles Lamb (the matchless
‘Elia’ of the _London Magazine_) says that nothing so fresh and
characteristic has appeared for a long while. It is not over-modest to
say this; but who would not be proud of the praise of such a _proser_?
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir Wm. Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Fear of unconscious plagiarism.]
I am very indulgent towards such borrowings in general, knowing
how extraordinary is the manner in which memory and invention are
sometimes mixed up, especially where the first faculty is weak. With
me it is singularly so, and for years I was tormented by constant fear
that every line of tragedy less bad than the next was stolen from my
letters. It was a miserable feeling.
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, in ‘Friendships of Mary
Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: View of the moral purpose of fiction.]
All that vile design of doing good, or making out this to be wrong
and that to be right, ... I hold ... to be the most fatal fault of
all fiction nowadays.... It was the one fault of Miss Edgeworth that
she wrote to a text. How much better she wrote without one she showed
in ‘Belinda.’ All the greatest writers of fiction are pure of that
sin--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott, Jane Austen; and are not these
precisely the writers who do most good as well as give most pleasure?
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, in ‘Friendships of Mary
Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Religious belief.]
There would be a tacit hypocrisy, a moral cowardice, if I were to stop
here, and not to confess, what I think you must suspect, although by
no chance do I ever talk about it--that I do not, or rather cannot,
believe all that the Church requires. I humbly hope that it is not
necessary to do so, and that a devout sense of the mercy of God, and an
endeavor, however imperfectly and feebly, to obey the great precepts
of justice and kindness, may be accepted in lieu of that entire faith
which, in me, _will not_ be commanded. You will not suspect me of
thoughtlessness in this matter; neither, I trust, does it spring
from intellectual pride. Few persons have a deeper sense of their
own weakness; few, indeed, can have so much weakness of character to
deplore and strive against.
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Rev. Wm. Harness_, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by
L’Estrange.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A tedious illness.]
[Sidenote: Continued pleasure in nature.]
I am still very lame, carried, or rather lifted, step by step up and
down stairs and into bed, and unable to stir when recumbent, almost
to move when seated. Besides this, I am all over as sore as if I were
pounded in a mortar, and, although quite as cheerful as ever, yet
paying for temporary excitement by exceeding weakness afterwards. In
short, I am as infirm, as feeble, and as lively as it is well possible
for a woman to be. I am got into the air, and I enjoy it so much, that
I cannot but hope that it must eventually do me good. It seems to
me that never was the marriage of May and June, which is always the
loveliest moment of the year, so beautiful as now. The richness of
the foliage in our deep-wooded lanes, the perfume of the bean-fields,
the luxuriant blossoming of all sorts of flowering trees. I have some
lilacs of both colors, especially the white, which I would match
against those of which Horace Walpole was so fond at Strawberry Hill.
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, June 2nd, 1853, in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Delighted with a glow-worm.]
I must tell you what has three times befallen me this last week. My
maid K., in putting me to bed, burst into a storm of exclamations, all
referring to the candlestick; I looked, and saw nothing but a dingy
caterpillar about half an inch long. It moved, and a little bright
star of bluish greenish light was reflected on the silver. It was a
glow-worm! We extinguished the candle, and the candlestick was sent
to one of the grass-plots in the front of the house, and in about ten
minutes the beautiful insect had crawled out upon the turf. Four nights
after, exactly same thing occurred, and another glow-worm was found on
one of the lower windows. We can only account for these visits to the
candlestick by the circumstance of there being both nights a little jar
of fresh-gathered pinks upon the table.... K., who is full of pretty
sayings, will have it that, now that I--always so fond of those stars
of the earth--can no longer go to see them, they come to visit me.
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, July, 1853, in ‘Friendships
of Mary Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Weaker and weaker.]
The head is mercifully spared, but for above six months I have been
steadily growing worse and worse, and weaker and weaker. It is sad to
write so to you, but it is the truth. Champagne and nourishing food
keep me alive, and stimulating medicine. To-day is fine, and I sit by
my open window enjoying the balmy air, altogether too much sunk in the
chair to see more than the trees and the sky, and a bit of distant
road, but still enjoying _that_. My roses are very beautiful, and I
have many of the old moss, which are delicately sweet; and common white
pinks, almost like cloves in their fragrance.
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Emily Jephson_, July 20, 1854, in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Characteristics strong to the very last.]
The goodness shown to me often draws tears into my eyes. People whom
all the world knows, and yet more, people of whom I have never heard,
send to me whatever they think I shall like, call at my door, ... come
at any hour that I may appoint, if I be well enough to see them, and
never take offence at a refusal. There is a reality about this when it
has lasted above two years.... It has pleased Providence to preserve to
me my calmness of mind and clearness of intellect, and also my powers
of reading by day and by night, and, which is still more, my love of
poetry and literature, my cheerfulness and my enjoyment of little
things. This very day, not only my common pensioners the dear robins,
but a saucy troop of sparrows and a little shining bird of passage,
whose name I forget, have all been pecking at once at their tray of
bread-crumbs outside the window. Poor, pretty things! How much delight
there is in these common objects, if people would learn to enjoy them!
