Correspondence

946.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 317–320.

[London]

[mid-] April– [1842] [1]

No, my beloved friend I am not ill—only dull & lower than usual through this simoom of the west, this east wind! It lights up a fire within me & blows, blows at it continually—so that I lose my hold of old occupations & feel flagged & fagged & wearied & wearisome. I did not write on that account. I shall not write much today—for my hand burns till the very pen grows warm & my heart stops unduly & I am out of sorts (there’s an expressive phrase for me!) altogether.

You will wonder at me for sending you that great stout history of Williams [2] —& in fact whether the quality keeps any measure with the undeniable quantity, I am in absolute ignorance. The book went to you from the library & I never read a page of it, altho’ Papa likes it—but it is [sic] does not contain the last details of his life .. ending I believe with his last visit to England from whence he went again for ever. He came to England principally for the sake of inducing other missionaries to accompany him out & partake his labor—and at one of those religious meetings which I like better than you do, & was present at myself, .. four or five years ago at Sidmouth,—I saw him & heard his south sea story from his own lips. He was rather a large man belonging in appearance & manner to the middle classes of society .. rather coarse than otherwise in his externities—with a countenance of a certain intelligence & an exceeding benevolence & a smile that made it shine all over. He rather talked than disserted—& his voice was agreeable & his language characteristic & picturesque. Of eloquence or of any high toned enthusiasm there was not a spark or breath: his abundant matter flowing away through the smile on his lips without effort or emotion. I was much interested & could have listened for an hour longer. I remember particularly the description of his farew<ell> to the natives—how they followed him down to the shore & stood & hung in groups on the rocks crying in their clear soft musical voices “Come back to us—come back to us—& bring more friends”. “This” he said .. turning to the people .. “this was their message to you .. they told me to bring them more friends”. And this is what in truth they want—friends & not bishops.

His friendship to them he made-manifest [3] more variously than in his religious teaching. He had a remarkable aptitude for mechanics—& he taught them to build houses & ships & to acquire habits of civilization & aspire to its comforts. In return they loved him with a reverence & faithfulness most touching & true—& listening in child-hearted submission to the sound of his religious teaching, “saw his face as the face of an angel” [4] & blessed him to it, as a very messenger of God. It was testified to by others than himself. For himself he spoke of his influence humbly & simply—yet tenderly—as a father might of a child’s love. I liked to hear him speak of it, very much. Of course you saw in the papers what the end of all was! how nearly immediately upon his return, passing, as was his custom, from island to island, he touched a strange shore & landed with one or two of his friends while the others remained in the boat. The savages scarcely received his salutation ere they struck the blow. It was all seen from the boat but help was impossible—& they passed away with the story of death. Of death & life at once! God received upwards His own witness to see what he had testified!

As to the book which I sent you, I cant answer for the readableness of it—but you may care to read it “with your fingers” [5] or peradventure thumbs. Is your story for the Lady-Book, [6] of the South Seas? Do tell me.

How kind of dear Dr Mitford—& what precious kindness! And if I in my infinite grumbleness ever sigh in thinking of the long way to the geraniums, why then I think again of the meazles & ‘take note’ [7] how impossible it wd be to wish to have you here until all the different forms of infection had been spirited away. Occy has been well some days—& now Alfred is unwell! Alfred!—altho’ he had the meazles years ago! But—headache, .. watering of the eyes,—even to an appearance of eruption, are all obvious symptoms, & we cannot resist their evidence. He is not ill—& indeed all the attacks have been as mild as possible– Still I wd not have you here for the world.

Oh yes—he will be better dearest friend (your invalid)—be sure he will .. when this wind has departed. May God bless & revive you my dearest friend!

Miss Anderdon not only left her card with the books but a very kind note for which I must ask you to thank her in my place. Mr Kenyon has not been here very lately—but meeting Papa a few days ago he told him to tell me that Mr Wordsworth was either coming or come. Oh you shd be here now!

I will write again—perhaps tomorrow—perhaps the next day. An incubus sitteth on my wits today. This wind—which blows nobody any good!– [8]

I heard from Mr Horne two days since, & he seems neither wind-bound nor otherwise limited in spirits—& wont believe either for you or for me that Mr Darley was the Herod of the Chaucer massacre. [9] It was he says, Dr Taylor.

For my own part I have left hold of my obstinacy .. ever since I heard of a writer in the Westminster review insisting to George, upon circuit, that Mr Darley wrote my articles on the Greeks .. being as certain of it from the internal evidence “as that that dish is a dish”.!! [10]

There’s poetical justice done upon my opinionativeness! But is there really any feature of likeness in the styles?

Mr Horne begged to be remembered to you, whenever I wrote.

Can you read what I write?

Adieu .. How is the witlow?

Ever your attached EBB–

Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 396–399.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. This letter falls between 944, in which EBB promised to send “the account of Williams the missionary,” and 949, in which Miss Mitford replies to EBB’s query about her story for “the Lady-Book.”

2. Williams had just been memorialized in John Campbell’s The Martyr of Erromanga (1842), but, as EBB says that the book she is sending does not deal with “the last details of his life,” it is probable that she is speaking of Campbell’s The Missionary’s Farewell (1838). For an earlier reference to Williams, see letter 929.

3. Cf. I Corinthians, 3:13.

4. Cf. Acts, 6:15.

5. We take this to be a reference to the reading system developed in 1826 by Louis Braille (1809–52), who was blinded in a childhood accident.

6. We have not found a story by Miss Mitford published at this time. EBB’s description, “Lady-Book,” fits a number of publications, of which The Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion, Music and Romance or The Ladies’ Magazine and Museum of the Belles Lettres would seem the most probable recipients.

7. Othello, III, 3, 377.

8. Cf. the proverbial “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”

9. For EBB’s earlier remarks regarding “tomahawking” by The Athenæum’s critic, see letter 796; for her belief that Darley was responsible, see letter 799. Matthew, 2:16 tells of Herod’s massacre of the children.

10. Assumed to be George Stovin Venables (1810–88), a barrister on the Oxford Circuit, where George Moulton-Barrett also was, and a frequent contributor to various journals. EBB makes several references to him in her letters to George, one of them (13 March 1845) querying Venables’s authorship of an article in The Westminster Review.

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