958. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 342–347.
[London]
May 14. 1842
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford,
You are welcome as more than daylight at all hours of the day .. & I cd not restrain my exclamation—acclamation it was rather .. of ‘Oh how delightful!’ when I felt by the thickness of the substance between my fingers & thumb what a long letter I had before me for coffee time at six oclock, instead of at nine in the morning. Two sheetfulls in your own handwriting!! Flushie jumped up in a sympathy of rapture, & wanted very much to hold it all in his mouth—but no! Flushie!—you may eat my muffin if you please but nothing at all, .. not the least bit in the world, .. out of my letter!– There, you & I have our divided interests!–
Which reminds me that I cdnt help reading to Crow your beautiful story of your Flush,—& that mine immediately took up the gesture of listening intently gathering his ears over his great eyes as if he saw a hare, or rather a crow in a field (his more familiar wonder & a very favorite subject of observation out of the carriage window in the days of his travelling—) [1] & patting about his little paws everytime the word ‘Flush’ ‘Flush’ occurred. Be sure he thought I was reading about him! I know he thought so!– It was very natural that he shd, you know!
And I must say one thing more in reference to Flush’s tastes. He likes walking out of course—particularly on the grass: he likes walking out with the great dogs most particularly—that is an especial pleasure; but his distinct taste is to go out in a carriage!– Think of his jumping into a lady’s carriage the other day—& she quite a stranger to him .. & refusing, positively refusing to come out again. There was nothing for it but to carry him out by main force! We ought to have a carriage I say—if it were only for Flushie!– But I think it a strange taste. An open carriage as in the taste of your Flush is less to be wondered at—but these flies & shut-up vehicles .. except for the glory of the thing .. one wd scarcely imagine covetable by an unconventional will whether of man or dog.
Is his sister found at Reading? [2] Yes! I take courage from Ben’s argument– I had thought of it before. If anybody stoops to hazard a salutation upon Flushie’s head—a most awful growl together with a shrinking gesture are the consequences. Supposing that his cowardice may preserve him from any possible danger, I certainly need not be uneasy. Still, there are peculiar risks here, in London. Dogstealing is carried on as a profession—& only the other day, while Henry & Major Nugent .. a blind neighbour of ours were walking together, a little spaniel belonging to the latter was snatched up, thrown headlong into a sack, & run off with. The poor little thing was recovered .. but after several days anxiety—& what wd my Flush do & what shd I do under such circumstances? Flushie wd cry piteously—& I shdnt be very much wiser I dare say. He always cries, directly anything goes wrong––if you go on reading for instance without paying him proper attention! nay, just now .. just as I was writing of this morbid sensibility,—up came a little plaintive note of complaint as much as to say ‘Oh how dull it is!’!—but I have patted him well & he has kissed me in turn & now he has re-disposed himself into a ball close beside me with very sufficient resignation.
Oh! your Flush is a genius! he is worthy of hero-worship in Mr Carlyle’s sense [3] & all others. Do you not suppose that the peculiar & close intercourse with Humanity which dogs in the position of yours & mine too have, influences or develops their intelligence in a manner not observable generally in their race? What philosophy can we bring to bear on it?
While I write, Mr Kenyon’s ready kindness has sent me Tennyson’s new volumes, which I see include the old—or at least some of the old [4] — with a little note to explain his more kindness of having wished to get to me & of having been ‘circumvented’! I had not sent him your message because I expected to see him day after day—but now I shall use no delay & write to him what your wishes are about his going to you. I cant doubt that he will go if he can—and I dont doubt that he can!
