Chapter VI: Miss Mitford (2)

May I ask you to transmit the accompanying letter to Mrs. H----? She
has sent to me for titles and dates, and fifty things in which I can
give her little help; but what I do know about my works I have sent
her. Only, as, except that I believe her to live in Philadelphia, I
really am as ignorant of her address as I am of the year which
brought forth the first volume of "Our Village," I am compelled to
go to you for help in forwarding my reply.

Ever, my dear Mr. Fields, most gratefully and faithfully yours,

M.R. MITFORD.

Is not Louis Napoleon the most graceful of our European chiefs? I
have always had a weakness for the Emperor, and am delighted to find
the heir of his name turning out so well.

1851.

February 10, 1851

I cannot tell you, my dear Mr. Fields, how much I thank you for your
most kind letter and parcel, which, after sending three or four
emissaries all over London to seek, (Mr. ---- having ignored the
matter to my first messenger,) was at last sent to me by the Great
Western Railway,--I suspect by the aforesaid Mr. ----, because,
although the name of the London bookseller was dashed out, a
_long-tailed_ letter was left just where the "p" would come in ----,
and as neither Bonn's nor Whittaker's name boasts such a grace, I
suspect that, in spite of his assurance, the packet was in the
Strand, and neither in Ave Maria Lane nor in Henrietta Street, to
both houses I sent. Thank you a thousand times for all your
kindness. The orations are very striking. But I was delighted with
Dr. Holmes's poems for their individuality. How charming a person he
must be! And how truly the portrait represents the mind, the lofty
brow full of thought, and the wrinkle of humor in the eye! (Between
ourselves, I always have a little doubt of genius where there is no
humor; certainly in the very highest poetry the two go
together,--Scott, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Burns.) Another charming
thing in Dr. Holmes is, that every succeeding poem is better than
the last. Is he a widower, or a bachelor, or a married man? At all
events, he is a true poet, and I like him all the better for being a
physician,--the one truly noble profession. There are noble men in
all professions, but in medicine only are the great mass, almost the
whole, generous, liberal, self-denying, living to advance science
and to help mankind. If I had been a man I should certainly have
followed that profession. I rejoice to hear of another Romance by
the author of "The Scarlet Letter." That is a real work of genius.
Have you seen "Alton Locke"? No novel has made so much noise for a
long time; but it is, like "The Saint's Tragedy," inconclusive.
Between ourselves, I suspect that the latter part was written with
the fear of the Bishop before his eyes (the author, Mr. Kingsley, is
a clergyman of the Church of England), which makes the one volume
almost a contradiction of the others. Mrs. Browning is still at
Florence, where she sees scarcely any English, a few Italians, and
many Americans.

Ever most gratefully yours.

M.R.M.

(No date.)

Dear Mr. Fields: I sent you a packet last week, but I have just
received your two charming books, and I cannot suffer a post to
pass without thanking you for them. Mr. Whittier's volume is quite
what might have been expected from the greatest of Quaker writers,
the worthy compeer of Longfellow, and will give me other extracts to
go with "From Massachusetts to Virginia" and "Cassandra Southwick"
in my own book, where one of my pleasures will be trying to do
justice to American poetry, and Dr. Holmes's fine "Astraea." We have
nothing like that nowadays in England. Nobody writes now in the
glorious resonant metre of Dryden, and very few ever did write as
Dr. Holmes does. I see there is another volume of his poetry, but
the name was new to me. How much I owe to you, my dear Mr. Fields!
That great romance, "The Scarlet Letter," and these fine poets,--for
true poetry, not at all imitative, is rare in England, common as
elegant imitative verse may be,--and that charming edition of Robert
Browning. Shall you republish his wife's new edition? I cannot tell
you how much I thank you. I read an extract from the Times,
containing a report of Lord Carlisle's lecture on America, chiefly
because he and Dr. Holmes say the same thing touching the slavish
regard to opinion which prevails in America. Lord Carlisle is by
many degrees the most accomplished of our nobles. Another
accomplished and cultivated nobleman, a friend of my own, we have
just lost,--Lord Nugent,--liberal, too, against the views of his
family.

You must make my earnest and very sincere congratulations to your
friend. In publishing Gray, he shows the refinement of taste to be
expected in your companion. I went over all his haunts two years
ago, and have commemorated them in the book you will see by and
by,--the book that is to be,--and there I have put on record the
bride-cake, and the finding by you on my table your own edition of
Motherwell. You are not angry, are you? If your father and mother in
law ever come again to England, I shall rejoice to see them, and
shall be sure to do so, if they will drop me a line. God bless you,
dear Mr. Fields.

Ever faithfully and gratefully yours, M.R.M.

Three-mile Cross, July 20, 1851.

