1028. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 110–112.
[London]
Friday. Oct. 19. 1842–
My dearest friend, I have fancied that you wd prefer having the verses a day sooner, & therefore I send them directly. They ran away from me with their double rhymes, [1] before I considered properly; but as you did not object to the last I sent you, & as the double rhyme does certainly always seem to me to give an appropriate lightness to the short lyric, I venture to leave the verses as they are,—in their natural state. Your relation of Mr Schloss’s judgment made me smile. ‘Beautiful & sublime’. Why the book must be too small to hold us! That you shd be ‘beautiful’ is no wonder at all; and I suppose I am ‘sublime’ because nobody can understand me. At any rate it is a great satisfaction to me, that so far, I have not spoilt your success; and I thank you my dearest friend, for making me aware of it.
Indeed after reading your welcome, welcome letter yesterday (twice as welcome to me as the queen to Scotland!) [2] I was very thankful for the great mercy of joy & tears vouchsafed to you after that terror which I cd well comprehend. At eighty two my beloved friend, we do not recover into youth—and yet I do begin to think that you may be spared some time longer from the final stroke. “An excellent pulse”! and for the improvement to continue, as your note of this morning gives evidence, suggests still more hope. May God comfort you,—however He may direct the issue of present circumstances. I often think that in praying for even such a temporal blessing as the life of our dearest friends, which we feel surest & clearest of being a blessing to us, we pray yet in the dark,—not knowing evil from good. In Heaven, we may presently call good, evil,—& evil, good; & the chiefest afflictions under which our hearts break here below, may there appear our chiefest benedictions.
Thank you for your kind tolerance of my sonnet on the picture. Do you know Mr Haydon is so pleased with it that he talks of sending it to Mr Wordsworth, and requested me to publish it in the Athenæum, [3] on account of some impossible good which he attaches to its publication. Of course, I cd not say ‘no’; but whether Mr Dilke may not, remains to be proved: for Mr Haydon says rightly that the Athenæum people dislike him, .. are cold to him, .. as they are indeed to the whole world of art, with the exception of musicians. [4] Before I sent the sonnet away yesterday, I tried to alter that line with ‘releast’ to the end of it,—but could not, for the better. [5] The sonnet structure is a very fine one, however imperious, and I never would believe that our language is unqualified for the very strictest Italian form. I have been exercising myself in it not unfrequently of late. [6]
Ah—you speak more severely of Mr Browning, than I can say ‘Amen’ to. Amen wd stick in my throat [7] —even suppose it to rise so high. There is a unity & nobleness of conception in ‘Pippa passes’ which seems to me to outweigh all the riddles in riddledom—and verily a great many ‘lie hid’ [8] in that same ‘Pippa’. Give me my choice,—only give me my choice, between Mr Milnes’s genius & Mr Browning’s, & you will see if I dont take the last & say ‘thank you’. I am sure I ought to say it for what your goodness leads you to say of me—but indeed, indeed, Pippa, dark as she is, is worth all those rhymes you speak of—in my eyes, not blinded by friendship. Do you know that Mr Browning is a great favorite (I mean as a man) of Mr Kenyon’s? Mr Kenyon spoke to me warmly of his high cultivation & attainments, & singular humility of bearing– And he is weak in health too! I shd like to hear you praise him a little more, indeed.
I have had one or two kind & interesting notes from Mr Haydon, who speaks of you as admiringly as I like almost. “She is a noble creature” he says—“never flinched in all my misfortunes”. I like him too, & am grateful to him. But as to seeing him yet & here, .. oh no, my dearest friend, I cdnt! Why, do you know, that, last summer, Mr Wordsworth had himself the infinite kindness of proposing twice to Mr Kenyon, to come to see me,—& Mr Kenyon said ‘no’. Not that I said ‘no’. I cd not have articulated it to Wordsworth! I cd rather do so to the queen. But ‘no’ was said; & now, how cd I say ‘yes’ to anybody in the world?
Next summer, perhaps, it may be different——but who am I, who talk of next summers?
It is very cold—which is probably not likely to be injurious to your dear patient. Of the Kenyons, I hear nothing at all.
I smile in triumph over your feeling about Anna Seward’s Letters. [9]
Ever your most affectionate
EBB–
Some more grapes shall go to you on Monday—supposing that I do not hear before that he cannot take them. I need not say how delightful the thought of being of use to you, even in a few drops of Eau de cologne, must always be to me–
Dr Scully is somewhat better.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 51–54.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. No verses remain with the letter. EBB probably enclosed her third attempt on Rogers, mentioned in the previous letter. For previous comments on her use of double rhymes, see letter 1021.
2. The Queen and Prince Albert had paid their first visit to Scotland in September (see letter 1005, note 1).
3. As previously noted, the sonnet was published in the issue of 29 October.
4. A repetition of EBB’s belief that The Athenæum had a greater interest in music than other fine arts (see letter 829, note 15).
5. The version sent to Haydon and submitted to The Athenæum read: “A vision free / And noble, Haydon, hath thine Art releast”; EBB altered this to: “A noble vision free / Our Haydon’s hand has flung out from the mist” in Poems (1844).
6. Probably a reference to the four sonnets sent to Graham’s Magazine and published in the December 1842 issue (p. 303). These were included, with minor changes, as “Grief,” “Substitution,” “Work,” and “Work and Contemplation” in Poems (1844).
7. Cf. Macbeth, II, 2, 29–30.
8. Shakespeare, Sonnets, LXV, 10.
9. EBB spoke of having sent Anna Seward’s Letters to Miss Mitford in letter 931, and commented on them in letter 944; her “triumph” was doubtless in persuading Miss Mitford to share her view of the letters and their writer.
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