1016. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 91–95.
[London]
Oct. 4. 1842.
Your letter (welcome & delightful as ever) found me with all my work done—and if I send you my Adelaide Kemble with the rest it is only because it is in my ranks, & not that I desire it to remain in yours. On the contrary my beloved friend, the verses you sent to me being gracefully appropriate & your own, there is no single reason for not using them & every reason for doing so. My ‘Adelaide Kemble’ is condemned you see by a black cross—I send her so, & only as a proof of my obedience. [1]
Well—and now, how have I behaved? in my part, I mean? Not at all to my private content—but really, considering that the book’s so far too small to be read, the verses may be well enough to remain invisible. I struggled against my unlucky mannerism—& what with that & what with the statute of limitation, I felt like a bird in a cage, beating its feathers away against wires. Forgive, therefore, the ruffling of the wing, to say nothing of the faults in the chirping.
Yes—I think it shd be “Daughter” in your first line [2] —and altho’ my conscience is light as down about writing this sheet of nonsense verses under your editorship and name, as I told you before, .. yet my opinion (which is’nt nonsense at all) is, that as you have achieved this poem to Adelaide Kemble successfully in the face of all your troubles & anxieties, you ought to use it in preference to mine—were mine only half as bad as it is! That is my opinion which is’nt nonsense.
Was the picture we saw together a Cuyp? I seem to remember. [3]
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, my heart aches for you. We have sent a little linen—all I believe that remains of manifold adversities. And now, tell me—you will not mind telling me—is there anything I can send to your dear patient which he wd care to receive? I was going to send giblets—and then Crow explained to me that they wd not keep & you were probably supplied for the present. But shall I send giblets for one thing? Write one day, & you can have them the next. Shall I send oysters—cheese—think of something, just to please me for once. Now listen to me– If you wont direct me, I shall be feeling for something in the dark & sending the scorn of your eyes, a mistake ..
Here is the American review—& here is the Fraser with Mr Horne’s article. [4] I do trust you may be something pleased & amused by both of them.
For my own part the Americans have been kind & courteous to me, beyond (I was going to say) those of my own national household. Mrs Sigourney began the list of courtesies a year & a half ago, with a letter which must have been a marvel for postmen––directed to Miss Barrett authoress of the Seraphim Wimpole Street. [5] I do assure you, that was, letter for letter, the address. And yesterday I had most cordial greeting from a Mr Cornelius Mathew, [6] who embraces the office of trustee for the further extension of my reputation in America!. Are you laughing? Is it a hard office? Peradventure. Still the kindness is not the less—& I am ‘trustee’ for the gratitude.
Ah—those bells! The bridegroom’s office, of course—talking, you know, of ‘offices’. May your lovely friend be happy in spite of omens. [7] Shall you know if she is? Is she of a transparent nature? There is one consideration more favorable than any you have suggested,—that the circumstance of the cousinship seems to prove a long personal knowledge between bride & bridegroom—& good cause for her opinion of him. Does it not?
Thank you for the document about Miss Pickering. It made me smile. [‘]‘Mr Kenyon & I have agreed”—yes, it sounds intimately intimate, to be sure. [8] Yet, if the words were written at the moment of Mr Kenyon’s being at Bath, & to a mutual acquaintance, the meaning wd not be so strong & close. How I fight for poor Pen-and-ink—gallantly—dont I? Did you see in the papers that a certain Mr Conyers puts his trust in two Ps also, Peel & Providence!! [9] Notwithstanding the profane absurdity of the expression, I cdnt help smiling while I thought of yours. But peace to P.s.
You must let me have Fraser again some day, because it belongs to a library—but there is no hurry. Do you find it possible to beguile your poor invalid out of doors these colder days,—& are you not a little afraid that we are destined to a dreary winter in change for our golden summer? I shrink at the thought of it.
So your friend, the prisoner at Windsor, had the pleasure of the Scotch progress! [10] I was quite glad to understand so. But why does Baroness Lehzen go—and ‘no period fixed for her return’ say the newspapers– [11]
Ever your attached EBB
My sisters called on Mr Haydon—in vain—he wasn’t at home! But they will go again to avail themselves of the kindness.
Mr Rogers—
Nel mezzo del cammino [12]
Multitudes have been who
Question, at their leisures,
Memory’s (called) “pleasures.” [13]
Grant, as pleasures that we use them
On prodigal occasions,
It is that we confuse them
With Imagination’s!