You will have thought me most ungrateful, dear Mr. Fields, in being
so long your debtor for a most kind and charming letter; but first I
waited for the "House of the Seven Gables," and then when it
arrived, only a week ago; I waited to read it a second time. At
sixty-four life gets too short to allow us to read every book once
and again; but it is not so with Mr. Hawthorne's. The first time one
sketches them (to borrow Dr. Holmes's excellent word), and cannot
put them down for the vivid interest; the next, one lingers over the
beauty with a calmer enjoyment. Very beautiful this book is! I thank
you for it again and again. The legendary part is all the better for
being vague and dim and shadowy, all pervading, yet never tangible;
and the living people have a charm about them which is as lifelike
and real as the legendary folks are ghostly and remote. Phoebe, for
instance, is a creation which, not to speak it profanely, is almost
Shakespearian. I know no modern heroine to compare with her, except
it be Eugene Sue's Rigolette, who shines forth amidst the iniquities
of "Les Mystères de Paris" like some rich, bright, fresh cottage
rose thrown by evil chance upon a dunghill. Tell me, please, about
Mr. Hawthorne, as you were so good as to do about that charming
person, Dr. Holmes. Is he young? I think he is, and I hope so for
the sake of books to come. And is he of any profession? Does he
depend altogether upon literature, as too many writers do here? At
all events, he is one of the glories of your most glorious part of
great America. Tell me, too, what is become of Mr. Cooper, that
other great novelist? I think I heard from you, or from some other
Transatlantic friend, that he was less genial and less beloved than
so many other of your notabilities have been. Indeed, one sees that
in many of his recent works; but I have been reading many of his
earlier books again, with ever-increased admiration, especially I
should say "The Pioneers"; and one cannot help hoping that the mind
that has given so much pleasure to so many readers will adjust
itself so as to admit of its own happiness,--for very clearly the
discomfort was his own fault, and he is too clever a person for one
not to wish him well.

I think that the most distinguished of our own _young_ writers are,
the one a dear friend of mine, John Ruskin; the other, one who will
shortly be so near a neighbor that we must know each other. It is
quite wonderful that we don't now, for we are only twelve miles
apart, and have scores of friends in common. This last is the Rev.
Charles Kingsley, author of "Alton Locke" and "Yeast" and "The
Saint's Tragedy." All these books are full of world-wide truths, and
yet, taken as a whole, they are unsatisfactory and inconclusive,
knocking down without building up. Perhaps that is the fault of the
social system that he lays bare, perhaps of the organization of the
man, perhaps a little of both. You will have heard probably that he,
with other benevolent persons, established a sort of socialist
community (Christian socialism) for journeymen tailors, he himself
being their chaplain. The evil was very great, for of twenty-one
thousand of that class in London, fifteen thousand were ill-paid
and only half-employed. For a while, that is, as long as the
subscription lasted, all went well; but I fear this week that the
money has come to an end, and so very likely will the experiment.
Have you republished "Alton Locke" in America? It has one character,
an old Scotchman, equal to anything in Scott. The writer is still
quite a young man, but out of health. I have heard (but this is
between ourselves) that ----'s brain is suffering,--the terrible
malady by which so many of our great mental laborers (Scott and
Southey, above all) have fallen. Dr. Buckland is now dying of it. I
am afraid ---- may be so lost to the world and his friends, not
merely because his health is going, but because certain
peculiarities have come to my knowledge which look like it. A
brother clergyman saw him the other day, upon a common near his own
house, spouting, singing, and reciting verse at the top of his voice
at one o'clock in the morning. Upon inquiring what was the matter,
the poet said that he never went to bed till two or three o'clock,
and frequently went out in that way to exercise his lungs. My
informant, an orderly person of a very different stamp, set him down
for mad at once; but he is much beloved among his parishioners, and
if the escapade above mentioned do not indicate disease of the
brain, I can only say it would be good for the country if we had
more madmen of the same sort. As to John Ruskin, I would not answer
for quiet people not taking him for crazy too. He is an enthusiast
in art, often right, often wrong,--"in the right very stark, in the
wrong very sturdy,"--bigoted, perverse, provoking, as ever man was;
but good and kind and charming beyond the common lot of mortals.
There are some pages of his prose that seem to me more eloquent than
anything out of Jeremy Taylor, and I should think a selection of his
works would answer to reprint. Their sale here is something
wonderful, considering their dearness, in this age of cheap
literature, and the want of attraction in the subject, although the
illustrations of the "Stones of Venice," executed by himself from
his own drawings, are almost as exquisite as the writings. By the
way, he does not say what I heard the other day from another friend,
just returned from the city of the sea, that Taglioni has purchased
four of the finest palaces, and is restoring them with great taste,
by way of investment, intending to let them to Russian and English
noblemen. She was a very graceful dancer once, was Taglioni; but
still it rather depoetizes the place, which of all others was
richest in associations.

