Letter to <persName ref="#Elford_SirWm">Sir William Elford</persName>, <date when="1822-04-28">1822 April 28</date> Mary Russell Mitford Elizabeth Raisanen Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Lindsey Spillar First digital edition in TEI, date: . P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: 28April1822SirWilliamElford1a#.JPG, 28April1822SirWilliamElford2b#.JPG, 28April1822SirWilliamElford3b#.JPG, 28April1822SirWilliamElford4a#.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. 452 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Sir William Elford, 1822 April 28.

One quarto sheet of paper folded in half to form two octavo pages, which comprise pages 1-4 of the letter. The fourth page exposes the address with the end of the letter written along three sides and has been folded in sixths. The third page has a slight rip where the wax seal was attached.

Address leaf bearing the following postmarks: 1) Black circular mileage stamp reading READING

A large 3 denoting the posting fee has been written in black ink by the postal service across the address leaf.

Sheet torn on right edge of page three where wax seal was removed.

Red wax seal, complete, adhered to page four.

 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 "42" 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.

 Proofed the first page only of this letter against the manuscript and made many corrections, added entries to the Site Index.
Three Mile Cross April 28th1822.

Oh, my dear friend, how very very sorry we are to hear of your accident! And yet, since it is so happily past, & has been borne with such delightful cheerfulness & good humour, it seems almost as much a matter of congratulation as of condolence—Think of what such an accident would have been to some people! But you are an extraordinary man—as I have always said—(By the bye your prototype Hor: Wal: would not have taken a broken arm so philosophically)—& I never have seen such an instance of the triumph of real serenity & good humour over pain and weariness as the delicious letter, which in the midst of a sick room you dictated to me. Really a misfortune so borne is almost a happiness—it is such a great thing to think of. And Miss Elford's charming letter how can I thank her enough for that—I should have written to her as well as to you, only that all our M. P's have scudded back to Town—I even hesitated whether I should not write to her instead of you—till I remembered that such a Father & such a Daughter are & must be one. Thank her a thousand times for her delightful kindness—Oh she must never think of me as a stranger—I never could think of her as one—some day or other I am presumptuous enough to hope that she may think of me as a friend.—Every word of her letter was so gratifying—especially what she says of Mrs. Adams, & of your undying consideration. I thank her most sincerely & heartily—& quite love her. May I?—I must not forget to say that Mrs. Dickinson who is just returned from Town, was here soon after her letter arrived, & from the warm interest you can so well imagine both in the glad tidings & the singular playfullness of one fact of the letter, & the delightful simplici-ty & amiableness of the other. By the way you should have seen this Dickinson herself--she was just a thing for a painter to look at--dressed in a high gown of rich black satin, made close to her beautiful shape, with a superb stuff of "Flanders lace"--a magnificent plume of feathers & a veil that really swam about her like a cloud. She looked just like the portrait of some Spanish or Venetian. Beauty by Velazquez or Titian. Mr. D is better. And the little girl the very moral of him. What a strange thing family likeness is. How impossible it seems that a little fair blooming laughing round-about apple blossom of a girl child should resemble an old weather-beaten stern looking man-- as shriveled & yellow as a golden pippin--And yet so it is. I am long for it. I wanted the child to be like her mother. You must have gotten my last worthless letter long before this--Well--I have read Madeline--& I like it rather less than I did before I read it--So I advise you not to be "fashed?" with it. Really my plum pudding smile was a very good one--only a plum pudding is a better thing. This is a sort of Pamela story (not half so pretty as Pamela though) of a young Scotch girl adopted by an English Lady & then at her death returned to her parents cottage &c. How this Opie might have made a pretty thing of this--for the idea was a good one--& the manners of a Scottish farm works in proper hands ?? but delightful. Instead of this she hides & puts behind a curtain all the real & tone & picturesque homeliness which would have given life & nature to the scene, & brings forth info full view this Madeline sighing & playing & painting- her pianos & hopes & laughter & miniatures & really thinks these vulgar common-places of fashionable life making of gentility. Then she makes her Scotch people from first to last-- Farmers-farmers wives-chicken & ale ?? English-- think of that-- London English-- instead of their own beautiful Doria. How we really feel that as an inspiring? & an a front--to be true it's just possible that Mrs. Opie's scotch might be worse than her English. It's possible--though considering what her English is--but if her scotch be worse, why she was right to eschew it then her story is abomiminable--not particularly moral I think--& I made out the latter part she is forced to take up jealousy -- wifely jealousy--that passion with which no one sympathizes! Even at the fountain head--in Othello--in spite of the passion, the poetry--the esquisite illusion of the scene, one cannot help thinking what a booby that black man is! And for Mrs. Opieto try her funny smile! Well I think I have pretty nearly saw enough of Madeline.-- I have read, too, the celebrated Adam Blair-- but I don't recommend that to you either. Some parts of the writing are exquisite-- as fine? as we all can be -- but the story is exceedingly disagreeable, & which to you will be quite enough--it is melancholy. So I do not recommend "Some Passages of the Life of Mr. Adam Blair".--although the wife of London & of join in its praise.--Pray, my dear Sir William, do you read Blackwoods magazine, & John Bull? or do you leave to use a whig, the sole enjoyment of these sorry iniquities? To be nice? there is in these modest periodicals a fine swaggering bold-faced independence, a perfection of lying & of carrying it off which is delightfully amazing. One should think that it won't be only one man's gift--but the endowment must be general. It will be a heavy day for me when John Bull goes to the thunder. I read no other newspaper. And in my secret soul (don't tell Mr. Elford) though he &I both ?? in the London, along with the fact is the ?? & the Charles Lamb-- I like Blackwood's better. By the bye do you ever see the London Magazine. Charley Lamb's articles signed Elia are irrevocably the first ?? of English horse in the ?? memoir is as delicate as Addison's & far more piquant-- Oh how you won't enjoy it! Do borrow or hire all the hundreds of ?? & Hessey's London Magazine, & read all Opia's articles as well as the Fable Letters & the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater & the Dramatic Sketches (underlined) & tell me how you like Charles Lamb. I shall depend on soon hearing how you ?? not I fear from your own hand-but from that fair & kind one which I should be so glad to shake. Kind-est regards & good wishes to you & her & all from all here--?? from home more heartily than your being affectious friend.

M. R. M.
To Sir William Elford Bart Bickham Plymouth
Velazquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Seville, Spain Madrid, Spain Diego Velazquez was a seventeenth century Spanish painter. Madeline Amelia Opie London Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded Samuel Richardson England Messrs Rivington and Osborn Some passages in the life of Mr. Adam Blair John Gibson Lockhart England Edinburgh : W. Blackwood and Sons