It Was All In A Sense Poor, But Books And
Books, Poor Soul, She Had To Write.
It was in a sense poor
because it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb
says, "You cannot
Fly like an eagle with the wings of a
wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little wings too
much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak
flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and she
had not a cuckoo but a devouring cormorant to sustain - that
dear, beautiful father of hers, who was more to her than any
reprobate son to his devoted mother, and who day after day,
year after year, gobbled up her earnings, and then would
hungrily go on squawking for more until he stumbled into the
grave. Alas! he was too long in dying; she was worn out by
then, the little heart beating not so fast, and the bright
little brain growing dim and very tired.
Now all the ambitious stuff she wrote to keep the cormorant
and, incidentally, to immortalize herself, has fallen
deservedly into oblivion. But we - some of us - do not forget
and never want to forget Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters
remain - the little friendly letters which came from her pen
like balls of silvery down from a sun-ripened plant, and were
wafted far and wide over the land to those she loved. There
is a wonderful charm in them; they are so spontaneous, so
natural, so perfectly reflect her humour and vivacity, her
overflowing sweetness, her beautiful spirit.
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