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The Lost Dahlia By: Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855) |
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By Mary Russell Mitford
If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one of
Shakspeare's most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter Scott
in one of his most charming romances (those two names do well in
juxtaposition, the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!) If to have
"had losses" be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am I
one of the most responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To say
nothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make,
in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of
the domestic tragedy of life putting wholly aside all the grander
transitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, and
money in the funds (and yet I might put in my claim to no trifling
amount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand at
a dismal story) counting for nought all weightier grievances, there is
not a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of small
losses as my unfortunate self. From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had a
pocket handkerchief to lose, down to this very night I will not say how
many years after when, as I have just discovered, I have most certainly
lost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited therein a
little before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some part of
my goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs, parasols,
reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from my
hands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the bow has
vanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal from my foot,
the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my brooch. The trinket
which I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a dear friend,
(luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the token,)
dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawls
themselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that ever
I had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture a
scarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere the other a lighter
and cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, and
a border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightest
orange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive summers
and winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds of
the phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety fairly blown
overboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them away,
they were lost. They were lost in the drawers they were lost out And if
for a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost my
keys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If there
was nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself I mean my way;
bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recesses
of the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good fellow, who led
Hermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas!
that there should be no Fairies now a days, or rather no true
believers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own mortal
carelessness. It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with
a great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"
with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked
Falstaff's pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging
to me, or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my
having any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of
"talking birds," starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father
delights to entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished,
more than usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract my
attention, and to pay me the compliment of following at my heels,
or perching upon my shoulder, the gentleman was sure to hop off. My
favourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile creature which draws my little
phaeton, has such a talent for leaping, that she is no sooner turned out
in either of our meadows, than she disappears... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
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