CHAPTER XVII
THE MARCH OF MIND
In the month of June, 1814, that memorable period in our history, Mary Mitford was again visiting her friends the St. Quintins in Hans Place.
London was then swarming with crowned heads, victorious generals and distinguished foreigners of all kinds, to rejoice with us upon the downfall of Napoleon.
Even the ultra-Whigs, to which Mary and her family belonged, had long ceased to entertain any hopes of him as a benefactor to the human race, and she had declared to Sir William Elford in 1812 that she “was no well-wisher to Napoleon—the greatest enemy to democracy that ever existed.”
On the 18th June Mary and her friends went to the office of the _Morning Chronicle_ (Mr. Perry, the editor, being an intimate friend of the Mitfords) to behold the grand procession of royal personages to the Merchant Taylors Hall. Writing on the following day to her mother, she says: “The _Chronicle_ will tell you much more of the procession than I can ... suffice it to say that we got there well and pleasantly, and saw them all most clearly; that the Emperor and Duchess are much alike—she a pretty woman, he a fine-looking man—both with fair complexions and round _Tartar_ faces—no expression of any sort except affability and good-humour; that the King of Prussia is a much more interesting and intelligent-looking man, though not so handsome; and that the Regent got notably hissed, in spite of his protecting presence.” And writing a few days later she says:
“Yesterday I went, as you know, to the play with papa, and on our road thither had a very great pleasure in meeting Lord Wellington, just arrived in London, and driving to his own house in an open carriage and six. We had an excellent sight of him, so excellent that I should know him again anywhere; and it was quite refreshing after all those parading foreigners, emperors, and so forth to see an honest English hero, with a famous Mitford nose, looking quite happy, without any affectation of bowing or seeming affable. He is a very fine countenanced man, tanned and weather-beaten, with good dark eyes.... Very few of the populace knew him, but the intelligence spread like wildfire, and Piccadilly looked like a hive of bees in swarming time.”
Writing to Sir William Elford in July, 1815, Mary apologises for not having sent him, as she had proposed to do, a facsimile copy of _Louis le Desiré’s_ letter to Lady Charles Aynsley. “As kings of France are come in fashion again,” she remarks, “I hastened to repair my omission by copying as well as I was able the aforesaid epistle.... I heard a great deal respecting that very good but weak and bigoted man from a French lady, Madame de Gourbillon, who was one of the favourite attendants of his late wife. His memory exceeds even that of our own venerable king. If you mention the slightest, the least remarkable fact in natural history, in the belles-lettres, in history, or anything he will say, ‘Ay, Buffon, or La Harpe, or Vertot speaks of it (quoting the very words) in such a volume, such a chapter, such a page and such a line.’ He is always correct, even to a monosyllable!”
This recalls to one’s mind the old aphorism applied to the Bourbons: “They forgot nothing and they learnt nothing.”
“Another fact,” continues Mary, “which I ascertained respecting the King of France is that he is afraid of my friend _la Lectrice de la feue Reine_ as ever child was of its schoolmistress, and really it is no impeachment to his courage, for I am not at all sure that Buonaparte himself could stand against her.... Papa and she regularly quarrelled once a day on the old cause, ‘France versus England,’ varied occasionally into ‘French versus English,’ for she very reasonably used to attack Papa for his utter want of French, in which, I believe, he scarcely knows _ouí_ from _non_; and he, with no less reason, would retort on her want of English, she having condescended to vegetate twelve years in this island of fogs and roast beef without being able at the end of that time to distinguish ‘How do you do?’ from ‘Very well, I thank you!’”
During Miss Mitford’s stay in town in the summer of 1814 she had an interesting and unlooked-for experience of which mention is made in the _Morning Chronicle_ of June 25th.
The writer of the article remarks: “The friends of the British and Foreign School Society dined together yesterday at the Freemasons’ Tavern. The Marquis of Lansdowne took the chair, supported by the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, the Earls of Darnley and Eardley, and several other eminent persons. The health of the Chairman and Vice-Presidents was drunk, and then that of the female members of the Society. After this a poetical tribute of Miss Mitford’s was sung, and ‘Thanks to Miss Mitford’ was drunk with applause.”
The following lines occur in the poem:—
“The mental world was wrapt in night.”
* * * * *
Oh, how the glorious dawn unfold The brighter day that lurk’d behind? The march of armies may be told, But not the march of mind.”