Mrs. Browning has got as near to England as Paris, and holds out
enough of hope of coming to London to keep me from visiting it until
I know her decision. I have not seen the great Exhibition, and,
unless she arrives, most probably shall not see it. My lameness,
which has now lasted five months, is the reason I give to myself for
not going, chairs being only admitted for an hour or two on Saturday
mornings. But I suspect that my curiosity has hardly reached the
fever-heat needful to encounter the crowd and the fatigue. It is
amusing to find how people are cooling down about it. We always were
a nation of idolaters, and always had the trick of avenging
ourselves upon our poor idols for the sin of our own idolatry. Many
an overrated, and then underrated, poet can bear witness to this. I
remember when my friend Mr. Milnes was called _the_ poet, although
Scott and Byron were in their glory, and Wordsworth had written all
of his works that will live. We make gods of wood and stone, and
then we knock them to pieces; and so figuratively, if not literally,
shall we do by the Exhibition. Next month I am going to move to a
cottage at Swallowfield,--so called, I suppose, because those
migratory birds meet by millions every autumn in the park there, now
belonging to some friends of mine, and still famous as the place
where Lord Clarendon wrote his history. That place is still almost a
palace; mine an humble but very prettily placed cottage. O, how
proud and glad I should be, if ever I could receive Mr. and Mrs.
Fields within its walls for more than a poor hour! I shall have
tired you with this long letter, but you have made me reckon you
among my friends,--ay, one of the best and kindest,--and must take
the consequence.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, Saturday Night.

I write you two notes at once, my dear friend, whilst the
recollection of your conversation is still in my head and the
feeling of your kindness warm on my heart. To write, to thank you
for a visit which has given me so much pleasure, is an impulse not
to be resisted. Pray tell Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch how delighted I am to
make their acquaintance and how earnestly I hope we may meet often.
They are charming people.

Another motive that I had for writing at once is to tell you that
the more I think of the title of the forthcoming book, the less I
like it; and I care more for it, now that you are concerned in the
matter, than I did before. "Personal Reminiscences" sounds like a
bad title for an autobiography. Now this is nothing of the sort. It
is literally a book made up of favorite scraps of poetry and prose;
the bits of my own writing are partly critical, and partly have
been interwoven to please Henry Chorley and give something of
novelty, and as it were individuality, to a mere selection, to take
off the dryness and triteness of extracts, and give the pen
something to say in the work as well as the scissors. Still, it is a
book founded on other books, and since it pleased Mr. Bentley to
object to "Readings of Poetry," because he said nobody in England
bought poetry, why "Recollections of Books," as suggested by Mr.
Bennett, approved by me, and as I believed (till this very day)
adopted by Mr. Bentley, seemed to meet exactly the truth of the
case, and to be quite concession enough to the exigencies of the
trade. By the other title we exposed ourselves, in my mind, to all
manner of danger. I shall write this by this same post to Mr.
Bennett, and get the announcement changed, if possible; for it seems
to me a trick of the worst sort. I shall write a list of the
subjects, and I only wish that I had duplicates, and I would send
you the articles, for I am most uncomfortable at the notion of your
being taken in to purchase a book that may, through this misnomer,
lose its reputation in England; for of course it will be attacked as
an unworthy attempt to make it pass for what it is not....

Now if you dislike it, or if Mr. Bentley keep that odious title,
why, give it up at once. Don't pray, pray lose money by me. It would
grieve me far more than it would you. A good many of these are about
books quite forgotten, as the "Pleader's Guide" (an exquisite
pleasantry), "Holcroft's Memoirs," and "Richardson's
Correspondence." Much on Darley and the Irish Poets, unknown in
England; and I think myself that the book will contain, as in the
last article, much exquisite poetry and curious prose, as in the
forgotten murder (of Toole, the author's uncle) in the State Trials.
But it should be called by its right name, as everything should in
this world. God bless you!

Ever faithfully yours,

M.R.M.

P.S. First will come the Preface, then the story of the book
(without Henry Chorley's name; it is to be dedicated to him),
noticing the coincidence of "Our Village" having first appeared in
the Lady's Magazine, and saying something like what I wrote to you
last night. I think this will take off the danger of provoking
apprehension on one side and disappointment on the other; because
after all, although anecdote be not the style of the book, it does
contain some.

May I put in the story of Washington's ghost? without your name, of
course; it would be very interesting, and I am ten times more
desirous of making the book as good as I can, since I have reason to
believe you will be interested in it. Pray, forgive me for having
worried you last night and now again. I am a terribly nervous
person, and hate and dread literary scrapes, or indeed disputes of
any sort. But I ought not to have worried you. Just tell me if you
think this sort of preface will take the sting from the title, for I
dare say Mr. Bentley won't change it.

Adieu, dear friend. All peace and comfort to you in your journey;
amusement you are sure of. I write also to dear Mr. Bennett, whom I
fear I have also worried.

Ever most faithfully yours,

M.R.M.

1852.

January 5.

Mr. Bennoch has just had the very great kindness, dear Mr. Fields,
to let me know of your safe arrival at Genoa, and of your enjoyment
of your journey. Thank God for it! We heard so much about commotions
in the South of France that I had become fidgety about you, the
rather that it is the best who go, and that I for one cannot afford
to lose you.

