Wednesday. <[ choice
: Dec | December ]> 14 –
My dear Aunt
Mary
I return you Mrs.
Holland's and Dr.
Smith's letters. She means kindly & no doubt so does he but
their opinions on this matter are so totally different from my own, that I must
decline giving any information whatever on the subject of myself or my
history.
I also wish to say, & hope it will be communicated on to the French gentleman
– that I consider it the most unjust, unwarrantable & unkind liberty that
can be taken with an author – & especially when she happens to be a woman –
to make any personal comments on her during her life-time. The only instance in
which I am aware of its being done on me – was lately by an American, who
visited me & afterwards put me in the newspaper – which conduct I considered
in the highest degree ungentlemanly, & shall take care it has never a chance
of repetition.
All that the public has any right to know about me they may find in a list of
authors of the time – viz – that I, Dinah
Maria Mulock, daughter of Thomas & Dinah Mulock, was born at
Stoke-upon-Trent in 1826. – which
information my French friend is welcome to: but if he puts – or anybody
furnishes him with – any more, I shall by to consider neither him or them any
friends of mine – my very quiet life, completely out of the literary world,
ought to be a sufficient hint of how utterly I avoid & dislike personal
publicity. –
My dear Aunt
Mary Ever after yours
DMulock