“THE WORKHOUSE—A FAR PREFERABLE DESTINY”
“For my own part I have plenty that must be done; much connected
painfully with my terrible grief; much that is calculated to force
me into exertion, by the necessity of getting money to meet the
inevitable expenses. Whether it were inability or inertness I cannot
tell, but _Otto_ is still but little advanced. I lament this of all
things _now_; I grieve over it as a fault as well as a misfortune.”
So wrote Miss Mitford to William Harness on January 9, 1830, the day
following her mother’s funeral. And truly there was plenty to be done
and she would need all her woman’s courage, for now “the weight which
Dr. Mitford had divided between two forbearing women had to be borne
by one.”
A new volume—the fourth—of _Our Village_ was now almost ready for
publication, for which Whittaker agreed to give £150, and during the
month an agent from a publisher had called at Three Mile Cross with
a view to arranging for a work to be entitled _Stories of American
Life by American Writers_, which were to be selected and edited, with
prefaces by Miss Mitford. The suggested publisher was Colburn. This,
of course, necessitated a great deal of labour, in the midst of which
the negotiations for the American book nearly fell through by reason
of a quarrel between the publisher and his agent.
It was a most trying period, for Dr. Mitford grew more exacting day
by day, demanding more and more attention from his daughter, whom
he expected—nay, forced—to play cribbage with him until he fell
asleep, when, being released, she read and worked far into the night.
Then, to make matters worse, the Doctor began to imbibe more wine
than was good for him—it will be noticed that his creature comforts
did not diminish—and, whilst returning alone from a dinner-party
in the neighbourhood, was thrown out of the chaise and the horse
and vehicle arrived empty at the cottage in the dead of night. His
daughter, who had been waiting for him, made the discovery that he
was missing and, rousing the man and servants, they all set off along
the road to Shinfield, finding him lying stunned by the roadside
a mile away, “Only think,” wrote his daughter, “what an agony of
suspense it was! Thank Heaven, however, he escaped uninjured, except
being stiff from the jar; and I am recovering my nervousness better
than I could have expected.”
[Illustration: _Very truly yours M. R. Mitford_
THE AUTHOR OF OUR VILLAGE
Miss Mitford “attended by a printer’s devil to whom she is delivering
‘copy.’”
(From a sketch in _Fraser’s Magazine_, May, 1831.)]
The success of _Rienzi_ in America, and the previous re-publication
in that country of a small volume of the _Narrative Poems on the
Female Character_, had brought Miss Mitford’s name prominently before
the American people, and towards the end of 1830 she was gratified by
the receipt of a long letter of congratulation from Miss Catharine
Maria Sedgwick,[26] an American author of some repute in her day, who
had, that year, published a novel entitled _Hope Leslie_. The letter
mentioned the despatch of an author’s copy of one of the writer’s
books and asked for particulars of the village and home-life of Miss
Mitford, whose volumes on _Our Village_ were being read with avidity
across the Atlantic. It drew a long and characteristic reply.
“I rejoice,” wrote Miss Mitford, “to find that your book is not
merely reprinted but published in England, and will contribute,
together with the splendid novels of Mr. Cooper, to make the
literature and manners of a country so nearly connected with us in
language and ways of thinking, known and valued here. I think that
every day contributes to that great end. Cooper is certainly, next to
Scott, the most popular novel writer of the age. Washington Irving
enjoys a high and fast reputation; the eloquence of Dr. Channing, if
less widely, is perhaps more deeply felt; and a lady, whom I need not
name, takes her place amongst these great men, as Miss Edgeworth
does among our Scotts and Chalmerses. I have contributed, or rather,
am about to contribute, my mite to this most desirable interchange
of mind with mind, having selected and edited three volumes of
tales, taken from the great mass of your periodical literature, and
called _Stories of American Life by American Authors_. They are not
yet published, but have been printed some time; and I shall desire
Mr. Colburn to send you a copy, to which, indeed, you have every
way a right, since I owe to you some of the best stories in the
collection.” Then followed a short description of the events which
led up to the removal from Bertram House to the cottage at Three
Mile Cross. “There was, however, no loss of character amongst our
other losses; and it is to the credit of human nature to say, that
our change of circumstances has been attended with no other change
amongst our neighbours and friends than that of increased attentions
and kindness. Indeed I can never be sufficiently thankful for the
very great goodness which I have experienced all through life, from
almost every one with whom I have been connected. My dear mother I
had the misfortune to lose last winter. My dear father still lives, a
beautiful and cheerful old man, whom I should of all things like you
to know, and if ever you do come to our little England, you must come
and see us. We should never forgive you if you did not. Our family
losses made me an authoress ... and I should have abstained from all
literary offence for the future had not poverty driven me against my
will to writing tragic verse and comic prose; thrice happy to have
been able, by so doing, to be of some use to my dear family.”