All this writing & nothing of yourself! & you not well again, my beloved friend! I am afraid—I am much afraid that that guilty Finden has made you ill besides making you unhappy. [5] My dearest, dearest friend—take courage about it, at least until the evil be proved complete. Mr Dawson [6] being at work for you, gives me strong hope & expectation too, that the business may yet be happily arranged. Surely Finden had no right, & cannot make a right to a copyright under such circumstances. Surely it is not possible. The Tableaux was a periodical work .. just as The New Monthly Magazine is! Now conceive the publisher of the New Monthly proposing to republish the papers of the contributors, editor & contributors, against or without their permission!– The inference is obvious! And this suggests to me that if it cd be supposed to do the least shade of good, I wd send George directly to protest on my own account (without a word about you) against the republication of my Ballads. They have no right whatever to re-publish my ballads .. & I wd far rather that they did no such thing .. seeing that of any volume I might hereafter hazard, those ballads wd naturally form a part; & I know Mr Finden does not think of excepting them from the universal compliment of re-publication, because it was of them in particular which I heard in the time of my obtuseness. Believing you to be interested in the business very differently from the manner in which you were actually, I never thought, of course, of even thinking an objection. Now I am ready, quite ready to utter twenty. Shall I send George with a protestation from myself? Shall I tell Mr Kenyon to do anything? Rights are rights—and altho’ my ballads will neither win nor lose me “money in my purse”, [7] still it is quite worth making as malign a stir as possible about the thing, were it only out of revenge for your wrongs. I feel like Shylock already. Let me send George. Write & tell me if I may, without doing any harm. The ballads were given to you, & by no means to Messrs Finden, & it is impossible that they can legally touch a line of them!–
Thank you for the interesting & characteristic letters which your kindness let me look at. There is something apart in Mr Darley’s which I like—a tone above the commonplace. Mr Chorley’s is lower. [8] I quite see what you mean—and oh! I am so glad you answered as you did! At the same time I feel sorry for Mr Chorley too .. the want of literary sympathy being a bad want—and I feel more than you seem to do my beloved friend, the actuality of emotion connected not with the mere ‘love of fame’ [9] which is “base common & popular”, [10] but with the working out of the faculties in the perfecting of a worthy work. There are strong motives of which in your case, the affections have taken the place, crowding around you so closely as to prevent your perceiving their strength & naturalness in the case of others,—& motives imply emotion. Perhaps even you, in another position, might have been .. not insensible to some of them. I myself am in no sort insensible—oh you must not indeed lift me up so, above the infirmities of the ‘pen & ink people’. [11] There are anxieties of the intellect as well as of the heart—not afflictions[—]we will unite in not endowing them with so grave a name—but anxieties there are, & perhaps ought to be—nay, certainly ought to be—because otherwise it wd be for the grand interests of humanity that authors & authoresses & all qualified by nature to become such, be kept poor by Act of parliament.
In much of this, you will perhaps, upon thinking it all over, agree with me. The point on which we rather differ is connected with the question whether a pen & ink person must necessarily become selfish in becoming sensitive. I say ‘No’ to it, in the very loudest voice I have the power of attesting with. Those who yearn most for sympathy are according to my impression, the very people who shd be readiest with sympathy—and if they are backward instead of ready, why my doxy is, not that it arises from their being of the Pariah race pen-&[-]ink people, but radically & independently of all ‘inkhornisms’ as Hall the satirist says, [12] .... selfish people. Agree with me my beloved friend as far as you can—and for the rest forgive me the differing–
Nobody in the world can have more sympathy “on her sleeve for daws to peck at” [13] than you—it is your virtue most in sight .. & for which you are—wd be without a thing else .. at sight too, so most loveable. No wonder that you shd be struck by the want of it, or the comparative want of it in many! I think we may venture to count on the excellence of your Otto above the three unnamed Acts of the Uncompanioned! [14] I think we may! At the same time I do quite appreciate his pleasant & lively, & sometimes elegant writings—yes, & do it so heartily as to feel more sorry than the strangership justifies perhaps, that he shd be entangled with the theatres. Well! I am ignorant enough of it all .. but from my own impressions, & from what you have said of your experience, it seems of all literary positions in the world the one least calculated for a young author whose object & ambition it is to pass out of the periodical low atmosphere of literature into the high serene of a success which will not in its turn, pass. It sounds impertinently—but is’nt it true that Mr Chorley tries all sorts of literature—as if he were bent rather on trying his faculties than using them? [15]
I send the letters back, thanking you once more. It pleased me very much to read all three of them—& not least of course Miss Anderdon’s gracious words—which .. ‘smell of the rose’! [16] But you shd not teach people the illusions which belong to the love you cannot teach! altho’ I hope to see her some day under the sun yet, & so, disenchanting her at leisure, prevent any serious mischief.