Mary was present on the occasion, being seated, together with her friends, in the gallery of the hall. She writes to her mother: “I did not believe my ears when Lord Lansdowne, with his usual graceful eloquence, gave my health. I did not even believe it when my old friend the Duke of Kent, observing that Lord Lansdowne’s voice was not always strong enough to penetrate the depths of that immense assembly, reiterated it with stentorian lungs. Still less did I believe my ears when it was drunk with ‘three times three,’ a flourish of drums and trumpets from the Duke of Kent’s band, and the unanimous thundering and continued plaudits of five hundred people. I really thought it must be [for] Mr. Whitbread, and though I wondered how he could be ‘fair and amiable’ I still thought it him till his health was really drunk and he rose to make the beautiful speech of which you have only a very faint outline in the _Chronicle_.” This speech was made à propos of a toast. “The Cause of Education throughout the World,” Mr. Whitbread remarking, “Miss Mitford has designated it ‘The March of Mind.’”
Whilst Mary Mitford was thus growing in fame, her father, through his many speculations, was frequently involved in money difficulties. In the year 1811 it seems he was actually detained in the debtors’ prison, and arrangements had to be made for the sale of the pictures at Bertram House in order to obtain money for his release. His wife, who in her warm affection was almost too forbearing, wrote to him: “I know you were disappointed in the sale of the pictures; but, my love, if we have less wealth than we hoped, we shall not have less affection; these clouds may blow over more happily than we expected.”
Again she writes: “As to the cause of our present difficulties it avails not how they originated. The only question is how they can be most speedily and effectually put an end to. I ask for no details which you do not voluntarily choose to make. A forced confidence my whole soul would revolt at.”
Mary writes to her father on the occasion with the same self-sacrificing love, but, it seems to us, with more judgment. She suggests that they should let Bertram House, sell books, furniture, everything possible to clear their debts, and then retire to some cottage in the country or to humble lodgings in London. Then she goes on to say: “Where is the place in which, whilst we are all spared to each other, we should not be happy?... Tell me if you approve my scheme, and tell me, I implore you, my most beloved father, the full extent of your embarrassments. This is no time for false delicacy on either side, I dread no evil but suspense.... Whatever those embarrassments may be, of one thing I am certain that the world does not contain so proud, so happy, or so fond a daughter. I would not exchange my father, even though we toiled together for our daily bread, for any man on earth, though he could pour the gold of Peru into my lap.”
Miss Mitford’s biographers have justly censured her father’s evil courses, some considering him as altogether worthless; but surely there must have been many redeeming qualities in one who called forth such love from such a daughter?
For the time being the crisis described was averted; but in 1814 Dr. Mitford was again in great difficulties, caused by his speculations in two enterprises that proved failures—one in coal, the other in a new method for lighting and heating houses, invented by the Marquis de Chavannes, a French refugee. In this latter scheme the doctor actually invested £5000, and when the crash came he lost more money in carrying on a protracted law suit in the French courts in the vain hope of forcing the penniless nobleman to restore his lost property.
Mary, writing of her father’s money losses in later life, says: “He attempted to increase his own resources by the aid of cards (he was unluckily one of the finest whist players in England) or by that other terrible gambling, which ... even when called by its milder term of _speculation_ is that terrible thing gambling still.”
Early in the year 1814 Mary Mitford received a proof of the warm approval accorded to her poems in America, which gave her heartfelt pleasure.
Mrs. Mitford, writing of the event to her husband, says:—
“With your letter and the newspaper this morning arrived a small parcel for our darling, directed to Miss Mary Russell Mitford.... This little packet contained,—what do you think? No less than _Narrative Poems on the Female Character in the various Relations of Life_, by Mary Russell Mitford. Printed at New York, and published by Eastburn, Kirk & Co., No. 86 Broadway. The volume is a small pocket size, well printed and elegantly bound, and the following is a copy of the letter which accompanied it across the Atlantic:—”
NEW YORK, _October 23, 1813_.
MADAM,
We have the honour of transmitting to you a copy of our second edition of your admirable _Narrative Poems on the Female Character_. All who have hearts to feel and understandings to discriminate must earnestly wish you health and leisure to complete your plan.
We shall be gratified by a line acknowledging the receipt of the copy through the medium of our friends Messrs. Longman & Co....
We have the honour to be, madam,
Your most obedient servants, EASTBURN, KIRK & CO.
Mary writes to her father on the receipt of the parcel: “You will easily imagine that I was flattered and pleased with my American packet; but even you can scarcely imagine how much. I never was so vain of anything in my whole life. Only think of their having printed two editions (for the words ‘second edition’ are underscored in their letter) before last October!”
The recognition which she received in America so early in her career was never forgotten, and she used to say in after life, “It takes ten years to make a literary reputation in England, but America is wiser and bolder and dares to say at once, ‘This is fine.’”
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