Now let me thank you for all your munificence,--that beautiful
Longfellow with the hundred illustrations, and that other book of
Professor Longfellow's, beautiful in another way, the "Golden
Legend." I hope I shall be only one among the multitude who think
this the greatest and best thing he has done yet, so racy, so full
of character, of what the French call local color, so, in its best
and highest sense, original. Moreover, I like the happy ending. Then
those charming volumes of De Quincey and Sprague and Grace
Greenwood. (Is that her real name?) And dear Mr. Hawthorne, and the
two new poets, who, if also young poets, will be fresh glories for
America. How can I thank you enough for all these enjoyments? And
you must come back to England, and add to my obligations by giving
me as much as you can of your company in the merry month of May. I
have fallen in with Mr. Kingsley, and a most charming person he is,
certainly the least like an Englishman of letters, and the most like
an accomplished, high-toned English gentleman, that I have ever met
with. You must know Mr. Kingsley. He is very young too, really
young, for it is characteristic of our "young poets" that they
generally turn out middle-aged and very often elderly. My book is
out at last, hurried through the press in a fortnight,--a process
which half killed me, and has left the volumes, no doubt, full of
errata,--and you, I mean your house, have not got it. I am keeping a
copy for you personally. People say that they like it. I think you
will, because it will remind you of this pretty country, and of an
old Englishwoman who loves you well. Mrs. Browning was delighted
with your visit. She is a Bonapartiste; so am I. I always adored the
Emperor, and I think his nephew is a great man, full of ability,
energy, and courage, who put an end to an untenable situation and
got quit of a set of unrepresenting representatives. The Times
newspaper, right as it seems to me about Kossuth, is dangerously
wrong about Louis Napoleon, since it is trying to stimulate the
nation to a war for which France is more than prepared, is ready,
and England is not. London might be taken with far less trouble and
fewer men than it took to accomplish the _coup d'état_. Ah! I
suspect very different politics will enclose this wee bit notie, if
dear Mr. Bennoch contrives to fold it up in a letter of his own; but
to agree to differ is part of the privileges of friendship; besides,
I think you and I generally agree.

Ever yours,

M.R.M.

P.S. All this time I have not said a word of "The Wonder Book."
Thanks again and again. Who was the Mr. Blackstone mentioned in "The
Scarlet Letter" as riding like a myth in New England History, and
what his arms? A grandson of Judge Blackstone, a friend of mine,
wishes to know.

(March, 1852.)

I can never enough thank you, dearest Mr. Fields, for your kind
recollection of me in such a place as the Eternal City. But you
never forget any whom you make happy in your friendship, for that is
the word; and therefore here in Europe or across the Atlantic, you
will always remain.... Your anecdote of the ---- is most
characteristic. I am very much afraid that he is only a poet, and
although I fear the last person in the world to deny that that is
much, I think that to be a really great man needs something more. I
am sure that you would not have sympathized with Wordsworth. I do
hope that you will see Beranger when in Paris. He is the one man in
France (always excepting Louis Napoleon, to whom I confess the
interest that all women feel in strength and courage) whom I should
earnestly desire to know well. In the first place, I think him by
far the greatest of living poets, the one who unites most completely
those two rare things, impulse and finish. In the next, I admire
his admirable independence and consistency, and his generous feeling
for fallen greatness. Ah, what a truth he told, when he said that
Napoleon was the greatest poet of modern days! I should like to have
the description of Beranger from your lips. Mrs. Browning ... has
made acquaintance with Madame Sand, of whom her account is most
striking and interesting. But George Sand is George Sand, and
Beranger is Beranger.

