Jewsbury, Maria Jane (1800-1833). - Letter, from an unstated address, to Dora Wordsworth (1804-1847), at Rydal Mount, Ambleside, Westmoreland, dated 20 January 1829. WLMS A / Jewsbury, Maria Jane / 17.

January 20. 1829.

My dearest Dora,

I deserve no letters - nor kind deeds either - for suffering your last, & your father's most benevolent exertions, to remain unacknowledged for more than a week. I have in truth been wearied with occupation, commencing frequently by candlelight - nevertheless I am an offender. Permit me now to make amends. That your father should have written to me with his own hand is what I consider no slight honour - indeed it will compensate to me for many mortifications, I was going to say for any. To you I may say what it

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might seem flattery to say to him, - & therefore I may say, that if I first bowed to him from youthful enthusiasm, I bow none the less reverently, neither to him, nor his poetry - now that I am comparatively matured, & have had more experience. I feel his kindness most sensibly - Mr Reynolds may depend on my "terseness;" the permission to send any thing, is valuable, however grudingly given.

You can not think how often & how fondly I look back to Kent's Bank, & your father's conversations there - when in Wales I repeated some of his opinions on the pains & penalties of female authorship, & Mrs: Hemans agreed to them, in the sober sadness that I do.

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Her fame has gilded her chain, but it has not lost its clank. I cannot conceive, how, unless a necessity be laid upon her, any woman of acute sensibility, & refined imagination, can brook the fever - strife of authorship. Do you remember your father's simile about women & the flowers growing in their native bed, & transplanted to a drawing room chimney piece? - I wish I could forget it. Your last gave me much concern on his account - I allude to his fall - but depending on your postscript, I have pleased myself with thinking that he has sustained no injury. As except in a carriage, I never leave my quarter-deck, alias, the pavement

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before the door, the use that individuals like your father & aunt make of their legs, is in my eyes a marvel & a mystery. However, if all go on as I hope it will, I look forward to some little rides with you - I suppose Mr Ladyman's pony is fathered to the ponies before the flood - as however I have now a reasonably good habit of my own, I shall not have occasion to trespass on his lady's wardrobe - nor on your courtesy to appear

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with me such a scarecrow figure. My younger brother has been in Leicestershire, when there he saw your Aunt - walked with her over Charnwood forest - I am about writing to her - Do you know I call her amongst other things Lagan's Cuckoo -"There is no winter in her year - / No Sorrow in her song"

Does Mary Howitt interest you at all?- She is a correspondent of mine - & writes very nice letters - she expresses herself with profound & sincere enthusiasm respecting your father's poetry. So does Miss Mitford -

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from whom I have just had a kind letter - she also expresses a strong anxiety to see him. I will trouble you to give my affectionate remembrances to your father & mother, & to express to the former, the gratitude I really feel for his kindness. - I hope dearest Dora you have not commenced the study of handwriting as elucidating character - if so - you will pronounce me to have no character at all - or else a very bad one - "Time & the hour wears out the longest day," & Time & the hour deteriorates one's penmanship - happy if it deteriorate nothing more important - However believe me so long as I can write at all Most affectionately yr. friend M.J.J.

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If in the course of a fortnight you see "Lays of Leisure Hours" advertised - pray remember, that I only write verse to improve my prose. Geraldine is at home for the holidays - I have been careful not to force her poetical taste - & was therefore delighted to see the zest with which she last night read to me "Comus-" & Ruth &c -

Miss D. Wordsworth

Rydal Mount

Ambleside

Westmoreland.

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Object summary: WLMS A / Jewsbury, Maria Jane / 17