In response to the invitation contained in this letter Miss Sedgwick
did call at the cottage when, some years later, she paid a visit to
this country. It was a visit ostensibly undertaken to see the sights
and meet the lions—particularly the literary lions. The record of
the trip was embodied in two small volumes published in 1841 by
Moxon, in London, and entitled _Letters from Abroad to Kindred at
Home_. Miss Sedgwick possessed a telling style, picturesque to a
degree, and there can be no shadow of doubt that her “kindred at
home” were delighted to have her spicy epistles, but they shocked
Miss Mitford. “If you have a mind,” the latter wrote to a friend,
“to read the coarsest Americanism ever put forth, read the _Literary
Gazette_ of this last week. I remember, my dear love, how much and
how justly you were shocked at Miss Sedgwick’s way of speaking of
poor Miss Landon’s death; but when you remember that her brother and
nephew had spent twice ten days at our poor cottage—that she had
been received as their kinswoman, and therefore as a friend, you may
judge how unexpected this coarse detail has been. The _Athenæum_ will
give you no notion of the original passage nor the book itself—for
John Kenyon, meeting with it at Moxon’s, cancelled the passage—but
too late for the journals, except the _Athenæum_. Of course its
chief annoyance to me is the finding the aunt of a dear friend so
excessively vulgar. Do get the _Literary Gazette_—for really it must
be seen to be believed.”
We quote the extract from the _Literary Gazette_ of July 10, 1841.
“Our coachman (who, after telling him we were Americans, had
complimented us on our speaking English, ‘and very good English,
too’) professed an acquaintance of some twenty years standing with
Miss M., and assured us that she was one of the ‘cleverest women in
England,’ and ‘the Doctor’ (her father) ‘an ’earty old boy.’ And when
he reined his horses up to her door, and she appeared to receive
us, he said, ‘Now you would not take that little body there for the
great author, would you?’ and certainly we should have taken her
for nothing but a kindly gentlewoman, who had never gone beyond the
narrow sphere of the most refined social life.... Miss M. is truly
‘a little body,’ and dressed a little quaintly, and as unlike as
possible to the faces we have seen of her in the magazines, which
all have a broad humour, bordering on coarseness. She has a pale
grey, soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow; a wintry sign that
has come prematurely upon her, as like signs come upon us, while
the year is yet fresh and undecayed. Her voice has a sweet, low
tone, and her manner a naturalness, frankness, and affectionateness,
that we have been so long familiar with in their other modes of
manifestation, that it would have been indeed a disappointment not
to have found them.... The garden is filled, matted with flowering
shrubs and vines; the trees are wreathed with honeysuckles and
roses. Oh! that I could give some of my countrywomen a vision of
this little paradise of flowers, that they might learn how taste and
industry and an earnest love and study of the art of garden-culture,
might triumph over small space and small means. In this very humble
home she receives on equal terms the best in the land. Her literary
reputation might have gained for her this elevation, but she started
on vantage-ground, being allied by blood to the Duke of Bedford’s
family.”
