1055. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 159–161.
[London]
Nov. 19. 1842–
My beloved friend, how I feel for what you must have felt!– I understand, I feel it all! May God be thanked that this natural pang at least is removed, [1] & that you are armed with a tender remembrance against its recurrence. “Angry with you”—and you devoting yourself to him in soul & body! Ah, you must have suffered indeed, to admit of such an imagination! Your letter is very touching & affecting, my beloved friend—it has moved me to the bottom of my heart. And do, do, believe me that if I said too much against depression & despondency & talked cold prudence on that head or any other, I did not, I am not less aware that you must, as you say, be depressed, & that no hand except the Divine One can wipe away the least bitter of your tears. [2] Arguments of consolation addressed from man to man, are, I know very well, (too well, my dearest dearest Miss Mitford) like an argument against hunger to the poor. Yes, you must be depressed!– But you will let me feel with you, & pray for you, & hope for you also, that the light behind the cloud may yet be bright to your eyes, & the sense of God’s love grow stronger to you than the experience hitherto of all your pains.
Poor Mrs Davidson! I pity her. Selfreproach in grief & love, is a terrible thing, [3] .. a sharper weapon than our worst foe can use against us. And Sir Wm Russell, your friend! [4] Yet he may be better. It is strange, very strange, how afflictions do seem to generate afflictions. There is a proverb,—is there not? about no grief coming alone? [5] and certainly it has happened in my own experience that “deep has called to deep” [6] & that one tear ran close before another, .. always, always, .. as far as I can remember. Perhaps it is a part of the mercy of the dispensation of the Divine Master, & that when we are bent low, His wisdom sees that it is the fittest time for our stooping lower;—that it is in fact the softest dealing both for our spirits & bodies, to depress them deeply by sad degrees, rather than to break them down suddenly again & again, from the height of their holiday joys. I think so sometimes. God’s mercies are surer, I try to think always, than our griefs are.
Do you remember a chalk drawing over my chimneypiece, of Papa? You dont remember admiring it, I am certain. Well, that portrait is the performance of your Mr Mills. He has distinguished himself more publicly by a fresco at Gravesend, which Gravesend admired vociferously & with hands held up, but which the Athenæum spoke of scornfully & Mr Haydon (who went to Gravesend on purpose to see it) scarcely admired more as artist’s work,—only returning satisfied, he said, ‘by a bit of colour in the sky,’ that the art was peculiarly adapted to decorative purposes. [7] The composition was something about Aurora & her true loves—something very new, & classical, &, so, Gravesendian: do you understand? Not that I wd prejudice you against Mr Mills. When he was at Torquay taking portraits, he always used to say that he felt a genius within for composition, & as he walked about with black ringlets & a great deal of black coppice over his face, & black or something else rolling eyes, why I dare say he did. They praise him devoutly at Gravesend, & may do the same at Reading—and instead of Aurora’s loves, you may have as fair a goddess, and “a bit of sky” to prove the decorative property of the Art. Still, as you laid the stone, I do feel rather sorry not to have more hope of the hall’s fresco prosperity. [8] And after all, what do I know about it? Call me a raven & let me fly away!– [9]
And I must. The post is going. I wrote to you yesterday my beloved friend! Poor Mrs Dupuy. I most heartily wish success to her, [10] & will be particular in my enquiries whenever I shall see Mr Kenyon.
Ever your attached
EBB–
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 83–84.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Miss Mitford feared she had displeased Dr. Mitford in some way (see letter 1056).
2. Cf. Revelations, 7:17.
3. Mrs. Davidson’s husband had just died (see letter 1058).
4. EBB must mean Sir Henry Russell, Miss Mitford’s neighbour (see letter 956, note 12).
5. Probably the proverb “One grief brings forth twain” although EBB might have had in mind Shakespeare’s “Grief hath twenty shadows” (Richard II, II, 2, 14).
6. Cf. Psalms, 42:7.
7. For Mills’s portrait of EBB’s father, see letter 731, note 13. The Athenæum of 24 September 1842, while disclaiming first-hand knowledge of Mills’s frescos, quoted The Kentish Herald’s view that his subjects were “unhappily chosen.” Haydon recorded on 19 October: “Went to Gravesend to see a Wretched Fresco, but bad as it is, the color of one part of the sky proves beyond doubt its beauty for decoration” (Pope, V, 213).
8. Mills had apparently been commissioned to decorate the Public Rooms, of which Miss Mitford had laid the foundation-stone.
9. Cf. Genesis, 8:7.
10. Mrs. Dupuy was instituting a lawsuit against a Dr. Truman for misappropriation of funds while acting as her financial agent and advisor. Judgement was finally given in her favour (see The Times, 16 June 1843).
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