M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mrs. Crowther_, January 1, 1855,[13] in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’
FOOTNOTES:
[13] She died on the 10th of January.
LIST OF WORKS QUOTED IN VOL. I.
ALISON.--Some Account of My Life and Writings: an Autobiography, by Sir
Archibald Alison. Edinburgh and London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1883.
(Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)
ALLIBONE.--Dictionary of British and American Authors, by Samuel A.
Allibone. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874. (For dates, etc.)
_Atlantic Monthly._--Article on Jane Austen, by Mrs. Waterston, and
article on Shelley, by Thornton Hunt, in February number, 1863.
AUSTEN.--Letters of Jane Austen, edited by Lord Brabourne. London:
Richard Bentley & Son, 1884.
BROWNING.--Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H. Horne. New
York: James Miller, 1877. (Quoted on Mary R. Mitford.)
BRYDGES.--Autobiography, Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir
Egerton Brydges. London: Cockrane and M’Crane, 1834. (Quoted on Jane
Austen.)
BURNEY.--Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Mme. D’Arblay, edited by
S. C. Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880.
BYRON.--Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, edited by Thomas Moore. New
York: Harper & Bros., 1868. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)
CHORLEY.--Autobiography, Memoir and Letters of Henry F. Chorley.
London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)
CLARKE.--Recollections of Writers, by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Quoted on Mary Shelley, Mary Lamb,
and Lady Blessington.)
COLERIDGE.--Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her
Daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874. (Quoted on Mary Lamb, Jane
Austen, Joanna Baillie and Hannah More.)
_Contemporary Review._--Miss Burney’s Novels, by Mary Elizabeth
Christie, in Dec. number, 1882.
CROSS.--George Eliot’s Life, by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1885. (Quoted on Hannah More.)
DELANY.--Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, edited by S.
C. Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879. (Quoted on Frances Burney.)
EDGEWORTH.--Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, by Maria Edgeworth.
Boston: Wells & Lilly, 1821.
ELWOOD.--Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England, by Mrs. Elwood.
London: Henry Colburn, 1843. (Quoted on Hannah More and Mary
Wollstonecraft.)
FARRAR.--Recollections of Seventy Years, by Eliza Farrar. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields, 1866. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth and Joanna Baillie.)
FIELDS.--Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields. Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co., 1872. (Quoted on Mary R. Mitford.)
Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends, by James T. Fields. Boston:
J. R. Osgood & Co., 1876. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)
FLETCHER.--Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876.
(Quoted on Maria Edgeworth and Joanna Baillie.)
_Frazer’s Magazine._--Recent Novels, by G. H. Lewes, in December
number, 1847. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)
GASKELL.--Life of Charlotte Brontë, by E. C. Gaskell. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1858. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)
GILCHRIST.--Mary Lamb, by Anne Gilchrist. (Famous Women Series.)
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.
GILFILLAN.--A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, by G. Gilfillan.
Edinburgh: James Hogg. London: R. Groombridge & Sons, 1850. (Quoted on
Mary Shelley.)
HALL.--A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, by (Mr.
and Mrs.) S. C. Hall. London: Virtue & Co., 1871. (Quoted on Maria
Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Lady Blessington, M. R. Mitford, and Hannah
More.)
Retrospect of a Long Life, by S. C. Hall. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth, M. R. Mitford and Lady Blessington.)
_Harpers’ Bazar._--An anonymous article, quoted on Jane Austen.
HAZLITT.--Sketches and Essays, and Winterslow, by Wm. Hazlitt. Edited
by W. Carew Hazlitt. London: Bell & Daldy, 1869. (Quoted on Mary
Wollstonecraft.)
HAZLITT.--Mary and Charles Lamb: Poems, Letters and Remains, collected
by W. Carew Hazlitt. New York: Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, 1874.
HOGG.--The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, by T. J. Hogg. London: Edward
Moxon, 1858. (Quoted on Mrs. Shelley.)
HOLLAND.--Recollections of Past Life, by Sir Henry Holland. New York:
D. Appleton & Co., 1872. (Quoted on Mme. D’Arblay and Joanna Baillie.)
Memoirs of Sidney Smith, by his Daughter, Lady Holland. London:
Longmans, Green & Co. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)
KNOWLES.--The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, by John Knowles.
London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. (Quoted on Mary
Wollstonecraft.)
LAMB.--Works of Charles Lamb, with Sketch by T. N. Talfourd. New York:
Harper & Bros., 1838. (Quoted on Mary Lamb and Mary Shelley.)
LEIGH.--A Memoir of Jane Austen, by Her Nephew, Rev. J. E.
Austen-Leigh. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.
L’ESTRANGE.--The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by Rev. A. G.
L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, and Frances Burney.)