914. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 242–246.
London–
Feb. 31. [sic] 1842. [1]
I struggle from under a heap of proof sheets, my dearest friend—just because I must say one word to you before the week closes. If it had not been for writing, writing, .. & such reading of heavy books as makes one[’]s arms ache long before one’s head, (my head is quite secondary!) you wd have heard from me some days ago, nay, day by day– So trace up the silence to the source. In the meanwhile, I think of you, dream of you, love you, read your letters three times over & leap up as high as I can when I catch the first ray of them as their orient appears in Crow’s hands. Dearest friend—think of my pleasure to hear about the oysters! [2] Think of my luck turning, or seeming to turn all at once! There seems no end to the new prosperity!– I am proud too, quite proud, of a certain sympathy of destiny between you & me, which I wd not however, even for pride’s sake, extend beyond books, because for all the new flattering in the skies I am not yet near so assured of my present good-luck as of my tender love to you—but I am proud (to take breath again) of the certain sympathy of destiny as to book-reading between you & me. For I have not very long done with Lewis’s memoirs, [3] —& have actually scarcely laid aside Hayley’s Autobiography, [4] so as to draw two full breaths between concluding it & opening your letter!!
Therefore you see the inference afar off—you need’nt my dearest kindest friend, send me Hayley—& I need’nt seek for Lewis any more. I agree with you as to the last quite—yet was something less interested than you seem to be, from never having cared much for the man or his works either, or heard him much cared about. Perhaps the biographer is nearly good enough for his subject, bad as he is—yet the man (the subject) seems to have had all the excellent points of character which you mark with a hand so ready to distinguish excellence. His West Indian work I never saw. [5] I rather suspect that when I was a child I used to think Alonzo & the fair Imogen fine poetry [6] —but the opinion past away a very long time before I “put away childish things” [7] —& if it had not been for a hankering ‘inexpressive’ & highly improper wish of mine to see the Monk, which has led me to hazard my reputation [8] by asking for it at more than one circulating library (& all in vain!) I shd have put away “little Mat” altogether from my thoughts at the same moment of antiquity. Still he was better than his books—how much better! Tell me what the West Indian book is like. Not that I shall care to see it—I might you know from the library here if I did care. But I dont think, considering the subject, which is so worn to me, & the author who may be wearing, that I shall care.
Well—then! there’s the autobiography! I will tell you how it was with me! For a long time, I thought Hayley was scarcely put-up-able-with! So powdered & pigtailed! so primly elaborate as to diction—so anointed with fine words & fine phrases—there was no coming between the wind & his nobility!! [9] so conscious of his bardship, in the length & breadth of every sentence! so bebarding his readers till they wd nearly as soon be bombarded! so determined on being very good, & very delicate & very generous & very magnanimous—oh—so magnanimous!—& præter-determined [10] that nobody shd miss seeing the full extent & degree of said goodness, delicacy generosity & magnanimity––that I all but threw up the book—or threw it down,—as one for whom the “Halleyan periods” to use his own speech, were full too much!– I all but did it—but I did not actually. I, another “pitiable Eliza,”! [11] read on, on the contrary—& by degrees, by slow degrees, & sure I suppose,—the extreme overcoming sense of self-occupation seemed to wear away– I liked the ‘poet’ better & his phraseology better—at last I almost loved him for his lovingness to his friends—to his son! His tenderness to his son & his grief at that parting won my heart! It is touching & beautiful as love always is. [12]
Yes—the book certainly does grow to be interesting. Tell me if you dont think so. Tell me if you dont think that it grows to be interesting, & chiefly through its tenderness. The edition I had from Saunders concluded with the poet’s biography of his son, “the young sculptor” [13] —& not impotently, might the feelings speak.
Still the expression of sentiment is occasionally most strange. The funeral sermon he wrote for “his pitiable Eliza” .. a copy of which he sent to his son “to recite” to his friends the Flaxmans in London, while the mournful ceremony was performed at Eartham!! [14] The poetical ‘recitations’ which he prepared on the birthdays of his dying son, wherein his dire estate as a cripple is set forth rather according to the ‘bardship’ than the fatherhood .. with so little of the shrinking delicacy of love!!! [15] It is strange. Tell me ‘your thought’. The book is interesting after all!–
I shd like to know “the rights & the wrongs” of “his pitiable Eliza”—whether & how, exactly & only, she was blameable. [16] I cd fancy that “the bard of Sussex’[’] [17] might be a hard person to live with! He did not live in the house even with his dying son. The simple scheme of living together appears unthought of, undesired, amid all the yearnings of their mutual tenderness.
And how little is said of Miss Seward “the Muse”! It disappointed me. Is there a life of her? [18] There was certainly a coolness between her & Hayley—you see that in her letters [19] .. & I shd like to know ‘the rights & wrongs’ of that too!–
You cant care a great deal more for biography than I do. My thirst for it is not quelled though I sit by a fountain.
If you had not lost the five vols. out of six of Richardson’s letters, [20] I shd certainly entreat you to let me see them—for I never did,—& wd give much to do so. But as to Collier’s book [21] —no—I thank you my beloved friend for your ready leaning-forward kindness; but you shall not send me that!– I do not care much—and it wd be wrong if I did, to trust a book which cd not be replaced by the most remorseful desires, on the railroad.
What do you mean by Mr Talfourd’s ratting? We have heard nothing. [22] What did Mr Milnes say?–
How glad I am, how thankful! that you are all some thing better & easier! God keep you so—or rather increase & complete the happy change.
George goes away on monday. Thank you for your kind words—nay—thoughts they are I know–
My beloved friend, your Dilkes stand straight up in the light. I see them perfectly!—— [23] I see them by you now, & I may, with you, some day! God bless you, dearest friend! I love you truly & entirely, & I will let you think such love of some worth, because it is—it must be in this world! You only overvalue the lover!