Thank you, dear friend, for your kind interest in my book. It has
found far more favor than I expected, and I think, ever since the
week after its publication, I have received a dozen of letters daily
about it, from friends and strangers,--mostly strangers,--some of
very high accomplishments, who will certainly be friends. This is
encouragement to write again, and we will have a talk about it when
you come. I should like your advice. One thing is certain, that this
work has succeeded, and that the people who like it best are
precisely those whom one wishes to like it best, the lovers of
literature. Amongst other things, I have received countless volumes
of poetry and prose,--one little volume of poetry written under the
name of Mary Maynard, of the greatest beauty, with the vividness and
picturesqueness of the new school, combined with infinite
correctness and clearness, that rarest of all merits nowadays. Her
real name I don't know, she has only thought it right to tell me
that Mary Maynard was not the true appellation (this is between
ourselves). Her own family know nothing of the publication, which
seems to have been suggested by her and my friend, John Ruskin. Of
course, she must have her probation, but I know of no young writer
so likely to rival your new American school. I sent your gift-books
of Hawthorne, yesterday, to the Walters of Bearwood, who had never
heard of them! Tell him that I have had the honor of poking him into
the den of the Times, the only civilized place in England where they
were barbarous enough not to be acquainted with "The Scarlet
Letter." I wonder what they'll think of it. It will make them stare.
They come to see me, for it is full two months since I have been in
the pony-chaise. I was low, if you remember, when you were here, but
thought myself getting better, was getting better. About Christmas,
very damp weather came on, or rather very wet weather, and the damp
seized my knee and ankles and brought back such an attack of
rheumatism that I cannot stand upright, walk quite double, and am
often obliged to be lifted from step to step up stairs. My medical
adviser (a very clever man) says that I shall get much better when
warm weather comes, but for weeks and weeks we have had east-winds
and frost. No violets, no primroses, no token of spring. A little
flock of ewes and lambs, with a pretty boy commonly holding a lamb
in his arms, who drives his flock to water at the pond opposite my
window, is the only thing that gives token of the season. I am quite
mortified at this on your account, for April, in general a month of
great beauty here, will be as desolate as winter. Nevertheless you
must come and see me, you and Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch, and perhaps you
can continue to stay a day or two, or to come more than once. I want
to see as much of you as I can, and I must change much, if I be in
any condition to go to London, even upon the only condition on which
I ever do go, that is, into lodgings, for I never stay anywhere; and
if I were to go, even to one dear and warm-hearted friend, I should
affront the very many other friends whose invitations I have refused
for so many years. I hope to get at Mr. Kingsley; but I have seen
little of him this winter. We are five miles asunder; his wife has
been ill; and my fear of an open carriage, or rather the medical
injunction not to enter one, has been a most insuperable objection.
We are, as we both said, summer neighbors. However, I will try that
you should see him. He is well worth knowing. Thank you about Mr.
Blackstone. He is worth knowing too, in a different way, a very
learned and very clever man (you will find half Dr. Arnold's letters
addressed to him), as full of crotchets as an egg is full of meat,
fond of disputing and contradicting, a clergyman living in the house
where Mrs. Trollope _was raised_, and very kind after his own
fashion. One thing that I should especially like would be that you
should see your first nightingale amongst our woody lanes. To be
sure, these winds can never last till then. Mr. ---- is coming here
on Sunday. He always brings rain or snow, and that will change the
weather. You are a person who ought to bring sunshine, and I suppose
you do more than metaphorically; for I remember that both times I
have had the happiness to see you--a summer day and a winter
day--were glorious. Heaven bless you, dear friend! May all the
pleasure ... return upon your own head! Even my little world is
charmed at the prospect of seeing you again. If you come to Reading
by the Great Western you could return later and make a longer day,
and yet be no longer from home.

Ever faithfully yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, April 27, 1852.

How can I thank you half enough, dearest Mr. Fields, for all your
goodness! To write to me the very day after reaching Paris, to think
of me so kindly! It is what I never can repay. I write now not to
trouble you for another letter, but to remind you that, as soon as
possible after your return to England, I hope to see you and Mr. and
Mrs. Bennoch here. Heaven grant the spring may come to meet you! At
present I am writing in an east-wind, which has continued two months
and gives no sign of cessation. Professor Airy says it will continue
five weeks longer. Not a drop of rain has fallen in all that time.
We have frosts every night, the hedges are as bare as at Christmas,
flowers forget to blow, or if they put forth miserable, infrequent,
reluctant blossoms, have no heart, and I have only once heard the
nightingale in this place where they abound, and not yet seen a
swallow in the spot which takes name from their gatherings. It
follows, of course, that the rheumatism, covered by a glut of wet
weather, just upon the coming in of the new year, is fifty times
increased by the bitter season,--a season which has no parallel in
my recollection. I can hardly sit down when standing, or rise from
my chair without assistance, walk quite double, and am lifted up
stairs step by step by my man-servant. I thought, two years ago, I
could walk fifteen or sixteen miles a day! O, I was too proud of my
activity! I am sure we are smitten in our vanities. However, you
will bring the summer, which is, they say, to do me good; and even
if that should fail, it will do me some good to see you, that is
quite certain. Thank you for telling me about the Galignani, and
about the kind American reception of my book; some one sent me a New
York paper (the Tribune, I think), full of kindness, and I do assure
you that to be so heartily greeted by my kinsmen across the Atlantic
is very precious to me. From the first American has there come
nothing but good-will. However, the general kindness here has taken
me quite by surprise. The only fault found was with the title,
which, as you know, was no doing of mine; and the number of private
letters, books, verses, (commendatory verses, as the old poets have
it), and tributes of all sorts, and from all manner of persons, that
I receive every day is something quite astonishing.

