A GREAT SORROW
Prominent among the many and varied characteristics of Miss Mitford’s
life is the remarkable and unfailing interest she ever displayed
towards struggling genius. Nothing gave her more pleasure than news
of some individual who, possibly humbly born, was making a strenuous
fight for fame; while to be brought into personal relationship with
the struggler was a circumstance which seemed at once to quicken her
mothering instinct, and it would not be long before she became a
self-constituted champion, using her influence to secure the interest
and support of all who were likely to be of service to her protégé.
For Haydon she had an unfailing regard and would fight his battles
with any who dared to disparage him or his work in her hearing.
Of Talfourd’s achievements she was never tired of talking and
writing, even after he had forfeited any claim to her interest by
his stupid jealousy. Lough, the sculptor, son of a small farmer in
Northumberland, excited her admiration when, barely two years after
he had left his father’s cornfields, he achieved fame with his Statue
of Milo. And now, following her own success with _Rienzi_, we find
her interesting herself in young Lucas, the painter, of whom she
wrote to Harness: “He is only twenty-one, was bound to Reynolds, the
engraver, and practised the art which he was resolved to pursue,
secretly, in his own room, in hours stolen from sleep and needful
exercise, and minutes from necessary food. Last July he became his
own master, and since then he has regularly painted. Everybody almost
that sees his pictures desires to sit, and he is already torn to
pieces with business. In short, I expect great things of him. But
what I especially like is his character. I have seen nothing in all
my life more extraordinary than his union of patience and temper and
rationality, with a high and ardent enthusiasm.” That was written
in the January of 1828. In the following November she wrote to
Haydon: “I am now going to tell you something which I earnestly hope
will neither vex nor displease you; if it do, I shall grieve most
heartily—but I do not think it will. The patron of a young artist
of great merit (Mr. Lucas) has made a most earnest request that I
will sit to him. He comes here to paint it—and there is a double
view; first to get two or three people hereabout to sit to him; next
to do him good in London, by having in the Exhibition the portrait
of a person whose name will probably induce people to look at it,
and bring the painting into notice. The manner in which this was
pressed upon me by a friend to whom I owe great gratitude was such
as I really could not refuse—especially as it can by no accident be
injurious to your splendid reputation, that an ugly face which you
happen to have taken, should be copied by another. There is a project
of having the portrait engraved, which would increase the benefit
that they anticipate to Mr. Lucas, and would be so far satisfactory
to us as it would supersede a villainous print out of some magazine,
from a drawing of Miss Drummond’s, which is now selling in the
shops.” To this Haydon good-naturedly replied that he would not be
offended and that he should be glad to be of use to Mr. Lucas, or of
any service to the print; but, as a matter of fact, he was not at all
pleased and was really jealous of the young painter for a while.
Meanwhile the sittings for the Lucas portrait took place, and by
January of 1829 the picture was advanced enough for its original
to bestow her praise. Sir William Elford was, of course, among the
earliest to learn the particulars. “The portrait is said by everybody
to be a work of art. It certainly is a most graceful and elegant
picture—a very fine piece of colour, and, they say, a very strong
likeness. It was difficult, in painting me, to steer between the
Scylla and Charybdis of making me dowdy, like one of my own rustic
heroines, or dressed out like a tragedy queen. He has managed the
matter with infinite taste, and given to the whole figure the look
of a quiet gentlewoman. I never saw a more lady-like picture. The
dress is a black velvet hat, with a long, drooping black feather; a
claret-coloured high gown; and a superb open cloak of gentianella
blue, the silvery fur and white satin lining of which are most
exquisitely painted and form one of the most beautiful pieces of
drapery that can be conceived. The face is thoughtful and placid,
with the eyes looking away—a peculiarity which, they say, belongs to
my expression.”
Assuming that these millinery and drapery details were understandable
to Sir William, the catalogue must have given him something of a
shock, for he would assuredly wonder what had come over his little
friend, in the first place, to have become possessed of such a heap
of finery and, in the second place, to have submitted to being decked
out in it.
The truth is that Lady Madelina Palmer—wife of the Reading Member,
Fyshe Palmer—had taken a leading part in the arrangement for this
portrait and, determined that the author of _Rienzi_ should make
a brave show, had dressed up the homely figure in some of her own
society garments. The effect was worse than that of a parlour-maid
masquerading as the mistress, for Miss Mitford had neither the figure
nor the artificiality which could set off the bedizenments of a
duke’s daughter. Poor Lucas—“the sweet young boy,” Miss Mitford
afterwards called him—fumed inwardly when he saw what he had to
portray, daring not to criticize lest he offend the owner of the
clothes, who was near by. He stuck manfully to his task, fretting at
the bad taste of the whole thing, only to cancel the picture in the
end. Fortunately an engraving of the picture has been preserved, of
which we are able to present a copy in these pages. As a picture it
is undoubtedly graceful and admirably proportioned, but as regards
the _tout ensemble_ it must be regarded as a failure.
