The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-12-02
Miss Milford.

encouraging to literary amateurs: ~
''The little girl chose for birth
day present a lottery ticket of a
peculiar number, to which she
stuck, in spite of much persuasion
to change it, and which turned up. 2
prize of $40, 1000. This money soon
disappeared, like some y f40 600.
which had vanished before. Her ia
Their put her to school in London,
and there she spent five years, oRhile
he was amusing himself with build
ing a very large house, four miles
from Reading, to which she returned
at the age Of fifteen, to write poetry
and dream Of becoming an authoress.
After 1910 she put forth volume
almost every year. This was all
done for pleasure; but she was
meanwhile giving up to her selfish
father one legacy after. anothes. left
to herself by the opulent families on
both sides, after her mothers hand.
some fortune Was exhausted; and
hense at length arose the necessity.
Of her writing for the sake Of the
money she could earn.1 gs 4
''In their poverty they went to
lodge for a summer at a cottage inlthe
village of Three Mile Cross, near
Reading. and there they held on for
she rest Of DIR. Mitford's long life.
The poetess looked round her, and
described in prose what shesaw, send
ing. the papers which, collected, form
the celebrated Our Village to Camp
bell for the new monthlyo magazine.
Campbell made the mistake Of eject
ing them-an error in which he was
followed by a great number and va
riety of other editors. II was in the
Lady's Magazine Of all places, that
articles destined to- make a literary
reputation of no mean order first APP
peared. They were published in a
collection form in 1923, and from
that time forward Miss Milford was
sure of 1.-The guineas whenever she
chose to draw. for them in the form
Of pleasant stories under her well
known and welcome signature. Few
of her many readers, however, know
at what cost these pleasant stories
were produced. They seem to flow
easily enough; and their sportive
style suggests anything but the toll
and anxiety amid which they were
spun out. It is observable that each
story is complete and rounded as a
sonnet, and provided with plot
which would serve for novel if ex-
papded. Each has catastrophe
generally a surprise, deliberately
wrought out in concealment.
sit was for stories of this kind
that Miss Milford exchanged the
earlier and easier sketches from The
nature around her which we find in
Our Village and the exchange
increased immensely the call upon
her energies. But the money must
be had, and the ANIMALS paid hand
somely; and thus, therefore, the de-
voted daughter employed her talents,
spelling her father and wearing her
self out, but delighting an enormous
number Of readers. After frittering
away the whole day necessarily on
foot, OF otherwise fatiguing herself,
at his beck and call, and receiving
his friends, and reading him to sleep
in the afternoons till she had no
voice left, the hour came when she
might put him to bed. Her own
days work still remained to be done.
1t was not a sort of work which
could be done by powers, jaded like
hers, without some stimulus or re-
lief; and hence the necessity Of
doses of laudanum to carry her
through her task. When the neces-
sity ceased by the death of her ia
Their, her practice Of taking laudanum
ceased but her health had become
radicallyzimpaired, and her nervous
system was rendered unfit to meet
any such shock as that which over
threw it at last. Miss Milford, so
toiling by candle-light, while the
hard master who had made her his
servant all. day was asleep in the
next room, is as painful an instance
Of the struggles Of human life as the
melancholy Of buffoon or +ha