another correspondent very early in life; this was Sir William
Elford, to whom she describes her outings and adventures, her visits
to Tavistock House, where her kind friends the Perrys receive her.
Mr. Perry was the editor of the Morning Chronicle; he and his
beautiful wife were the friends of all the most interesting people
of the day. Here again the present writer's own experiences can
interpret the printed page, for her own first sight of London people
and of London society came to her in a little house in Chesham
Place, where her father's old friends, Mrs. Frederick Elliot and
Miss Perry, the daughters of Miss Mitford's friends, lived with a
very notable and interesting set of people, making a social centre,
by that kindly unconscious art which cannot be defined; that quick
apprehension, that benevolent fastidiousness (I have to use rather
far-fetched words) which are so essential to good hosts and
hostesses. A different standard is looked for now, by the rising
generations knocking at the doors, behind which the dignified past
is lying as stark as King Duncan himself!

Among other entertainments Miss Mitford went to the fetes which
celebrated the battle of Vittoria; she had also the happiness of
getting a good sight of Mme. de Stael, who was a great friend of the
Perrys. 'She is almost as much followed in the gardens as the
Princess,' she says, pouring out her wonders, her pleasures, her
raptures. She begins to read Burns with youthful delight, dilates
upon his exhaustless imagination, his versatility, and then she
suggests a very just criticism. 'Does it not appear' she says,
'that versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare
thing called genius--versatility and playfulness;' then she goes on
to speak of two highly-reputed novels just come out and ascribed to
Lady Morley, 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Sense and Sensibility.'