Speaking for ourselves, we are inclined to disagree with Miss
Mitford’s strictures. The article is breezy, certainly, and short of
the reference to the ’earty old boy and to herself as “the little
body,” we confess to finding it little short of a very kindly
tribute. As to the concluding sentence of the article, that was,
perhaps, a case of “drawing the long bow,” but then both Miss Mitford
and her mother frequently alluded to the distant connection of the
latter with the Bedford’s, and the fact must have been mentioned by
Miss Mitford in her visitor’s hearing.
As a companion to the _Stories of American Life_, Whittaker
suggested a series of similar stories for children, and it was upon
this project that Miss Mitford worked at the end of 1830 and into
1831. The work was to comprise six volumes—three for children over
ten years of age and three for those of ten and under, and the
publication was completed by the year 1832. Then, as Dr. Mitford’s
exactions were still great and his purse had to be kept well filled,
his daughter’s mind turned once more to the Drama and to the play
of _Charles the First_, which lay neglected for want of official
sanction. The Duke of Devonshire having, by this time, succeeded
the Duke of Montrose as Lord Chamberlain, Miss Mitford made one
more attempt to secure a licence for the banned play. A letter—a
veritable model of courtesy and diplomacy—was despatched to His
Grace with a copy of the work in question:—
“MY LORD DUKE,—
“The spirit of liberality and justice to dramatic authors by which
your Grace’s exercise of the functions of Lord High Chamberlain has
been distinguished, forms the only excuse for the liberty taken
in sending my tragedy of _Charles the First_ direct to yourself,
instead of transmitting it, in the usual mode, from the theatre to
Mr. Colman. To send it to that gentleman, indeed, would be worse
than useless, the play having been written at the time of the Duke
of Montrose, and a licence having been refused to it on account
of the title and the subject, which Mr. Colman declared to be
inadmissible on the stage. That this is not the general opinion may
be inferred from the subject’s having been repeatedly pointed out
by different critics as one of the most dramatic points of English
history, and especially recommended to me both by managers and
actors. That such could not always have been the feeling of those
in power is proved by the fact that there is actually a tragedy, on
the very same subject and bearing the very same title, written some
sixty or seventy years since by Havard the player, in which John
Kemble, at one time, performed the principal character, and which
might be represented any night, at any other theatre, without the
necessity of a licence or the possibility of an objection. It is the
existence of this piece which makes the prohibition of mine seem
doubly hard, and emboldens me to appeal to your Grace’s kindness
against the rigorous decree of your predecessor.... I am not aware
that there is in the whole piece one line which could be construed
into bearing the remotest analogy to present circumstances, or that
could cause scandal or offence to the most loyal. If I had been
foolish or wicked enough to have written such things, the reign of
William the Fourth and the administration of Earl Grey would hardly
be the time to produce them.”
To this the Duke replied that he could not—consistently with
his established rule not to reverse the decisions of his
predecessor—license the play, and so the matter was dropped for a
time.
Meanwhile active preparations were in progress for the fifth and
last volume of _Our Village_, and, during the year, there was a
mild rehearsal at the cottage of a Scena, entitled _Mary Queen of
Scots’ Farewell to France_, which Miss Mitford had composed at the
instigation of a Reading young man named Charles Parker, who had set
the Scena to music—“a sweet and charming lad in mind and temper, a
Master of the Royal Musical Academy of London, not yet twenty-one,”
was Miss Mitford’s description of him.