[Illustration: Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, 1829.)]
During the sitting Miss Mitford composed some graceful lines to the
painter, which are worthy of quotation here, because apart from their
intrinsic value as a poetical tribute, they also contain a piece of
self-portraiture most deftly interwoven:—
“TO MR. LUCAS
(_Written whilst sitting to him for my Portrait, December, 1828_).
“Oh, young and richly gifted! born to claim
No vulgar place amidst the sons of fame;
With shapes of beauty haunting thee like dreams,
And skill to realize Art’s loftiest themes:
How wearisome to thee the task must be
To copy these coarse features painfully;
Faded by time and paled by care, to trace
The dim complexion of this homely face;
And lend to a bent brow and anxious eye
Thy patient toil, thine Art’s high mastery.
Yet by that Art, almost methinks Divine,
By touch and colour, and the skilful line
Which at a stroke can strengthen and refine,
And mostly by the invisible influence
Of thine own spirit, gleams of thought and sense
Shoot o’er the careworn forehead, and illume
The heavy eye, and break the leaden gloom:
Even as the sunbeams on the rudest ground
Fling their illusive glories wide around,
And make the dullest scene of Nature bright
By the reflexion of their own pure light.”
During the year Dr. Mitford developed a most curious and inexplicable
dislike to his daughter’s friends and acquaintances. Possibly he
was growing tired of the congratulatory callers, but even so, he
must surely have recognized that this sort of thing was the penalty
exacted of popularity. “My father,” she wrote to William Harness,
“very kind to me in many respects, very attentive if I’m ill, very
solicitous that my garden should be nicely kept, that I should go
out with him, and be amused—is yet, so far as art, literature, and
the drama are concerned, of a temper infinitely difficult to deal
with. He hates and despises them, and all their professors—looks on
them with hatred and with scorn; and is constantly taunting me with
my ‘friends’ and my ‘people’ (as he calls them), reproaching me if I
hold the slightest intercourse with author, editor, artist, or actor,
and treating with frank contempt every one not of a station in the
county. I am entirely convinced that he would consider Sir Thomas
Lawrence, Sir Walter Scott, and Mrs. Siddons as his inferiors.
Always this is very painful—strangely painful.
“Since I have known Mr. Cathcart I can say with truth that he has
never spoken to me or looked at me without ill-humour; sometimes
taunting and scornful—sometimes more harsh than you could fancy.
Now, he ought to remember that it is not for my own pleasure, but
from a sense of duty, that I have been thrown in the way of these
persons; and he should allow for the natural sympathy of similar
pursuits and the natural wish to do the little that one so powerless
and poor can do to bring merit (and that of a very high order)
into notice. It is one of the few alleviations of a destiny that
is wearing down my health and mind and spirits and strength—a
life spent in efforts above my powers, and which will end in the
workhouse, or in a Bedlam, as the body or the mind shall sink first.
He ought to feel this; but he does not. I beg your pardon for vexing
you with this detail. I do not often indulge in such repining.”
It is difficult to read such a letter without experiencing a feeling
of intensest indignation against the almost inhuman selfishness of
Dr. Mitford, who, content to batten on the fruits of his daughter’s
industry, would yet make her path more difficult by his unreasonable
and capricious jealousy. The incident can only be likened to that of
a brute creature biting the hand that feeds him. And what, after all,
was the cause of this cruel conduct? Nothing other than that his
daughter was interesting herself in a young actor whose welfare she
hoped to promote.
Contrast this episode with one of a few months later, which Miss
Mitford was delighted to relate—it showed such admirable traits
in the “dear papa’s” character, and could not go unrecorded. “Dash
has nearly been killed to-day, poor fellow! He got into a rabbit
burrow so far that he could neither move backward nor forward; and my
father, two men and a boy, were all busy digging for upwards of two
hours, in a heavy rain, to get him out. They had to penetrate through
a high bank, with nothing to guide them but the poor dog’s moans. You
never saw any one so full of gratitude, or so sensible of what his
master has done for him, as he is.... My father was wet to the skin;
but I am sure he would have dug till this time rather than any living
creature, much less his own favourite dog, should have perished so
miserably.”
