Our Village [8]
them indeed!'
I think the author would assuredly have enjoyed the picture of the baker, the wheelwright and the shoemaker, each following his special Alderney along the road to the village, or of the farmer driving his old wife in the gig. . . . One design, that of the lady in her pattens, comes home to the writer of these notes, who has perhaps the distinction of being the only authoress now alive who has ever walked out in pattens. At the age of seven years she was provided with a pair by a great-great-aunt, a kind old lady living at Fareham, in Hampshire, where they were still in use. How interesting the little circles looked stamped upon the muddy road, and how nearly down upon one's nose one was at every other step!
But even with all her success, Miss Mitford was not out of her troubles. She writes to Mr. Harness saying: 'You cannot imagine how perplexed I am. There are points in my domestic situation too long and too painful to write about; the terrible improvidence of one dear parent, the failure of memory and decay of faculty in that other who is still dearer, cast on me a weight of care and fear that I can hardly bear up against.' Her difficulties were unending. The new publisher now stopped payment, so that even 'Our Village' brought in no return for the moment; Charles Kemble was unable to make any offer for 'Foscari.' She went up to town in the greatest hurry to try and collect some of the money owing to her from her various publishers, but, as Mr. Harness says, received little from her debtors beyond invitations and compliments. She meditates a novel, she plans an opera, 'Cupid and Psyche.'
At last, better times began to dawn, and she receives 150 pounds down for a new novel and ten guineas from Blackwood as a retaining fee. Then comes a letter from Charles Kemble giving her new hope, for her tragedy, which was soon afterwards produced at Covent Garden.
The tragedies are in tragic English, of course that language of the boards, but not without a simplicity and music of their own. In the introduction to them, in some volumes published by Hurst and Blacket in 1854, Miss Mitford describes 'the scene of indescribable chaos preceding the performance, the vague sense of obscurity and confusion; tragedians, hatted and coated, skipping about, chatting and joking; the only very grave person being Liston himself. Ballet-girls walking through their quadrilles to the sound of a solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord, from amid the tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one hardly knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly. Oh, that din! Voices from every part; above, below, around, and in every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there. Bells ringing, one could not tell why, and the ubiquitous call-boy everywhere.'
She describes her astonishment when the play succeeds. 'Not that I had nerve enough to attend the first representation of my tragedies. I sat still and trembling in some quiet apartment near, and thither some friend flew to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent spirit lent him wings on such an occasion.'
We have the letter to her mother about 'Foscari,' from which I have quoted; and on the occasion of the production of 'Rienzi' at Drury Lane (two years later in October 1828), the letter to Sir William Elford when the poor old mother was no longer here to rejoice in her daughter's success.
Miss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her friends, the warm-hearted muses of the day. Mrs. Trollope, Miss Landon, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Porden, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with their congratulations.
Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sympathised with her love for a large canvas. The Classics, Spain, Italy, Mediaeval Rome, these are her favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes were her heroes; daggers, dungeons, and executioners her means of effects.
She moralises very sensibly upon Dramatic success. 'It is not,' she says,
I think the author would assuredly have enjoyed the picture of the baker, the wheelwright and the shoemaker, each following his special Alderney along the road to the village, or of the farmer driving his old wife in the gig. . . . One design, that of the lady in her pattens, comes home to the writer of these notes, who has perhaps the distinction of being the only authoress now alive who has ever walked out in pattens. At the age of seven years she was provided with a pair by a great-great-aunt, a kind old lady living at Fareham, in Hampshire, where they were still in use. How interesting the little circles looked stamped upon the muddy road, and how nearly down upon one's nose one was at every other step!
But even with all her success, Miss Mitford was not out of her troubles. She writes to Mr. Harness saying: 'You cannot imagine how perplexed I am. There are points in my domestic situation too long and too painful to write about; the terrible improvidence of one dear parent, the failure of memory and decay of faculty in that other who is still dearer, cast on me a weight of care and fear that I can hardly bear up against.' Her difficulties were unending. The new publisher now stopped payment, so that even 'Our Village' brought in no return for the moment; Charles Kemble was unable to make any offer for 'Foscari.' She went up to town in the greatest hurry to try and collect some of the money owing to her from her various publishers, but, as Mr. Harness says, received little from her debtors beyond invitations and compliments. She meditates a novel, she plans an opera, 'Cupid and Psyche.'
At last, better times began to dawn, and she receives 150 pounds down for a new novel and ten guineas from Blackwood as a retaining fee. Then comes a letter from Charles Kemble giving her new hope, for her tragedy, which was soon afterwards produced at Covent Garden.
The tragedies are in tragic English, of course that language of the boards, but not without a simplicity and music of their own. In the introduction to them, in some volumes published by Hurst and Blacket in 1854, Miss Mitford describes 'the scene of indescribable chaos preceding the performance, the vague sense of obscurity and confusion; tragedians, hatted and coated, skipping about, chatting and joking; the only very grave person being Liston himself. Ballet-girls walking through their quadrilles to the sound of a solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord, from amid the tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one hardly knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly. Oh, that din! Voices from every part; above, below, around, and in every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there. Bells ringing, one could not tell why, and the ubiquitous call-boy everywhere.'
She describes her astonishment when the play succeeds. 'Not that I had nerve enough to attend the first representation of my tragedies. I sat still and trembling in some quiet apartment near, and thither some friend flew to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent spirit lent him wings on such an occasion.'
We have the letter to her mother about 'Foscari,' from which I have quoted; and on the occasion of the production of 'Rienzi' at Drury Lane (two years later in October 1828), the letter to Sir William Elford when the poor old mother was no longer here to rejoice in her daughter's success.
Miss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her friends, the warm-hearted muses of the day. Mrs. Trollope, Miss Landon, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Porden, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with their congratulations.
Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sympathised with her love for a large canvas. The Classics, Spain, Italy, Mediaeval Rome, these are her favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes were her heroes; daggers, dungeons, and executioners her means of effects.
She moralises very sensibly upon Dramatic success. 'It is not,' she says,