Our great portrait-painter, John Lucas, certainly the first painter
of female portraits now alive, has been down here to take a portrait
for engraving. He has been most successful. It is looking better, I
suppose, than I ever do look; but not better than under certain
circumstances--listening to a favorite friend, for example--I
perhaps might look. The picture is to go to-morrow into the
engraver's hands, and I hope the print will be completed before your
departure; also they are engraving, or are about to engrave, a
miniature taken of me when I was a little girl between three and
four years old. They are to be placed side by side, the young child
and the old withered woman, ---- a skull and cross-bones could
hardly be a more significant _memento mori_! I have lost my near
neighbor and most accomplished friend, Sir Henry Russell, and many
other friends, for Death has been very busy this winter, and Mr.
Ware is gone! He had sent me his "Zenobia," "from the author," and
for that very reason, I suppose, some one had stolen it; but I had
replaced both that and the letters from Rome, and sent them to Mr.
Kingsley as models for his "Hypatia." He has them still. He had
never heard of them till I named them to him. They seem to me very
fine and classical, just like the best translations from some great
Latin writer. And I have been most struck with Edgar Poe, who has
been republished, prose and poetry, in a shilling volume called
"Readable Books." What a deplorable history it was!--I mean his
own,--the most unredeemed vice that I have met with in the annals of
genius. But he was a very remarkable writer, and must have a niche
if I write again; so must your two poets, Stoddard and Taylor. I am
very sorry you missed Mrs. Trollope; she is a most remarkable woman,
and you would have liked her, I am sure, for her warm heart and her
many accomplishments. I had a sure way to Beranger, one of my dear
friends being a dear friend of his; but on inquiring for him last
week, that friend also is gone to heaven. Do pick up for me all you
can about Louis Napoleon, my one real abiding enthusiasm,--the
enthusiasm of my whole life,--for it began with the Emperor and has
passed quite undiminished to the present great, bold, and able ruler
of France. Mrs. Browning shares it, I think; only she calls herself
cool, which I don't; and another still more remarkable
co-religionist in the L.N. faith is old Lady Shirley (of Alderley),
the writer of that most interesting letter to Gibbon, dated 1792,
published by her father, Lord Sheffield, in his edition of the great
historian's posthumous works. She is eighty-two now, and as active
and vigorous in body and mind, as sixty years ago.

Make my most affectionate love to my friend in the Avenue des Champs
Elysées, and believe me ever, my dear Mr. Fields, most gratefully
and affectionately yours,

M.R.M.

(No date)

Ah, my dearest Mr. Fields, how inimitably good and kind you are to
me! Your account of Rachel is most delightful, the rather that it
confirms a preconceived notion which two of my friends had taken
pains to change. Henry Chorley, not only by his own opinion, but by
that of Scribe, who told him that there was no comparison between
her and Viardot. Now if Viardot, even in that one famous part of
Fides, excels Rachel, she must be much the finer actress, having the
horrible drawback of the music to get over. My other friend told me
a story of her, in the modern play of Virginie; she declared that
when in her father's arms she pointed to the butcher's knife,
telling him what to do, and completely reversing that loveliest
story; but I hold to your version of her genius, even admitting that
she did commit the Virginie iniquity, which would be intensely
characteristic of her calling,--all actors and actresses having a
desire to play the whole play themselves, speaking every speech,
producing every effect in their own person. No doubt she is a great
actress, and still more assuredly is Louis Napoleon a great man, a
man of genius, which includes in my mind both sensibility and charm.
There are little bits of his writing from Ham, one where he speaks
of "le repos de ma prison," another long and most eloquent passage
on exile, which ends (I forget the exact words) with a sentiment
full of truth and sensibility. He is speaking of the treatment shown
to an exile in a foreign land, of the mistiness and coldness of
some, of the blandness and smoothness of others, and he goes on to
say, "He must be a man of ten thousand who behaves to an exile just
as he would behave to another person." If I could trust you to
perform a commission for me, and let me pay you the money you spent
upon it, I would ask you to bring me a cheap but comprehensive life
of him, with his works and speeches, and a portrait as like him as
possible. I asked an English friend to do this for me, and fancy his
sending me a book dated on the outside 1847!!!! Did I ever tell you
a pretty story of him, when he was in England after Strasburg and
before Boulogne, and which I know to be true? He spent a twelvemonth
at Leamington, living in the quietest manner. One of the principal
persons there is Mr. Hampden, a descendant of John Hampden, and the
elder brother of the Bishop. Mr. Hampden, himself a very liberal and
accomplished man, made a point of showing every attention in his
power to the Prince, and they soon became very intimate. There was
in the town an old officer of the Emperor's Polish Legion who,
compelled to leave France after Waterloo, had taken refuge in
England, and, having the national talent for languages, maintained
himself by teaching French, Italian, and German in different
families. The old exile and the young one found each other out, and
the language master was soon an habitual guest at the Prince's
table, and treated by him with the most affectionate attention. At
last Louis Napoleon wearied of a country town and repaired to
London; but before he went he called on Mr. Hampden to take leave.
After warm thanks for all the pleasure he had experienced in his
society, he said: "I am about to prove to you my entire reliance
upon your unfailing kindness by leaving you a legacy. I want to ask
you to transfer to my poor old friend the goodness you have lavished
upon me. His health is failing, his means are small. Will you call
upon him sometimes? and will you see that those lodging-house people
do not neglect him? and will you, above all, do for him what he will
not do for himself, draw upon me for what may be wanting for his
needs or for his comforts?" Mr. Hampden promised. The prophecy
proved true; the poor old man grew worse and worse, and finally
died. Mr. Hampden, as he had promised, replaced the Prince in his
kind attentions to his old friend, and finally defrayed the charges
of his illness and of his funeral. "I would willingly have paid them
myself," said he, "but I knew that that would have offended and
grieved the Prince, so I honestly divided the expenses with him, and
I found that full provision had been made at his banker's to answer
my drafts to a much larger amount." Now I have full faith in such a
nature. Let me add that he never forgot Mr. Hampden's kindness,
sending him his different brochures and the kindest messages, both
from Ham and the Elysée. If one did not not admire Louis Napoleon, I
should like to know upon whom one could, as a public man, fix one's
admiration! Just look at our English statesmen! And see the state to
which self-government brings everything! Look at London with all its
sanitary questions just in the same state as ten years ago; look at
all our acts of Parliament, one half of a session passed in amending
the mismanagement of the other. For my own part, I really believe
that there is nothing like one mind, one wise and good ruler; and I
verily believe that the President of France is that man. My only
doubt being whether the people are worthy of him, fickle as they
are, like all great masses,--the French people, in particular. By
the way, if a most vilely translated book, called the "Prisoner of
Ham," be extant in French, I should like to possess it. The account
of the escape looks true, and is most interesting.

