1011. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 81–84.
[London]
Sept. 19. 1842
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford,
I read three quarters of your letter in the sackcloth & ashes [1] of remorse,—believing positively from your testimony that I had only intended to write to you & not done it really,—and it was quite a delightful surprise to me to find that I had’nt behaved quite so abominably as I thought I had at first. Yet I am not quite conscience-clear. I ought to have written sooner & again. It never can be right that you shd be made uneasy by me for half an hour,—& I beg you my beloved friend to forgive the negligence or the business (for I have had a heap of letters to answer off my hands) or the lack of spirits, or whatever the naughtiness was that inclined me to the transgression.
As to your letters,—supposing them to be actually written “from a dungeon”, they wd never lose their value & delightfulness—their sense of light & perfume, their full life & activity of intellect & sensibility—they wd never cease to be your letters, & so a hundred times welcome to me. And this reminds me that I must ‘something extenuate,’ [2] & put in how I meant to write to you today whether I had received or not one of these precious letters—how I did not need to be bribed to it!
In the meantime I see & hear & lament all you are suffering. It is very very hard!—yet not too hard, let us be sure. The word of the enigma of human afflictions will be articulated hereafter in the music of our Beatitude. [3] But for you my beloved friend who in all your suffering, in all these privations & labours & trials, are preparing for yourself blessed earthly recollections, there is still more prospective comfort. And do struggle against the nervous faith you put in the nervous words which do so naturally shake you. Very possibly they may not be believed even by the speaker—it may just be a matter of habit,—or at worse a “way” of expressing some transient uneasiness,—or perhaps, of provoking you to comfort him by assurances of his being better. Be certain that not only the danger of his dying is not at hand, but that it is not in his serious thoughts when he afflicts you by those repetitions,—& dont suffer them to afflict you so much,—struggle up against them with the strength of your reason—which by the way, is not strong at all under certain circumstances. Oh—how often have I heard words like these I have written, applied to my own self—“have recourse to your reason”, ‘your good sense’ .. ‘your mind’ .. & shuddered under them as if they were mockeries! I will not use them to another—& recall them from you. I feel with you my beloved friend & for you—it is the best I can do, except in praying.
Perhaps it is natural that your dear patient, if he remains weak, shd prefer lying in bed to the exertion which reminds him of his weakness. When I went out in the chair the other day I wd far rather have lain upon the sofa, only that I looked to the utility of it—and of course it must be best for him to sit up as much as he can & take out of door exercise.– Your solitude, among the hollies, lives in my fancy with all its shadows & silences unstirred. I see you walking there. I walk with you there. And I sympathize with you rather than with Master Ben in the hare adventure [4] —and I consider within myself, what wd my Flush do under similar temptations. He is very fond of running—he has been known to run after a crow, after a mouse, after a kitten. Therefore I am of opinion that if he saw a hare running he wd run after the hare until he was tired & then lie down & take breath. But let the hare stop & turn round, or seem to stop & turn round,—& straightway Flushie wd do the like & run much faster away than he ever did in pursuit. As to killing it, such an idea wd never enter his head—and as to eating it after its death, that idea wd be yet farther from occurrence. He is innocent as if he ran by Adam’s side during the first walk in Eden—and altho’ he can bark heroically, & even express his indignation by snatching between his teeth certain obnoxious tails of coats & hems of petticoats (the owners having their backs turned) he never was known to bite living flesh, whether human or animal. [5] It is strange to me, this want of innate ideas of biting. It does not seem so much want of ‘proper spirit’ as of the knowledge of “how it’s done”. He has torn two or three gowns & coats,—& then he always growled in most malign hatred, as if he wd like to destroy summarily the persons wearing them,—only he did’nt know how!– And only, you must understand all this time,—that Flushie, though very discrim[in]ating & disliking more numerously than he likes, & objecting generally to all unknown men & boys whatsoever, & objecting particularly to such suspicious persons as walk out of the house carrying baskets, yet is the sweetest tempered brightest natured little thing in the world, to say nothing of my doves. Once when you were a prophetess you prophecied that some day Flush wd be a hero. You are not justified yet in the opinion. He wars simply against turned backs & persons walking away. If a little kitten looks at him, it’s over with Flush. Yesterday I heard a dreadful outcry downstairs, from the very bottom of the house—Flush barking furiously,—& three minutes afterwards, he was at my door praying to be admitted. He must have run as fast as your hare! And why? Because––Crow told me afterwards!—because the butler was making faces at him! There’s a hero for you!–
How kind of your dear “Lucy Anderdon”! May that pretty name be changed not in vain for happiness! Do tell me if Mr Partridge is a clergyman or not. [6] It runs in my imagination that you said he was, in some place which I cant find, of a former letter—but if he shdnt be a clergyman tell me what otherwise he may be. I do not wonder that you cried—loving her so!—for the very certainty with which people take for granted the happiness of marriage, is to me most affecting! And then, as you say, happiness itself is affecting—overflows in natural tears, without the possibility of our helping it. I have had in my life, far more extreme grief than extreme joy—and yet I have shed more tears for joy than for grief—which perhaps sounds strange.
Oh I must part from you. May God bless you both. Do believe how I thank you for yr letter– Do believe how I love you!—how tenderly, how gratefully!–
EBB–
This tiresome post, going when I had so much more to say.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 30–33.
Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library and Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Esther, 4:1.
2. Cf. Othello, V, 2, 342.
3. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew, 5:4).
4. See letter 1010.
5. In view of EBB’s comment, it is of interest to note that Flush’s first real victim was RB, who was bitten in July 1846.
6. He was Vicar of Ilmer, Buckinghamshire.
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