Letter to <persName ref="#Talfourd_Thos">Thomas Noon Talfourd</persName>, <date when="1821-10-22">October 22, 1821</date> Mary Russell Mitford Lisa M. Wilson Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Heather Sarsfield Lisa M. Wilson Proofing and corrections by Elisa Beshero-Bondar First digital edition in TEI, date: 26 May 2014. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: DSCF6104.jpg, DSCF6105.jpg, DSCF6106.jpg, DSCF6107.jpg The Digital Mitford The editors' photos from this archive are not permitted for public distribution. Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Courtesy of The University of Manchester.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive The John Rylands University Library Mitford-Talfourd Correspondence: Letters from Mary Russell Mitford to Thomas Noon Talfourd: vol. 665 JRL English MS 665 no. 5, Coles no. 15 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to T.N. Talfourd, 1821 October 22. MRM dates this letter "Monday" and it is postmarked 1821-10-25; 1821-10-22 was a Monday, checked in perpetual calendar. Coles dates it the 22nd.

One sheet of folio paper, four surfaces photographed.

Address leaf bearing the following postmarks: 1) black postmark, illegible, and 2) a sepia indented single rim oval stamp reading 25 OC 1821

A large 2 denoting the fee for a single-sheet letter has been written in black ink by the postal service across the address leaf.

The right edge of page three is torn where wax seal was removed.

Red wax seal, wrong side showing.

 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 top left to bottom right of each of the leaves. On leaf six (the address leaf), two red lines are drawn from top left to bottom right over each 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 John Rylands Library's collection. This letter is numbered "15" on 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.
Three Mile Cross Monday morning My dear Sir,

I am always sinning--not quite tragical sins; & repenting--not quite perhaps with a tragical repentenace, but very sincerely & uncomfortably of the thousand faults which inconsideration & want of tact make me commit every day & almost every hour--to say nothing of my terrible tendency to say from pure flutter what I should not & what I do not mean, & not to say from sheer awkwardness what I should say & do mean. Ever since I So that whoever comes into my company had need provide themselves with a large stock of charity & forgiveness. But this is worse than my usual misdoings. Ever since I gave you my wretched article on Friday morning, I have had the consciousness that nobody but you ought to have attempted it--especially that I should not--that being, upon occasion, as obstinate as my neighbors, I should have given the dear Doctor a touch of my quality, instead of taking the post assigned me so quietly & really checking my father when with a much better taste & feeling he tried to get me off. I only thought at the moment how shabby it would be to turn over a disagreeable occupation to you, quite forgetting that the subject & the school & the charm of writing of Reading & for Reading would have made it almost as pleasant as it would have been to you delightful to every body, everybody else--How could I be so foolish & presumptuous! When I found by your condescending note how much trouble you had taken--& that you still had another account to write & not for Reading--I was more ashamed & more angry with myself (& this is saying much) than ever I was in my life. Well the dear Doctor is fitly punished in the abominable badness of my report, & so am I. I have a good mind to apologize to the poor boys in the next paper for cheating them of your valuable praise. You must write a Magazine Article to console them. In the mean time meantime I could not resist the opportunity of asking your pardon afforded by our sending Miss James a basket of roots & flower seeds & such underground treasures the announcement of which you had the goodness to convey. She will of course think my note contains more last words of Foscari. Do not notice it even to say you forgive me--I am so ashamed.

Did I beg you to tell Mr. Macready that I should willingly & thankfully make any & every alteration that he might suggest in Foscari, in case, which I do not expect, he should deem it worth altering. I have just finished my new copy & am more & more conscious that the part is utterly unworthy of his great powers. He might to be sure be everything to the play as he was to Foscari Wallace--my usual consolation when I think of the badness of Foscari--but that is too much to ask. Perhaps there is more opportunity for an Actor in the Doge--at least he might make that part which could hardly be done in Foscari. But this must of course be left to him & you. I thank you very much for the report of Mr. Quale--& re ly wholly on his zeal & kindness. But I have very lit tle hope. Since this last weary copying, I am come back to my original opinion of the general feeb leness of the Play--Just as I had done Papa told m e ofthe "sweets & dears"--Shall I write it over again to get quit of them? Or shall we wait to hear whatMr. Macready says? As soon as I was to s end this I found it out--just as in the case of the "own Really my stupidity is hopeless. How you can you h ave such patience with me--Such indulgence such great kindness I cannot imagine. I don't think I sha ll attempt the "Euripedean Enterprise"--Oh it is quite quite above me--I shall leave that to your Tragedy--& beguile my hopes & fears for Foscari. (Did not I say just now that I had no hope?) by the soothing & sedative properties of needlework the most composing & quieting occupation in the world. Luckily I have a dozen jobs that cry out to be done. It is almost--not quite--worthwhile to be a woman to have such a resource.

Did I--was I bold enough to ask you when we were talking of your article on Homer & I was wishing so much to see it--did I ask you to lend it to me? And will you? And that on the Greek Tragedians if it comes your way? Will you? I want to read a translation of Mr. Burgess recommended one in French prose--but French prose--will not English be better? And pray when you saw that astonishing thing about my writing a Comedy--(in which we seemed mutually to amuse each other) did you mean it quite, really? Or was it only a very pretty way of saying "I don't think, Madam, that "you will ever make much of Tragedy"--?

My father is going to the Doctor's dance tonight--he sent me a very kind invitation on Saturday--but I stay away from pure cowardice--I really cannot encounter Mrs. Culpepper. I wonder if they won't prevail on you to stay.--My fingers are so cramped with writing that they slide every way but the right--Good bye. God bless you--pray forgive me.

Ever your's yours M.R. Mitford.

Pray excuse all my blots & blunders--I had better not have written. but I could not help it--
To T. N. Talfourd Esqre. No. 1. Pump Court Temple.