I have been exceedingly struck, since I last wrote to you, by some
extracts from Edgar Poe's writings; I mean a book called "The
Readable Library," composed of selections from his works, prose and
verse. The famous ones are, I find, The Maelstrom and The Raven;
without denying their high merits, I prefer that fine poem on The
Bells, quite as fine as Schiller's, and those remarkable bits of
stories on circumstantial evidence. I am lower, dear friend, than
ever, and what is worse, in supporting myself on my hand I have
strained my right side and can hardly turn in bed. But if we cannot
walk round Swallowfield, we can drive, and the very sight of you
will do me good. If Mr. Bentley send me only one copy of that
engraving, it shall be for you. You know I have a copy for you of
the book. There are no words to tell the letters and books I receive
about it, so I suppose it is popular. I have lost, as you know, my
most accomplished and admirable neighbor, Sir Henry Russell, the
worthy successor of the great Lord Clarendon. His eldest daughter is
my favorite young friend, a most lovely creature, the ideal of a
poet. I hope you will see Beranger. Heaven bless you!

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Saturday Night.

Ah, my very dear friend, how can I ever thank you? But I don't want
to thank you. There are some persons (very few, though) to whom it
is a happiness to be indebted, and you are one of them. The books
and the busts are arrived. Poor dear Louis Napoleon with his head
off--Heaven avert the omen! Of course _that_ head can be replaced, I
mean stuck on again upon its proper shoulders. Beranger is a
beautiful old man, just what one fancies him and loves to fancy him.
I hope you saw him. To my mind, he is the very greatest poet now
alive, perhaps the greatest man, the truest and best type of perfect
independence. Thanks a thousand and a thousand times for those
charming busts and for the books. Mrs. Browning had mentioned to me
Mr. Read. If I live to write another book, I shall put him and Mr.
Taylor and Mr. Stoddard together, and try to do justice to Poe. I
have a good right to love America and the Americans. My Mr. Lucas
tells me to go, and says he has a mind to go. I want you to know
John Lucas, not only the finest portrait-painter, but about the very
finest mind that I know in the world. He might be.... for talent and
manner and heart; and, if you like, you shall, when I am dead, have
the portrait he has just taken of me. I make the reserve, instead of
giving it to you now, because it is possible that he might wish (I
know he does) to paint one for himself, and if I be dead before
sitting to him again, the present one would serve him to copy. Mr.
Bentley wanted to purchase it, and many have wanted it, but it shall
be for you.

