Letter to <persName ref="#Elford_SirWm">Sir William Elford</persName>, <date when="1821-04-04"> April 4, 1821</date> Mary Russell Mitford Lisa M. Wilson Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Lisa M. Wilson Proofing and corrections by Molly C. O'Donnell First digital edition in TEI, date: June 11, 2014. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: 4April1821SirWilliamElford1a#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford2a#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford1b#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford2b#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford3a#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford4a#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford3b#.jpg, 4April1821SirWilliamElford4b#.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 The letters of Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 4, 1819-1823 qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 Horizon No.: 1361550 ff. 434 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Sir William Elford, 04 April 1821.

One sheet of folio paper folded in half to form four surfaces which are photographed. Letter text is on pages 1, 2, and 3, with the address on page 4.

Address leaf bearing black postmark, partially illegible, reading READING 4 2 .

The entire address has penned slashes across it, as well as a 2, a possible fee, written next to where the red seal would have been when the letter was sealed.

Page 3 is torn on right edge where wax seal was removed.

Red wax 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. On this letter, a red line is drawn from the top left diagonally to the bottom right of pages 1-3. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them left grey pencil marks. This letter is dated April 4, 1821, on the address leaf by that hand and numbered 29 on page 1.

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.
To Sir W. Elford April 4th 1821. Three Mile Cross

You are the most provoking man that ever lived in the world--& the most provoking part of your provokingness is that one cannot find in one's heart to quarrel with you. To think of your expecting a letter at Oakhampton House! Well you shall get one at Bickham instead for if you do not leave it till the 4th I shall have time to catch you & I wish to explain to you all my thoughts & feelings respecting these letters. I should be as glad as you would, my always dear & kind & too partial friend, if I thought they would by any chance make some attractive volumes. But I do not. There is about them now a piquancy which results almost entirely from saucy criticism on the one hand, & personal anecdotes no less saucy on the other. If I were to publish them as they are I have no doubt but they would sell--But to publish them as they are would be impossible--everything that could by the remotest chance hurt the feelings either of authors or acquaintances or whoever else might be mentioned must without hesitation be expunged--& I blush to think how little would remain worth reading when this playful malice (excusable perhaps for a lively young woman to write but which she would be unpardonable in printing) should be taken away. With these feelings, I shall persist in my request for a loan of those letters--It seems to me that I may find bits in them which would dovetail in with great ease & some effect--For instance I want to write an article on Richmond, & if I remember right I wrote you an account of the impression which that beautiful & elegant place made on me when I was there last year. If you will trust me with these letters I will promise you to look over them & if I find your plan practicable to put it in execution in preference to my own--If not the letters will be just as good as new twenty years hence, even though I should get them now--for neither my Essays nor the Magazines will be remembered then more than the last year's clouds. If you should incline to yield to my reasons or my importunity, you can bring these epistles with you & either leave them for me at Reading or bring them yourself here on your return, when I hope we may depend on seeing you at all events. If you leave them at Reading will you have the goodness to send a line to the Post Office as you pass through to let me know that you have done so. We must not let these precious pieces of impertinence be lost. I am quite ashamed to have made such a clatter about them. My Tragedy is still in Mr. Macready's hands--but I am afraid it will be ultimately rejected--Oh I shall never have the good luck to be damned!--Mr. Macready wrote the other day to my friend & his friend who gave him my Play--& this mutual friend (who is on the circuit just now) copied his letter for my edification. It was in the first place the prettiest letter I ever read in my life--thoroughly careless simple & unpresuming--showing great diffidence of his own judgment--the readiest goodnature--the kindest & most candid desire to be pleased. I wot the letter of a scholar & a gentleman, & not the least like an Actor. As far as regarded my Tragedy it contained much good criticism--Mr. Macready thinks, & he is right, that there is too little of striking incident & too little fluctuation (Indeed I have made my Fiesco as virtuous & as fortunate as Sir Charles Grandison--& he goes about proné by every body & setting every body to rights much in the same style with that worthy gentleman--only that he has one wife instead of two mistresses) Nevertheless the dialogue which is my strong part has some how "put salt upon Mr. Macready's tail" as Miss James says Not a quotation but a proverbial phrase. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898), the phrase usually means to "catch or apprehend" someone. Mitford seems to mean that Macready has been halted or frozen by indecision. --so that he is in a very unhappy state of doubt about it & cannot make up his mind one or the other. The only thing upon which he was decided was that the handwriting was illegible & that it must be copied for presentment to the Managers--which has been done accordingly & Mr. Macready & they will now do exactly as they like.--I am delighted to find that you think I may succeed as a Dramatic writer--I am now occupied in Dramatic Sketches for Baldwin's Magazine--slight stories of about one act developed in fanciful dialogues of loose blank verse.--I have written two--& I suppose they will appear in May or June. By the way Mr. Baldwin has not heard word yet of the felicity that is to befal befall him--for they are upon the Circuit with my young Barrister friend--but as he is a great literary man, & undertakes for their insertion I have not much doubt about the matter--Don't mention it though till we have actually made the bargain--If Mr. Baldwin will accept a series of such articles they will be not merely extremely advantageous to one in a pecuniary point of view (for the p ay is well up, they give 15 guineas a sheet) but excellent exercise for my Tragedies. At the same time I confess to you that nothing seems so tiresome & unsatisfactory as writing poetry--Oh my dear Sir William! how much better I like working flowers! There when one had done a pattern one was sure that one had got on--& I had the comfort of admiring one's work & exulting in one's industry all the time that one was in fact indulging in the most comfortable indolence. Well courage Missy Mitford (as Blackwood's Magazine has the impudence to call me!) Courage Mon Amie--If you go on dramatizing at this rate 6 years longer so you will get as enured to it as to working flounces or writing to your dear Sir William--All your fidgettiness will disappear Missy--The postman is this moment waiting--(I did not expect him for this half hour)--

I have only time to say God bless you-- M.R. Mitford .

Of course you will not expect to hear at Oakhampton House.
To Sir William Elford Bart. Bickham Plymouth