I send the Athenæum, my first Athenæum! [24] Try to read it to the end—though I fear it wont be called very readable by the most of those who do try–
Your
EBB–
My love to Dr Mitford– I have not seen Mr Kenyon.—Oh—When & where[?]
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 352–356 (as 31 [sic, for 26] February 1842).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The editors of EBB-MRM believe this to be a misdating for 26 February, based on EBB’s sending The Athenæum of that date and her remark about writing “before the week closes.” There is, however, no indication that EBB was sending the magazine immediately upon its issue, and we do not feel that her remark necessarily shows her to be writing on a Saturday. It seems more probable that she forgot that February had only 28 days; we therefore leave her dating, placing this letter between 913 and 917, without struggling to interpret her error further.
2. Sent on 20 February (see letter 911).
3. Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818), a prolific novelist and playwright, became famous on the publication in 1795 of his first work, Ambrosio, or the Monk. It was a popular success despite (or because of?) its indecency, which caused the Attorney-General to seek an injunction against its sale. The prosecution was halted when Lewis undertook to expunge the more objectionable passages from the second edition. The Life and Correspondence of M.G. Lewis [by Mrs. Margaret Baron-Wilson] was published in 1839.
4. William Hayley (1745–1820), poet and playwright, is best known for The Triumphs of Temper (1781) and for his Life of Cowper (1803–04). Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq.... Written by Himself, ed. John Johnson, appeared in 1823.
5. Lewis, the owner of estates in Jamaica, was known for humane and considerate treatment of his slaves. EBB refers to his Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1834.
6. “Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogine” was a ballad incorporated in Ambrosio, or the Monk.
7. I Corinthians, 13:11.
8. Because of its alleged indecency, referred to in note 3 above.
9. Cf. I Henry IV, I, 3, 45.
10. “Determined beyond measure.”
11. When Hayley broached to his mother the idea of marrying Eliza Ball, the daughter of his guardian, she was concerned that Eliza might take after her mother, who was mentally deranged. He replied that, if such were to transpire, “I should bless my God for having given me courage sufficient to make myself the legal guardian of the most amiable and pitiable woman on earth” (Memoirs, I, 87–88). He married Eliza in 1769, but, unfortunately, his mother’s fears were realized when Eliza’s mind became affected in 1786.
12. Hayley’s illegitimate son, Thomas Alphonso Hayley (b. 1780), showed much promise as an artist and sculptor, but in 1798 his health began to deteriorate and, after two years of great suffering, he died in 1800. Hayley wrote in his diary of his hope “for a blissful re-union with my dear filial angel, whose endearing perfections are more and more the wonder and delight of my faithful and affectionate remembrance.” John Johnson observed that there could be “very few examples of a father and son in whom the reciprocal affection rose to such a height, and supported itself in so striking a manner” (Memoirs, II, 12 and Memoirs of Thomas Alphonso Hayley, p. 502).
13. This is the sub-title of Memoirs of Thomas Alphonso Hayley, following Hayley’s own Memoirs in Johnson’s edition.
14. In a letter of 16 November 1797, Hayley sent to his son a copy of the “brief occasional discourse” he had composed for Eliza’s funeral “that you may … recite it yourself to our dear Flaxmans, at the very time when it will be delivered to the good people of our village” (Memoirs of Thomas Alphonso Hayley, p. 370). For three years (1795–98), Hayley’s son was the pupil of John Flaxman (1755–1826), a sculptor of great repute, and had lived with Flaxman and his wife Ann (née Denman, 1760?–1820).
15. Hayley had marked some, but not all, of his son’s birthdays with verse, starting with the first birthday on 5 October 1781. “Invocation to Patience” was addressed to the “dear Invalid” on his penultimate birthday, 5 October 1798 (Memoirs of Thomas Alphonso Hayley, pp. 411–413).
16. i.e., for the separation that took place in 1789.
17. Hayley became known by this appellation following the success of The Triumphs of Temper.
18. The only biography available at this time was the memoir by Scott in the 1810 edition of her poems. EBB commented on this in letter 606.
19. In a letter of 9 August 1786, Miss Seward had written that her correspondence with Hayley “is not what it was; but the deficiency … proceeds not from me. I honour and love him as well as ever; yet I feel that the silver cord of our amity is loosening at more links than one” (Letters of Anna Seward Written Between the Years 1784 and 1807 [ed. Archibald Constable], 1811, I, 168).
20. The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, Author of Pamela, etc., ed. Anna L. Barbauld, 6 vols., 1804.
21. Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) published a number of political pamphlets, including one defending the actions of Charles I, for which he was imprisoned briefly by Cromwell. EBB probably refers to his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), a courageous and unsparing attack on Dryden, Congreve and other contemporary playwrights.
22. Talfourd acted for the defence when Moxon was brought to trial on a charge of libel arising from his publication of an edition of Shelley’s works. The accusation of “ratting” probably reflects Miss Mitford’s feeling that Talfourd had compromised his principles in his address to the jury. The Athenæum of 13 November 1841 (no. 733, p. 869), commenting on his speech, said that Talfourd “must be fully aware of the facts and their consequence. Why, then, did he pass over them in his argument? The reason is obvious: the sole course which lay open to the learned Serjeant … was to flatter the prejudices of the jury … His client’s escape … could only be attained through a side-wind … his amour propre as a man, and his regard for truth as a logician, were sacrificed to his duty as an advocate.”
23. Miss Mitford had obviously responded at some length to EBB’s question in letter 911 about the younger Dilke and his wife.
24. The issue of 26 February, containing the first part of “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets” (no. 748, pp. 189–190).
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