In the tragedy of _Rienzi_ there are some fine lines embodied in
Rienzi’s injunction to his daughter, which we cannot refrain from
quoting at this point:—
“Claudia, in these bad days,
When men must tread perforce the flinty path
Of duty, hard and rugged; fail not thou
Duly at night and morning to give thanks
To the all-gracious Power, that smoothed the way
For woman’s tenderer feet. She but looks on,
And waits and prays for the good cause, whilst man
Fights, struggles, triumphs, dies!”
Did we not know that Miss Mitford was incapable of a harsh thought
towards her father, we should be inclined to read a satire into these
lines. Who smoothed the way for her? What time had she wherein to
wait and pray? Her days she spent in treading the flinty path of
duty, made more rugged and hard by that one who, had he done his
duty, would have exerted himself rather in smoothing the way.
Writing to Haydon late in the year to congratulate him on a success,
she said:—“Be quite assured that my sympathy with you and with
art is as strong as ever, albeit the demonstration have lost its
youthfulness and its enthusiasm, just as I myself have done. The
fact is that I am much changed, much saddened—am older in mind than
in years—have entirely lost that greatest gift of nature, animal
spirits, and am become as nervous and good-for-nothing a person
as you can imagine. Conversation excites me sometimes, but only,
I think, to fall back with a deader weight. Whether there be any
physical cause for this, I cannot tell. I hope so, for then perhaps
it may pass away; but I rather fear that it is the overburthen, the
sense that more is expected of me than I can perform, which weighs me
down and prevents me doing anything. I am ashamed to say that a play
bespoken last year at Drury Lane, and wanted by them beyond measure,
is not yet nearly finished. I do not even know whether it will be
completed in time to be produced this season. I try to write it and
cry over my lamentable inability, but I do not get on. Women were
not meant to earn the bread of a family—I am sure of that—there is
a want of strength.... God bless you and yours! Do not judge of the
sincerity of an old friendship, or the warmth of an old friend, by
the unfrequency or dulness of her letters.”
Added to all this weight of work and the forbearance exacted of her
by her father, there was the worry consequent upon Mrs. Mitford’s
failing health. Judging by the letters of the period it is evident
that the mother’s condition was growing serious. Her mind was often
a blank and, as the winter drew on, there was a recurrence of the
asthma which sapped the little strength remaining to her. “My mother,
_whom few things touch now_, is particularly pleased,” wrote Miss
Mitford to William Harness _à propos_ of a visit he had promised
to pay them, and concerning which she added:—“You don’t know how
often I have longed to press you to come to us, but have always been
afraid; you are used to things so much better, and I thought you
would find it dull.”
On Boxing-Day, 1829, Mrs. Mitford’s condition was very grave, for
she was seized with apoplexy, and had to be put to bed. There she
lingered hovering between life and death until the morning of
January 2, 1830, when she passed away, in the eightieth year of her
age. The account of her last illness and death is amongst the most
touching things ever penned by her daughter—to whom sentimentality
was abhorrent. It is too long for extensive quotation, but we cannot
forbear making a brief extract describing the last sad moments.
“She was gone. I had kissed her dear hand and her dear face just
before. She looked sweet, and calm, and peaceful: there was even a
smile on her dear face. I thought my heart would have broken, and my
dear father’s too.
“On Saturday I did not see her; I tried, but on opening the door
I found her covered by a sheet, and had not courage to take it
down.... On Thursday I saw her for the last time, in the coffin,
with the dear face covered, and gathered for her all the flowers I
could get—chrysanthemums (now a hallowed flower), white, yellow
and purple—laurustinus, one early common primrose, a white Chinese
primrose, bay and myrtle from a tree she liked, verbena, and
lemon-grass also. I put some of these in the coffin, with rosemary,
and my dear father put some.
“We kissed her cold hand, and then we followed her to her grave in
Shinfield Church, near the door, very deep and in a fine soil, with
room above it for her own dear husband and her own dear child. God
grant we may tread in her steps!... No human being was ever so
devoted to her duties—so just, so pious, so charitable, so true,
so feminine, so industrious, so generous, so disinterested, so
lady-like—never thinking of herself, always of others—the best
mother, the most devoted wife, the most faithful friend.... Oh, that
I could but again feel the touch of that dear hand! God forgive me my
many faults to her, blessed angel, and grant that I may humbly follow
in her track!... She told Harriet Palmer (of whom she was fond) that
she meant to get a guinea, and have her father’s old Bible—the
little black Bible which she read every day—beautifully bound, with
her initials on it, and give it to me. She told me, when _Otto_
should be performed, she wanted a guinea—but not why—and would not
take it before. It shall be done, blessed saint!”