This composition was declared, so the author said, to be “as fine as
anything in English music,” and those who were privileged to hear
the village rehearsal were charmed with it, although they heard it
to disadvantage, “for it makes fifty pages of music, and requires
the united bands of Drury Lane and the Royal Musical Academy and
above fifty chorus-women. The first five lines (an almost literal
translation of Mary’s own verses,
‘Adieu! plaisant pays de France’),
are the air—then the blank verse in exquisite recitative—then a
magnificent chorus—then the song again—and then a chorus fading
into the distance. No woman in England except Mrs. Wood can sing it;
so that whether it will be performed in public is doubtful; but it
is something to have furnished the thread on which such pearls are
strung.” Unfortunately the composition never did obtain a hearing, so
far as we can discover. Following this, and late in the year 1831,
with a view to helping forward the fortunes of Mr. Parker, Miss
Mitford became again “immersed in music.” “I am writing an opera
for and with Charles Parker; and you would really be diverted to
find how learned I am become on the subject of choruses and double
choruses and trios and septets. Very fine music carries me away more
than anything—but then it must be _very_ fine. Our opera will be
most splendid—a real opera—all singing and recitative—blank verse
of course, and rhyme for the airs, with plenty of magic—an Eastern
fairy tale.” This was _Sadak and Kalasrade_, of which an unkind but
truthful critic wrote: “It was only once performed. Wretchedly played
and sung as it was, it hardly deserved a better fate. The music, by a
now forgotten pupil of our Academy of Music, was heavy and valueless,
and the dramatist, though graceful and fresh as a lyrist, had not the
instinct, or had not mastered the secret of writing for music.” This,
of course, meant so much wasted time and energy at a period when both
were valuable and needed conserving as much as possible.
It was unfortunate that the opera proved such a failure, for on its
success the Mitfords were relying for the replenishment of their
exchequer. “Shall we be able to go on if the Opera is delayed till
February?” wrote Miss Mitford in September, 1832, to her father,
then staying at the _Sussex Hotel_ in Bouverie Street. She had been
busy during the spring and summer in making up lost time on the
preparation of the last volume of _Our Village_. It was published in
the autumn, but as its author made no mention of the matter in her
letter to her father, we presume that an advance payment on account
had been received and used. In the same letter she alludes to a
notice of objection to the Doctor’s vote, “not on account of the
vote, but for fear it should bring on that abominable question of the
qualification for the magistracy. Ask our dear Mr. Talfourd whether
the two fields, forty shilling freehold, will be enough, without
bringing out the other affair. In short, it worries me exceedingly;
and if there were any danger in it one way or other it would be best
to keep out of the way and lose the vote, rather than do anything
that could implicate the other and far more important matter.” In
so far as the magistracy was concerned it was astonishing that the
matter had never been questioned.
With her father in London—the seat of his temptations—spending her
hard-earned income, she grew low-spirited and ill. Her complaint,
she explained in a letter to William Harness, was one brought on
by anxiety, fatigue or worry, and she told him how she hesitated
consulting a physician, knowing full well that his prescription
would be “not to write.” The bread had to be earned and the means
secured which would give her father plenty wherewith to enjoy
himself. Added to this were the “levees”—as she called them—which
she was forced to endure all day long by reason of the folk who came
from far and near to call upon her. “Every idle person who comes
within twenty miles gets a letter of introduction, or an introduction
in the shape of an acquaintance, and comes to see my geraniums or
myself—Heaven knows which! I have had seven carriages at once at
the door of our little cottage—and this is terrible when one is not
well.”
While the Doctor was still in London an offer came from one of Miss
Mitford’s cousins—a Mrs. Raggett—suggesting that she should give
up authorship altogether and live with her and her husband, the
scheme being that Miss Mitford should act as reader and secretary to
Mr. Raggett, who was nearly blind, and be a companion to his wife.
“The offer had great temptation,” she told William Harness, “and I
have no doubt we should have been happy together, but it is clear my
father’s comfort would have been destroyed by such an arrangement;
the sacrifice of his old habits—his old friends—the blameless
self-importance which results from his station as Chairman of the
Reading Bench—and his really influential position in this county,
where we are much respected in spite of our poverty, would have been
far too much to ask or to permit. I refused it therefore at once.”
To her old friend, Sir William Elford—not often written to in these
driving days—she wrote: “I must be obliged to get out another book
this spring, although how I shall be able to write it God only knows.
I am glad you like my last volume; I myself hate all my own doings,
and consider the being forced to this drudgery as the greatest
misery that life can afford. But it is my wretched fate and must be
undergone—so long, at least, as my father is spared to me. If I
should have the misfortune to lose him, I shall go quietly to the
workhouse, and never write another line—a far preferable destiny.”
FOOTNOTES:
[26] She was related to the President, General Jackson.