903. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 219–222.
[London]
Jany. 20th 1842–
My beloved friend,
I am rejoicing in the honor & glory achieved by our chocolate, with a gladness beyond the honor. Oh that the effect may last!—oh that it may not be the mere change of diet! Whatever it may be, it is happy—so far—and I hope for the happiest!–
But you are overwhelmed with anxieties I see .. , by more than your habitual ones! Do be particular in telling me how the cold is. It is a transient malady my dearest friend .. & God’s mercy will give you an adequate patience & consolation. Indeed but it is very grievous, very, to our fleshly eyes & fleshly hearts which deal in no better wisdom than their blended love’s, that you shd be so tried, month by month, year by year, & no possible help from any of us!–
Your romance of the Loves of the Centaur-sylph passes anything of the sort I ever heard of. [1] It is enough for a generation—certainly enough to make anyone laugh à gorge deployèe [2] like the lady’s affectionateness. That hysteric in the quadrille! .. I conclude is the “en avant” [3] movement .. the whole thing being so remarkably en avant in every sense! No wonder that it was reciprocated by a dos à dos [4] on the gentleman’s side! Ah—but it was hard-hearted of you, when she went on a pilgrimage to the ‘village’, all “to make love to you by proxy” as you admit yrself, to refuse to be made love to! I am afraid you are very hardhearted! You might have got up some sort of a sultan for her [5] ––a pair of slippers to match the rose-coloured feathers!
Tell me—was she ashamed afterwards? I hope so, for the sake of womanhood.
I have been wishing so to write to you day after day these three or four days; but other letters pressed in .. letters necessary to be written—not that it is’nt necessary my beloved friend, to write to you. That is a heart-want. But I cdnt do it all at once—and then these Greek poets & the Athenæum have been pulling at me, more than I supposed they wd One is forced to be accurate in print, & absolute accuracy one cant or ought’nt to be content to go to the memory for—& I wanted books out of my reach, & have been beating against my cage till my wings are tired. After all, not a line is written yet. [6]
You are right & wrong too in all the advice you give me & the superfluity of kindness you add to it. I have grown large O my dearest friend, in the mist of your great affectionateness which I prize, believe me, more for the thing it is, than the praise it brings. You overvalue me in all things but in love. Nevertheless you are quite right in telling me not to give up poetry for magazine-writing, or for prose of a higher character. You will be satisfied when you hear me say that I could’nt if I tried. Whatever degree of faculty I have, lies in poetry—still more of my personal happiness lies in it—still more of my love. I cannot remember the time when I did not love it .. with a lying-awake sort of passion at nine years old, & with a more powerful feeling since, which even all my griefs, such as have shaken life, have failed to shake. At this moment I love it more than ever—& am more bent than ever, if possible, to work into light .. not into popularity but into expression .. whatever faculty I have. This is the object of the intellectual part of me—& if I live it shall be done. There will be no bitterness in the process whatever the labour .. because it is not for the sake of popularity, no, nor of a higher kind of fame, but for poetry’s own sake—rather, to speak more humbly & accurately, for the sake of my love of it. Love is the safest & most unwearied moving principle in all things—it is an heroic worker.
Perhaps we may differ a little upon what is called religious poetry .. though not at all upon the specimens extant. My fixed opinion is, if I might express it with the deference due to your views of literature, .. my fixed opinion is, that the experiment has scarcely been tried .. & that a nobler ‘Genie du Christianisme’ than has been contemplated by Chateaubriand, [7] will yet be developped in poetical glory & light. The failure of religious poets turns less upon their being religious, than on their not being poets. Christ’s religion is essentially poetry—poetry glorified. And agreeing with you that human interest is necessary to poetical interest, I wd yet assume that religious interest is necessary to perfect the human—as the great & ever-influencing prospect & crown of universal humanity.
Yes—I shall write poems yet—& perhaps something that may be happy enough to please you, after some imperfect fashion & thro’ the perfectness of your affection. I have not quite cast off your Napoleon [8] —nay, I have not even turned my shoulder to him. I must think.