Now, my very dear friend, I am afraid that Mr. ---- has said or done
something that would make you rather come here alone. His last
letter to me, after a month's silence, was _odd_. There was no
fixing upon line or word; still it was not like his other letters,
and I suppose the air of ---- is not genial, and yet dear Mr.
Bennoch breathes it often! You must know that I never could have
meant for one instant to impose him upon you as a companion. Only in
the autumn there had been a talk of his joining your party. He knows
Mr. Bennoch.... He has been very kind and attentive to me, and is, I
verily believe, an excellent and true-hearted person; and so I was
willing that, if all fell out well, he should have the pleasure of
your society here,--the rather that I am sometimes so poorly, and
always so helpless now, that one who knows the place might be of
use. But to think that for one moment I would make your time or your
wishes bend to his is out of the question. Come at your own time, as
soon and as often as you can. I should say this to any one going
away three thousand miles off, much more to you, and forgive my
having even hinted at his coming too. I only did it thinking it
might fix you and suit you. In this view I wrote to him yesterday,
to tell him that on Wednesday next there would be a cricket-match at
Bramshill, one of the finest old mansions in England, a Tudor Manor
House, altered by Inigo Jones, and formerly the residence of Prince
Henry, the elder son of James the First. In the grand old park
belonging to that grand old place, there will be on that afternoon a
cricket-match. I thought you would like to see our national game in
a scene so perfectly well adapted to show it to advantage. Being in
Mr. Kingsley's parish, and he very intimate with the owner, it is
most likely, too, that he will be there; so that altogether it
seemed to me something that you and dear Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch might
like to see. My poor little pony could take you from hence; but not
to fetch or carry you, and if the dear Bennochs come, it would be
advisable to let the flymen know the place of destination, because,
Sir William Cope being a new-comer, I am not sure whether he (like
his predecessor, whom I knew) allows horses and carriages to be put
up there. I should like you to look on for half an hour at a
cricket-match in Bramshill Park, and to be with you at a scene so
English and so beautiful. We could dine here afterwards, the Great
Western allowing till a quarter before nine in the evening. Contrive
this if you can, and let me know by return of post, and forgive my
_mal addresse_ about Mr. ----. There certainly has something come
across him,--not about you, but about me; one thing is, I think, his
extreme politics. I always find these violent Radicals very
unwilling to allow in others the unlimited freedom of thought that
they claim for themselves. He can't forgive my love for the
President. Now I must tell you a story I know to be true. A lady of
rank was placed next the Prince a year or two ago. He was very
gentle and courteous, but very silent, and she wanted to make him
talk. At last she remembered that, having been in Switzerland twenty
years before, she had received some kindness from the Queen
Hortense, and had spent a day at Arenenburg. She told him so,
speaking with warm admiration of the Queen. "Ah, madame, vous avez
connu ma mère!" exclaimed Louis Napoleon, turning to her eagerly and
talking of the place and the people as a school-boy talks of home.
She spent some months in Paris, receiving from the Prince every
attention which his position enabled him to show; and when she
thanked him for such kindness, his answer was always: "Ah, madame,
vous avez connu ma mère!" Is it in woman's heart not to love such a
man? And then look at the purchase of the Murillo the other day, and
the thousand really great things that he is doing. Mr. ---- is a
goose.

I send this letter to the post to-morrow, when I send other
letters,--a vile, puritanical post-office arrangement not permitting
us to send letters in the afternoon, unless we send straight to
Reading (six miles) on purpose,--so perhaps this may cross an answer
from Mr. ---- or from you about Bramshill; perhaps, on the other
hand, I may have to write again. At all events, you will understand
that this is written on Saturday night. God bless you, my very dear
and kind friend.

Ever faithfully yours, M.R.M.

May 24, 1852.

Ah, dearest Mr. Fields, how much too good and kind you are to me
always! ... I wish I were better, that I might go to town and see
more of you; but I am more lame than ever, and having, in my weight
and my shortness and my extreme helplessness, caught at tables and
chairs and dragged myself along that fashion, I have now so strained
the upper part of the body that I cannot turn in bed, and am full of
muscular pains which are worse than the rheumatism and more
disabling, so that I seem to cumber the earth. They say that summer,
when it comes, will do me good. How much more sure that the sight of
you will do me good, and I trust that, when your business will let
you, you will give me that happiness. In the mean while will you
take the trouble to send the enclosed and my answer, if it be fit
and proper and properly addressed? I give you this office, because
really the kindness seems so large and unlimited, that, if the
letter had not come enclosed in one from Mr. Kenyon, one could
hardly have believed it to be serious, and yet I am well used to
kindness, too. I thank over and over again your glorious poets for
their kindness, and tell Mr. Hawthorne I shall prize a letter from
him beyond all the worlds one has to give. I rejoice to hear of the
new work, and can answer for its excellence.

I trust that the English edition of Dr. Holmes will contain the
"Astraea," and the "Morning Visit," and the "Cambridge Address." I
am not sure, in my secret soul, that I do not prefer him to any
American poet. Besides his inimitable word-painting, the charity is
so large and the scale so fine. How kind in you to like my
book,--some people do like it. I am afraid to tell you what John
Ruskin says of it from Venice, and I get letters, from ten to twenty
a day. You know how little I dreamt of this! Mrs. Trollope has sent
me a most affectionate letter, bemoaning her ill-fortune in missing
you. I thank you for the Galignani edition, and the presidential
kindness, and all your goodness of every sort. I have nothing to
give you but as large a share of my poor affection as I think any
human being has. You know a copy of the book from me has been
waiting for you these three months. Adieu, my dear friend.

Ever yours,

M.R.M.

(July 6, 1852.) Monday Night, or, rather, 2 o'clock Tuesday Morning.