Ah poor Arabel! Her face was well, .. & we were hoping to get rid of all the moveable invalidships—when two days ago, she became less absolutely unwell than attacked by symptoms resembling meazles! I am afraid it is certainly meazles—and there, she is, dear thing, shut up again in a room to herself .. not feeling much more the matter with her than a headache but suffering the inconvenience of the eruption.
After all, with all my regrets, I couldn’t dare to have you in the house even if you cd come—& you cdnt come, I suppose, if I cd have you! O miserable consolation!——as Job might say. [17]
Still there is hope in the stars! Henrietta went today with a party to the Cheswick [sic] flower-show—& your geraniums must be at theirs very soon. When is it? I hope—& hold fast dear Dr Mitford’s dear promise– Tell him so, will you—with my love?–
And tell me how you are. I am anxious about you through all this nonsense. For my own part, I am better—yet have been “bad at heart” [18] since I wrote last. Oh yes! I have two prophets for good—you & Dr Mitford—& I believe you both as in duty & hopefulness bound–
Your own EBB.
Alas!—my ingratitude! Thank you (at last) thank you for the most lovely & welcome gift of lilies of the valley! You will make a wrong inference from my benighted thankfulness—& yet indeed they were delightful to me to look upon & hold in my hands! Worth a hundred of the fashionable Humea .. what is its aristocratic title?– [19]
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 409–414.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Flush, of course, made the slow journey from Torquay to London with EBB in September 1841.
2. In letter 956, Miss Mitford had told how a half-sister of EBB’s Flush had been stolen four times.
3. A reference to Carlyle’s series of lectures in May 1840, subsequently published as Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841).
4. A two-volume edition of Tennyson’s poems had just been published; the first volume contained reprints of earlier works, with revisions, while the poems in the second volume were new.
5. In a letter of 1 June 1842 to Miss Harrison (Chorley, I, 294–295), Miss Mitford explains how Charles Tilt, having agreed that copyright of the contributions to Findens’ Tableaux should remain hers, had, in contravention of that understanding, arranged to republish the Tableaux. On the basis of Tilt’s original statement, Miss Mitford had contracted with Henry Colburn for a three-volume edition of stories, two volumes to be reprints of material from the Tableaux, and she was concerned that Tilt’s action would damage her financially. She tells Miss Harrison that she has sought legal advice—and this contretemps continues to concern her well into 1843.
6. Apparently, Miss Mitford had enlisted the help of her neighbour, G.B. Dawson, in contesting the copyright infringement.
7. Cf. Othello, I, 3, 339–340.
8. As Darley and Chorley had contributed to Findens’ Tableaux, both would have been affected by the copyright issue, and we infer that Miss Mitford had communicated the problem to them, and had sent their replies to EBB.
9. Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, pt. I (1590), V, 2, 117–118.
10. Henry V, IV, 1, 38.
11. See letter 737, note 16.
12. Joseph Hall (1574–1656), Bishop of Norwich, wrote “In mightiest Ink-hornismes he can thither wrest” (Virgidemiarum, 1598, Satires, bk. I, viii, 12). It connotes a learned or bookish usage (OED).
13. Othello, I, 1, 64–65.
14. The remainder of this paragraph indicates that “the Uncompanioned” refers to Chorley, a confirmed bachelor. EBB may be suggesting that Miss Mitford’s Otto of Wittelsbach is more deserving of a stage presentation than the three plays by Chorley that did receive performances, with limited success. Alternatively, “the three unnamed Acts” may be a reference to his unstaged drama, “Fontibel,” written in 1837. Its “conceptions of character offer no original features, and its language no beauties of thought or fancy” (Hewlett’s Autobiography of Chorley, 1873, I, 132).
15. “As an author … his career was a succession of failures. With adroit talent, serious purpose, and indomitable perseverance, he essayed a succession of novels and dramas which one and all fell dead upon the public ear” (DNB).
16. Cf. II Henry VI, I, 1, 254–255.
17. Cf. Job, 16:2.
18. Cf. Hamlet, I, 1, 8. EBB had mentioned this indisposition in letters 954 and 957.
19. A further reference to the leaf of humea elegans sent by Miss Mitford (see letters 956 and 957). The editors of EBB-MRM state that the plant, of Australian origin, was named for Lady Hume of Warmleybury.
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