Letter to <persName ref="#Webb_Mary_younger">Mary Webb</persName>, <date when="1820-12-19">December 19, 1820</date> Mary Russell Mitford Samantha Webb Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Aymee Lynn Woody Date last checked: December 31, 2017 Proofing and corrections by Elisa Beshero-Bondar Samantha Webb First digital edition in TEI, date: February 01, 2017. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: DSCF9084.jpg, DSCF9083.jpg, DSCF9082.jpg, DSCF9081.jpg, DSCF9080.jpg, DSCF9079.jpg, DSCF9078.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the Reading Central Library.-->

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Reading Central Library not part of the bound collection; letters collected and annotated in loose-leaf paper by Francis Needham. qB/TU/MIT Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Mary Webb, 1820 December 19.

One sheet of paper, folded in half vertically and in thirds horizontally. All four surfaces contain text. The paper is 18.34cm in length and 11.34cm in height. The address directed to Miss Webb, Wokingham, appears on the first page, which is the left side of the paper; the correspondence begins on the right side and continues to cover the backside of the paper entirely.

Sheet (pages three and four) torn on right edge of page three where wax seal was removed.

No seal

 Red crayon or thick red pencil. Probably a different hand from Mitford's that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across Mitford's writing. A red line is drawn from top left to bottom right of each of the first three leaves. On leaf four, a red line is drawn from top left to bottom right across each of the two text blocks. There is no red crayon across the address text block. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them, who left grey pencil marks and numbered her letters now in the Reading Central Library's collection. This letter is numbered "11" in the top left of the first leaf.

Mitford’s spelling and punctuation are retained, except where a word is split at the end of a line and the beginning of the next in the manuscript. Where Mitford’s spelling and hyphenation of words deviates from the standard, in order to facilitate searching we are using the TEI elements “choice," “sic," and “reg" to encode both Mitford’s spelling and the regular international standard of Oxford English spelling, following the first listed spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. The long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.
Tuesday Morning. My dear Friend

Our delightful day on Sunday was concluded by a ride home quite as delightful--warm & mild like June--I should be delight but too happy to repeat it on Thursday but Papa goes early tomorrow morning into Hampshire & does not return till Sunday.--Tell dear Aunt Mary that I thank her a hundred times for her cloak which I return with this--I will not trouble you for Charles the Fifth as I can get him from the Institution I find. I have set Papa today to hunt in the Index for Fiesco--I wonder what hand he'll make of it!--I wonder what hand I shall make of it!!! Tom Thumb? Eh, Miss Eliza?--Don't forget to wish to come to the County Meeting--there's a dear--& then you will come. Wishing & willing are everything in this world--Napoleon carried all before him only by the intense power of his will, so why not Mary Webb?--Tell your dear Father that I am convinced Papa was mistaken in attributing the abuse of Henry Marsh in the last Reading paper to Mr. Milman.The rift between Henry Marsh and Henry Hart Milman is chronicled in the History of Parliament Online. The Greek & the ill nature looked like him--but the writing is too bad to be by possibility the production of an Editor Elect of the Quarterly.We need to trace this reference to a Reading newspaper article. This is perhaps referencing an article written in the Windsor and Reading Eton Express Journal I had not read it on Sunday or I should have said so then--I had not even read your draft, which is very well done indeed--I wish to come & hear you one of these days--for really you & your master must both be extraordinary to have made such a progress in so short a time--The learning those verses from the Phedre is quite miraculous in such young beginners. It is almost - quite - the most celebrated tirade in French Tragedy.--I don't mean to have such a long speech in Fiesco to puzzle any future French learner of English--I am considerate to posterity.

--Goodbye my dear & my love--Ever your's--M.R.M.
To Miss Webb Wokingham