The London Visitor

The London Visitor, by Mary
Russell Mitford

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Title: The London Visitor
Author: Mary Russell Mitford
Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22835]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE LONDON VISITOR
By Mary Russell Mitford
Being in a state of utter mystification, (a very disagreeable state,

by-the-bye,) I hold it advisable to lay my unhappy case, in strict
confidence, in the lowest possible whisper, and quite in a corner, before
my kind friend, patron, and protector, the public, through whose
means--for now-a-days every body knows everything, and there is no
riddle so dark but shall find an OEdipus to solve it--I may possibly be
able to discover whether the bewilderment under which I have been
labouring for the last three days be the result of natural causes, like the
delusions recorded in Dr. Brewster's book, or whether there be in this
little south of England county of ours, year 1836, a revival of the old
science of Gramarye, the glamour art, which, according to that
veracious minstrel, Sir Walter Scott, was exercised with such singular
success in the sixteenth century by the Ladye of Branksome upon the
good knight, William of Deloraine, and others his peers. In short, I
want to know---- But the best way to make my readers understand my
story, will be to begin at the beginning.
I am a wretched visitor. There is not a person in all Berkshire who has
so often occasion to appeal to the indulgence of her acquaintance to
pardon her sins of omission upon this score. I cannot tell how it
happens; nobody likes society better when in it, or is more delighted to
see her friends; but it is almost as easy to pull a tree of my age and size
up by the roots, as it is to dislodge me in summer from my flowery
garden, or in the winter from my sunny parlour, for the purpose of
accepting a dinner invitation, or making a morning call. Perhaps the
great accumulation of my debts in this way, the very despair of ever
paying them all, may be one reason (as is often the case, I believe, in
pecuniary obligations) why I so seldom pay any; then, whether I do
much or not, I have generally plenty to do; then again, I so dearly love
to do nothing; then, summer or winter, the weather is commonly too
cold for an open carriage, and I am eminently a catch-cold person; so
that between wind and rain, business and idleness, no lady in the
county with so many places that she ought to go to, goes to so few: and
yet it was from the extraordinary event of my happening to leave home
three days following, that my present mystification took its rise. Thus
the case stands.
Last Thursday morning, being the 23rd day of this present month of

June, I received a note from my kind friend and neighbour, Mrs.
Dunbar, requesting very earnestly that my father and myself would dine
that evening at the Hall, apologising for the short notice, as arising out
of the unexpected arrival of a guest from London, and the equally
unexpected absence of the General, which threw her (she was pleased
to say) upon our kindness to assist in entertaining her visitor. At seven
o'clock, accordingly, we repaired to General Dunbar's, and found our
hostess surrounded by her fine boys and girls, conversing with a
gentleman, whom she immediately introduced to us as Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson was a gentleman of about----
Pshaw! nothing is so unpolite as to go guessing how many years a man
may have lived in this most excellent world, especially when it is
perfectly clear, from his dress and demeanour, that the register of his
birth is the last document relating to himself which he would care to
see produced.
Mr. Thompson, then, was a gentleman of no particular age; not quite so
young as he had been, but still in very tolerable preservation, being
pretty exactly that which is understood by the phrase an old beau. He
was of middle size and middle height, with a slight stoop in the
shoulders; a skin of the true London complexion, between brown and
yellow, and slightly wrinkled: eyes of no very distinct colour; a nose
which, belonging to none of the recognised classes of that many-named
feature, may fairly