Outlines by Virginia Woolf — Read

I. MISS MITFORD

Speaking truthfully, _Mary Russell Mitford and Her Surroundings_ is not a good book. It neither enlarges the mind nor purifies the heart. There is nothing in it about Prime Ministers and not very much about Miss Mitford. Yet, as one is setting out to speak the truth, one must own that there are certain books which can be read without the mind and without the heart, but still with considerable enjoyment. To come to the point, the great merit of these scrapbooks, for they can scarcely be called biographies, is that they license mendacity. One cannot believe what Miss Hill says about Miss Mitford, and thus one is free to invent Miss Mitford for oneself. Not for a second do we accuse Miss Hill of telling lies. That infirmity is entirely ours. For example: "Alresford was the birthplace of one who loved nature as few have loved her, and whose writings 'breathe the air of the hayfields and the scent of the hawthorn boughs', and seem to waft to us 'the sweet breezes that blow over ripened cornfields and daisied meadows'. " It is perfectly true that Miss Mitford was born at Alresford, and yet, when it is put like that, we doubt whether she was ever born at all. Indeed she was, says Miss Hill; she was born "on the 16th December, 1787. 'A pleasant house in truth it was,' Miss Mitford writes. 'The breakfast-room... was a lofty and spacious apartment. " So Miss Mitford was born in the breakfast-room about eight-thirty on a snowy morning between the Doctor's second and third cups of tea. "Pardon me," said Mrs. Mitford, turning a little pale, but not omitting to add the right quantity of cream to her husband's tea, "I feel... " That is the way in which Mendacity begins. There is something plausible and even ingenious in her approaches.