But O Druid, though we should
Scorn such pleasures on the road,—
Get us fairly ‘in a wood’
Under yew, .. amid the pranking
Of the laurels east & west,—
And we scarce are slow in ranking
Memory’s pleasures with our best.
I find that fifteen lines (one more than the number) have made their way here. Can they pass?– If not, we must abbreviate the conclusion, & quære if this will do—
Under yew—and ’tis confest
Memory’s pleasures are our best.
But the first is best—
Miss Adelaide Kemble.
This Adelaide of gifted race,
Was song-queen of the islands;
Till Love looked gently in her face
And led her home to silence. [14]
Yet we unsilent, may enow
Of cordial wishes bring her
Who gave away from song to vow
The breath of a sweet singer.
Throw your last garlands at her feet,
Where by the hearth, her throne is!
May Love’s voice to her ear, be sweet,
As to the world’s, her own is!
Herr Döbler
Since it was vowed that thy Black Art’s
White as the hill-snow on the Hartz
And freer of the witches,
Now would our pages could engross
Herr Döbler’s pistol for Herr Schloss,
To shoot our farewell speeches!
To touch the trigger … pop! and wide
suicide or tuicide
Quære of readercide or autocide,
What phrases fair & clever!–
—Missing that shot, what critics scoff us,
What Ancient Pistols murmur of us,
“No conjuror however”! [15]
<***>
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 37–41.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB’s 12-line verse on Miss Kemble, written at the end of the letter, was crossed through with a large “X”.
2. Miss Mitford had sent EBB her own poem on Miss Kemble, for comment; it was her version that was used. The first line of the printed text read “Bright daughter of a gifted line.”
3. Aelbert Cuyp (1620–91) was a prolific Dutch painter, mainly of landscapes. Possibly the picture they saw, in May 1836, was “Landscape with Cattle and Figures, Evening” in the National Gallery, acquired in 1824; at that time it was the only example there of his work. Miss Mitford contributed a 14-line poem, “On a Landscape by Cuyp,” to Lady Mary Fox’s Friendly Contributions, for the Benefit of Three Infant Schools (1836, p. 39).
4. See letter 999.
5. In letter 816, EBB told Miss Mitford of hearing from Mrs. Sigourney and of her trying “long & vainly for my direction.”
6. Cornelius Mathews (1817–89), the American editor, poet and novelist, was the co-founder of Arcturus (see letter 986). Letter 1040 is EBB’s response to his “most cordial greeting.”
7. A further reference to Miss Mitford’s doubts about the Anderdon/Partridge marriage (see letter 1013).
8. Miss Mitford had apparently sent EBB the letter that had prompted their speculation about a possible match between Miss Pickering and Kenyon (see letter 990).
9. We have not succeeded in finding this letter, or in identifying Mr. Conyers.
10. Presumably Marianne Skerrett, the Queen’s Dresser, had accompanied Victoria on the Scottish tour (see letter 1005).
11. Louise, Baroness Lehzen, became Victoria’s governess when the latter was five, and, on Victoria’s accession, acted as her private secretary, keeper of the privy purse, and de facto ruler of the royal household. Her influence over the Queen caused repeated friction between Victoria and Albert, who complained to Baron Stockmar that “Lehzen is a crazy, common, stupid intriguer, obsessed with lust of power, who regards herself as a demi-god” (Longford, Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed, 1964, p. 160). He became convinced that his proper domestic authority could not be established until Lehzen had been dismissed (see “Palace Cabals” in The Prince Consort, by Roger Fulford, 1949). Victoria eventually yielded, and The Morning Chronicle of 3 October said: “We announced a few days since the approaching departure of Baroness Lehzen for Germany. The baroness left on Friday. It is unknown when she returns to this country.” Although she never returned to Victoria’s service, the Queen wrote to her regularly and saw her several times in Germany, and when Lehzen died, aged 86, the Queen recorded in her journal for 12 September 1870: “from my fifth to my eighteenth year [she] devoted all her care and energies to me, with the most wonderful abnegation of self … I adored, though I was greatly in awe of her.”
12. “In the middle of the journey.”
13. A reference to Rogers’ The Pleasures of Memory (1792).
14. It had been announced that Miss Kemble would give up her operatic career in order to marry Edward John Sartoris; her final performance was on 23 December 1842.
15. Various versions of these three poems exist (see Reconstruction, D12, D13, D335–338 and D815–819).
Drafts of poems on the other three personalities chosen by Schloss for the Almanac, together with some introductory stanzas, also exist, together with a fair copy that may have originally formed the conclusion of this letter (see Reconstruction, D224, D225, D396, D397, D426–428 and D740–742).
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