To Sir W. Eld. Begin with these lines
13
July 28, 1819.
Why
Wizzard
Wizard
thus disturb my dormant life
And raise me through the water's misty strife
Oh cease! Your high behests with speed disclose
With speed dismiss me to my dread repose
It is not from laziness believe me, my dear Friend, that I have sent your four lines unaltered. I have been altering them all the morning--turning & twisting them twenty different ways--& on an impartial survey of the several readings am convinced that your version is much the best. Mine all look patched. Indeed I write verses so seldom now that I have lost the little power I once possessed. The reason of my not sending you any of my attempts is, that I fear your modesty or your politeness might tempt you to prefer my bad lines to your good ones & I would not put such a risk in your way. Surely the last line is very
good--the repetition strengthens it. In addition to the greater clearness of these last verses which we both prefer, they remind me much less of those in
Manfred for which you know I took the first you sent me, & as your Picture though strikingly coinciding in subject with this fine conception of
Lord Byron's is not taken from it--has I suppose neither the cascade-rainbow nor the Alpine scenery of his Drama you would of course not wish your nymph to be confounded with the
"Witch of the Alps."
Now that our something like business is dispatched, let me thank you a thousand times for your charming letter & all its kindness. You have before now received my doleful epistle, & know that we cannot come to Bickham. I wish I was setting out for it this very moment. I did not want that dear letter to remind me of all that I love. And yet it has very much
encreased
increased
my regret. I shall do nothing for a whole week but pity myself & hate Mr. Elliot. What pleasure I should have had in seeing with you such scenery as you describe--in meeting Miss Welsford who is so good to me & whom I look upon as a ready made friend--in making acquaintance with your daughters who are I hope equally well disposed towards me--& even in hearing the Balcombe family talk of my hero. (Do send me word what they say of him.)--I must not think of what I lose or I shall become quite fretful & repining. I must talk of something else. You are certainly a critic of the very first water my dear Sir William deny it as you may--& neither Mrs. Hofland nor I flatter you in the least. As to Mrs. Hof: I don't think she can flatter--she does not know how & says things sometimes in the way of truth-telling that startle a whole company like the sudden going off of a gun--and as to me--I may sometimes in my enthusiasm think a leetel more than exists, but I never said a word more than I believed even of you on Buonaparte. (how do you like the conjunctions?) Now that I have cleared my ground I may be believed when I tell you how much I admire all that you have said of these
Tales of my Landlord.
Mitford refers to Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor. The shifts & contrivances of the servant (always excepting the admirable detail of the cooper's menage which they are the means of introducing--the only piece of real life in the story) are not only false & poor & worthless--a bad imitation of some farce that I have seen--abortive humour which is worse than anything--they are not only detestable in themselves, but by bringing back the imagination
with a jerkto all that is low & pitiful completely destroy the illusion which the Author intended to produce by the romantic & supernatural tone of the story. He certainly as you so well observe does believe himself in all manner of second-sight & Faëry--& if he had had Fairfax's good luck & lived in days when such a belief would not have been laughed at, & pilloried in reviews &
pelted in newspapers he would have been as great or greater than Fairfax in his own way.
Prevailing poet whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonder that he sung
--but being by his evil stars condemned to make his fortune in a sneering & a skeptical age, he is obliged to cover his strong under current & of credibility with little fluctuating waves of mock-unbelief, & affected levity which entirely counteract one effect, without actually producing the other. I wonder he does not feel & know how
entirely
completely the artificial state of
of mind excited by a powerful representation of supernatural
subjects must be destroyed by anything light or ludicrous--anything which breathes or suspends even for a moment the gloomy & passionate feeling. Everything in ghost stories depends on continuity--one cannot lay down the book to snuff the candle without letting some part of the awe escape--The hair which has been standing to charmingly an end with fright fallsdown flump--& won't get up again.--The nymph of the fountain is very pretty & I think original. If you like such water sprite stories you should read
Undine (Do you remember how you attracted my handwriting about that word?) There is in that the prettiest mixture of childishness & witchery that can be imagined with a deep & intense moral feeling--and very short--only one small volume.
I am very stupid tonight--worse than usual--& I can guess why. I have been reading a fine thick metaphysical book--Professor Brown on
Cause & Effect--& to use the learned professor's own phraseology I suppose that the general
"consequent"
of such an
"antecedent"
as reading his book is stupidity. I must tell you how
was betrayed into such a headachy lecture this warm weather. Miss James [page torn, perhaps "gave"]--> me the book--& she knows and likes the author & wanted to say something nice to him about his work--but being too wise to read it herself sent it to me to read for her. Is not she a pretty fellow?
Did I tell you in my last for really I don't remember Deuce take Professor Brown's great book!) that I have got a new pet? All this warm weather I sit out of doors in the Plantations--just on one side of my seat is a filberd tree the branches of which spread quite across my feet & on these branches every day comes a young red breast--first of all he appeared at a distance--then he came nearer then he fed close to me & now the moment I call Bobby
he comes. Mossy himself is not more tame or more fond--he comes on my feet & my gown--feeds almost on my hand (not quite) & has by example tamed his Papa & one or two of his brothers & sisters who come like him & feed from a board on the tree quite close to me but do not like my own Bobby come when they are called. Is this unusual in the summer? I know they are tame in the winter--but this is quite a young bird has never known cold or hunger, he had not a red feather in his breast a fortnight ago. He likes very much to be talked to in a soft monotonous & caressing tone Bobby! Bobby! Bobby! & turns his head in the prettiest attitudes of listening that you can imagine & generally finishes by taking two or three flights across me so close as almost to touch my face. I shall be so long to leave him--I think that I shall try to get it put in the deeds that Mr. Elliot must feed Bobby.
. How very good you were to transcribe for me Mr. Cranstown's account of young Napoleon.--though perhaps one had rather that he were more like a boy--one does not imagine his father to have been so sedate a person at his age. But Princes poor things never can be children--their luckless station will not let them--& that I suppose is one reason why so few of them turn out great men. Did you ever hear that a damsel of his own rank & age--a little Princess of the Netherlands is desperately in love with their own Buonaparte. She vows she will never marry anyone else--she will have him--she is as violently in love with him as most
damsels of her age
heroines of her years are with a doll or a dumpling. I understand the young lady is a very promising subject--a charming haughty refractory child--full of self will & attraction.--Adieu. Papa continues quite well & joins with Mama in kindest remembrances--
Ever most affectionately your's
M.R.M.
I do not wait for a frank lest I should detain the picture--Pray write soon.--I am so glad to hear Miss Welsford is better.-Does my fair Sister Poetess ever write now.--once more Adieu my dear Friend.
To Sir William Elford Bart
Bickham
Plymouth