Letter to <persName ref="#Talfourd_Thos">T.N. Talfourd</persName>, November 9, 1821 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 Lisa M. Wilson First digital edition in TEI, date: 27 May 2014. P5. Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the The John Rylands University Library.

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. 18 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to T.N. Talfourd, 1821 November 9. Mitford dates this letter "Friday night", and Coles dates it Nov. 9 based on her diary. November 9, 1821 was a Friday. (See Coles letter 18, p. 111, note 1.)

Folio sheet of paper folded in half to form four quarto pages, with correspondence on 1-3, then folded in thirds twice more.

Someone cataloging the letters, apparently other than Mitford, numbered each on page 1. This letter numbered 13.

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.

 Updated schema lines and added this change-log. This letter still needs to be proofed against the ms.
Three Mile Cross Friday night My dear Sir

Again & again I thank you for your exquisite kindness. I have just received Mr your packet from Mr. Newberry, & have read Mr. Macready's letter with the hopeful spirit that you desire & with the truest gratitude to him & to you. His discovery of the sex of the unlucky writer made me laugh in spite of my vexation--I believe I could as soon pass myself for 6 feet high as write two lines which should be taken for a man's composition. Nevertheless I have great confidence in his exertions--the greatest--the most undoubting--& I am heartily glad to be rid of those puny sources of interest, on which one can never feel any real or comfortable reliance. With Mr. Macready & You the Play will have every possible chance that its own weakness will allow it--far more than it deserves. I shall immediately begin the new Catastrophe. Must there not be an entirely new fifth Act? Some part of the scene with the Doge may remain--but the opening of the scene with Cosmo & that with Camilla, must not these be new as well as the conclusion? Or will a little altering & modifying do? He must have taken the poison before the beginning of the Act--And can we make him be sleeping so quietly afterwards? And there must be through all his speeches a dark concealed consciousness of the coming death--I am afraid it must be quite new--but I will do my very best & Mr. Macready & you can decide--you shall certainly have it by the middle of the week after next. I wonder what Lord Byron's Catastrophe is! We should steer clear of that at all events. But we shall have plenty to chuse choose out of that is one comfort. I was not in the least disappointed, or disconcerted (except at that terrible "evidently a lady's") by Mr. Macready's opinion of the Play--mine has always been much lower--really much lower--not a mere piece of affectation to be contradicted or to look modest but an unfeigned & settled impression--I was therefore not in the least surprised or startled at that--but astonished & delighted beyond measure at the zeal & energy with which he takes up the cause--this of course proceeds entirely from his friendship for you--& the kind interest which you have the goodness to take in my poor Foscari--Oh you have no notion with what a delightful feeling of assurance I rely, not as you bid me on him only, but on him & you.--If we reduce the Doge's part so much I suppose we must retain the old title--But that will be time enough to consider. by & bye.--Once more a thousand thanks & regards & good wishes from all

Ever most gratefully yours MRMitford.

Pray excuse all my blots & blunders--I had better not have written. but I could not help it--