In the meantime, here is the Athenæum. Oh, but for a time, my dearest friend—but for a time. Mr Dilke does not even wish for me for long. And who knows, but what I may break down at the first three paces? Well– Even I cant know anything about it, without trying. Only one thing is sure—that I shant be cold upon poetry. Another thing, too, is sure, that the Athenæum has been so! You are quite right—I skipped the science & took patience—but I could’nt take it & keep it, when I found them all so deeply interested in American Indians & English travellers, & every sort of savage & steam-engine & musical instrument, [9] .. & all at once, struck cold, indifferent, nay, a little malicious, with a manifest curling of the upper lip (none the better for being Mr Darley’s who ought to know better) when a true poet or tragedian endeavoured to articulate those great thoughts which he inherited of Nature. It was—it is, dispiriting & mortifying. For there are true poets, even as literature is now. Mr Browning deserved better than that light, half jocose, pitifully jocose, downward accent of critical rallying! [‘]‘Forsooth they are almost tired of him! and yet he has some good stuff—but they have almost lost their sublime critical patience!!” [10] Why what, if he did mouth in his speaking,—was there nothing worth reverence in his speech? worth a critic’s reverence—or a world’s!– I wd not speak so of Mr Browning in a whisper—I wd not dare—even to myself. And then Mr Horne! Where is the excuse for the blank silence, or the still worse word! [11] The Athenæum provokes me.
Still I like it for much. It has a nobility of its own—it is liberal, & but for poetry, large-hearted. Many pleasant hours of mine are associated with it, & I like this new association, temporary as it is, which is just rising up.
I am so glad you have such a woman as Mrs Niven, for talk’s sake & sympathy’s—& how kind of both of you ever to speak of me. God bless you dearest
<…> [12]
Oh I quite forgot Dr Chambers! Indeed I dont want him, & .. I promise to see him when I do– I am very tolerably well, which means, very wonderfully so. Oh for the spring & you!– But must it be quite the spring?– “Say nay, say nay.” [13]
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 333–336.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. In letter 897, EBB had referred to Miss Pardoe’s supposed pursuit of Henry Chorley. She had used a visit to Miss Mitford while Chorley was also there as a means of furthering her aim, and Miss Mitford had apparently made fun of her behaviour and appearance at a dance on 28 December 1841.
2. “To laugh à gorge déployée” is to roar with laughter.
3. “Forward.”
4. “Back to back.”
5. A reference to Miss Pardoe’s being noticed by Sultan Mahmoud during her visit to Turkey (see letter 897, note 12).
6. The first of EBB’s four papers on the Greek Christian Poets appeared in The Athenæum of 26 February (no. 748, pp. 189–190).
7. François René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), French statesman and author, had published Le Génie du Christianisme, ou les Beautés de la Religion Chrétienne in five volumes in 1802.
8. As a subject for a poem, suggested by Miss Mitford (see letter 873).
9. Volume 1 of Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (1841) by George Catlin had received lengthy notice in The Athenæum of 2 October 1841 (no. 727, pp. 755–759) and 16 October (no. 729, pp. 792–794). Volume 2 received equal treatment in the issues of 12 and 19 February 1842. As EBB’s comment suggests, accounts of travels and books on railways and canals, etc. did appear to be given disproportionate attention by the magazine.
10. The Athenæum of 11 December 1841 (no. 737, p. 952) had carried a review of Pippa Passes, finding RB’s “texts nearly as obscure as ever—getting, nevertheless, a glimpse, every now and then, at meanings which it might have been well worth his while to put into English.” The reviewer [G. Darley?] commented that “Our faith in him, however, is not yet extinct,—but our patience is.” (For the full text of the review, see pp. 399–400.)
11. The Athenæum had not reviewed his History of Napoleon.
12. The remainder of the manuscript is missing, except for the following sentences written in the margins of the first page.
13. Cf. Chaucer, “The Parson’s Tale,” 590.
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