Correspondence

1008.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 76–78.

[London]

Sept 14. 1842

My dearest friend, here is the newspaper back & thanks upon thanks for the pleasure of the sight of it. I admire your chief orator [1] —and I admire & love the chief ‘personnage’, & applaud with all the applause & exult in all the exultation, & do not wonder that Ben cried! Ah!—& how it must have affected with a deep joy which was also tenderness, Dr Mitford. What it must have been to him, those shouts & upturned faces! I almost wonder that he cd bear it at all in his weak state, altho’ I perfectly understand that if he cd exult instead of being overcome, .. rise upon the swell of the emotion, .. the effect wd be beneficial physically: May God bless both of you through each other—each by each! still longer on earth; & afterwards, so, make His Heaven sweeter to you!

Are you personally acquainted & do you see much of the physician who spoke? I liked very much indeed what he said of not looking to science or to any means purely intellectual for national regeneration. [2] It is just as I could have chosen it to be said; & just also, as scientific persons generally wd be loth to say it. He is bold to speak the truth. “Knowledge puffeth up,—but Love buildeth up” [3] —and the Love of God is the glorification of Love, even as God is Love Itself. I know of nothing that can build us up, except love in the high intense divine meaning: & the strutting vanity assumed by Science & Philosophy is as offensive to the contemplative man whose eye is upon his nature, as to the contemplative angel whose eye is toward Deity.

Your poor invalid has not been so well my beloved friend! But you will not be less hopeful for a little wavering in the convalescence. May the Divine Mercy spare you any more trial for a long time. I followed every detail about the house with a quick sympathy as you did me the justice to think I shd,—& I rejoice with you that you have made room for yourself & comfortable room too, notwithstanding the ‘nos’ of doors & windows. As to passing through the kitchen, the queen wdnt or shdnt be above doing it if she knew the reason for it, .. & I, for my own part as a subject, would be as proud as a queen to walk through a succession of kitchens & sculleries for the sake of seeing your face at the end of them. My only fear is lest this new bedroom shd be too cold for a bedroom on account of the door opening into the external air. Still supposing you to condemn it properly (after the manner of Mr Stephens’s tragedy) [4] the winds may turn their backs in despair & consent to do you no harm.

You—I say, ‘you’. I mean dear Dr Mitford of course—but I mean you also in him. It is the only way to harm you, doing it, thro’ him. As for your abstracted self, going to bed either not at all, or by way of “regularity” (!!!) at six o’clock in the morning, it seems to me that you set up for some sort of immortal. My dearest, dearest friend, how very wrong of you! Six o’clock in the morning by way of “regularity”!!–

Mr Ellis has not come to town yet: [5] & when he does, you need not fear lest anybody shd open the subject of the Tableaux with him,—which considering the circumstances, wd of course be altogether improper. We only want to know where the supposed proprietor resides. Do you know? I am sure something may be done—but nothing can, without feeling for a responsible party.

Since you are interested about Mr Stirling besides somebody else, I mean to send you the North American Review,—& Fraser for July, for another reason. Mr Townsend (are you aware?) is an enthusiast about Mr Stirling’s, Archæus’s, poetry, which I never cd be & confessed it. Mr Simmons [6] writes excellent thoughtful verses,—but (for confession the second) I must demur to receiving them as inspired poetry. Reading them for instance, after Tennyson’s, do we not “fall from Heaven” [7] as the French say? Milnes is a poet– Browning is a poet– Tennyson is a poet. When we come to Sterling & Simmons, we cannot assert it of them unhesitatingly. My voice, at least, I do confess .. stutters.

Are you aware (and if you shd not be, do not tell it again) that the violent paper against poor Mr Reade in Blackwood, was by Mr Landor? [8] It was indeed. Yet nobody, I think, cd have guessed it “by the style”. [9]

Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, I am going out in the chair today for the first time & directly, & can write no more. But you must hear first how well I am, & that for several days the spitting of blood which more or less beset me nightly, has quite stopped. Oh for another summer to grow strong in! Only, winters & weaknesses are good for us. May God bless you always!–

Ever your attached

EBB–

Yes—I have thought of you! Will Mrs Partridge receive the expression of my earnest wishes for her happiness? [10] I hope so from all the good & kindness I have known & felt of Miss Anderdon.– But I never had the pleasure of seeing Mr Partridge on either side the Alps—never alas! was on any side but one—never saw Italy except in dreams, in my life! I read in the paper lately that Elizabeth Barrett was reprieved from capital punishment. [11] So “we are three [12] —or were at least.

Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 27–30.

Manuscript: Wellesley College and Yale University.

1. Dr. Cowan (see letter 1001).

2. The report of Dr. Cowan’s speech in The Berkshire Chronicle of 3 September quotes him as saying: “I am no science worshipper—not one who anticipates human regeneration by the mere efforts of the intellect—or one who sees nothing but increased developement of good from every fresh victory over the physical world—from every fresh adaptation of material agencies to our wants and enjoyment. No, we estimate the heart far higher than the head—we believe that moral elevation is the only lasting foundation of national prosperity, and that … [only] in the diffusion of the principles which the Bible … inculcates, can we ever be permanently prosperous.”

3. Cf. I Corinthians, 8:1.

4. A reference to the article in Fraser’s Magazine, mentioned in letter 996.

5. See letter 999.

6. Bartholomew Simmons (1804–50), the Irish poet, was a frequent contributor to Blackwood’s and other periodicals and author of Legends, Lyrics, and Other Poems (1843).

7. A literal translation of “tomber du ciel,” which has the idiomatic meaning of “falling suddenly as a bolt from the blue.”

8. The unsigned review, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July 1842, pp. 113–119), was of A Record of the Pyramids. Criticizing many of Reade’s usages and constructions, Landor spoke of “a farago of broken-down Latin and of false quotations of the commonest texts” and found Reade “inattentive to time, place, and character.” He mentioned Reade’s plagiarism, dismissed Reade’s claim that his poetry would live by saying “That depends, in great measure, on the quality of the paper,” and summed up the work as “eight or nine thousand verses strung like empty birds’ eggs.”

9. Swift, “The Author Upon Himself” (1713), line 49.

10. The Reading Mercury of 17 September recorded the marriage, on 15 September, “by the Venerable Archdeacon Manning, [of] the Rev. W.E. Partridge, vicar of Ilmer, Bucks, to Lucy Olivia Hobart, only surviving child of Oliver Anderdon, Esq., Queen’s Counsel.”

11. Elizabeth Barrett had been tried at Chester Assizes, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. The Morning Chronicle of 20 August reported “A respite was received in Chester yesterday morning for Elizabeth Barrett, who was condemned to be hung on Saturday next, for the murder of her infant, nine months old.”

12. The Tempest, III, 2, 5. The editors of EBB-MRM identify the third Elizabeth Barrett as EBB’s nine-year-old cousin, Georgiana Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Barrett, but, as she was not mentioned in the letters to Miss Mitford prior to 1845, it seems to us more probable that EBB was making a graceful reference to the geranium named after her by Miss Mitford (see letter 763).

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 3-29-2024.

Copyright © 2024 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top