1070. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 189–192.
[London]
Decr 3d 1842–
I thank God for you my beloved friend! The escape appears marvellous. A marvellous escape indeed! The two dangers, each imminent .. of the footpads with the blunderbus, & of the run-away poney through the darkness,—& absolute safety the result of all! May God be thanked. For my own part I should scarcely know which to choose of the two dangers—perhaps I shd confide myself to the bland ‘benedicite’ [1] of the footpads. I have a dread of a run-away horse beyond any forgoing, [2] .. and the darkness,—& the losing sight of the hedges, .. & the hypothesis of meeting a carriage & dashing or being dashed to pieces! …! Oh! Certainly I wd choose the footpads—savage as they must needs be,—savage beyond their kind,—to strike in the dark & without waiting to ascertain whether any sort of resistence was intended. Had you money with you? And how are you now my dearest dearest Miss Mitford? Do tell me soon how you are. Your star just now seems to wear rags haggard with accidents & perils & distresses of many sorts—and this last event is a type of the nature of all .. threatening rather than crushing .. proving the divine delivering power even more fully than the evil,—& suffering you to emerge trembling & in deep emotion but safe & thankful, & to be serene & thankful hereafter. So, let me be a preacher for once & put on my gown & “improve the occasion”. [3] And be sure that I say Amen besides, as if I were my own clerk!– [4]
When Crow had packed up your last grapes she brought me two or three which she had broken off previously for me to taste—and I tasted,—& did’nt like them at all. I only hope that those I did not taste, were better than my sour, hard, crude extract: & I beg you to tell me how they seemed to you & whether there is any particular kind, now seasonable, which you prefer & I can send instead. Answer—please to answer—directly.
Mr Kenyon having vanished, my news has evaporated––I have not enough remaining to fill a vinaigrette. My thoughts have lately been of Frederica Bremer’s ‘Neighbours’ instead of my own .. I mean of the very charming novel which Mrs Howitt has just ‘done into English’ [5] from the Swedish––or German peradventure—it being probably a translation from the German– Read it my dearest friend, & agree with me that it is delightful. ‘Like Miss Austen’ says Mrs Howitt—& ‘like Miss Austen’ being the best introduction to you possible, ‘I echo her’ [6] —altho’ in my private & individual opinion & saving your presence, I do consider the book of a higher & sweeter tone than Miss Austen had voice & soul for. There is more poetry, more of the inner life, more of the ideal aspiration more of a Godward tendency in the book than we need seek for or than even you my beloved friend, can, I think, imagine in any book or books of Miss Austen considered in a moment of your most enthusiastic estimation. I am pleased, & touched .. charmed for the better, by the book. The serenity, the sweetness, the undertone of Christian music, affect me the more for coming to me in the midst of my lion & tiger hunting with La jeune France; [7] & the impression will not pass, it appears to me, with the reading of the last page. Do send to the Reading library, & let me hear soon what your impressions are. Certainly I am pleased.
The return to the beef tea is excellent & I do trust that the sickness is satisfactorily suspended, & not merely for a day. May God comfort & help you! Supposing the sickness to come on again, master those terrors my beloved friend; for you see it passes, it does not affect the pulse, it is not considered by your able Mr May as a forerunner of the change you fear: & to the unlearned, like me, nothing appears more natural than that the stomach of a person infirm & out of health & excluded from air & exercise like your dear invalid, should when the appetite permits of its receiving the unusual quantity of nourishment you described, reject it occasionally with signs of desorder. I say “an unusual quantity”, with reference to his position & circumstances as an invalid. Eight eggs a day wd be sufficient perhaps for the sustenance of a strong man walking about. I under my circumstances, cannot comfortably take one whole egg—scarcely indeed half a one: and if I drink more coffee than one of my little narrow cupfull’s I am sure to be wretchedly oppressed afterwards. My case is an extreme one, I know—but still it is a case in point, .. is a measure & certain proportion. Very probably too, your conjecture is quite right about the quantity of medecine. Liquid sometimes is worse than substance. Oh may it all happen more quietly & happily for you, for the future—& may God save you from these vain alarms which shake the whole being alike unavoidably & unavailingly.
Was your Flush with you in the carriage?
Also your’s, & ever your attached EBB.
Oh no, no, no! There’s an answer to your gunpowder plot for next year! [8] You wdnt—you cdnt—you shdnt—be hard-hearted under any possible circumstances. Well—we shall see– We wont quarrel about next year—when my change of air may be perhaps into paradise. But how delightful this weather is! I have not borne a fire <in> the room for three days—& this the 3d of Decr!! & in London!!
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 98–100.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. “Blessing.”
2. In letter 290, EBB recounted her own experience of being thrown from a carriage.
3. Cf. “Against Idleness and Mischief” (Divine Songs for Children, 1715) by Isaac Watts (1674–1748).
4. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnets, 85, line 6.
5. The Neighbours: A Story of Every Day Life (1842).
6. Cf. Othello, III, 3, 106. Mrs. Howitt’s preface says that “Frederika Bremer is indeed the Miss Austin [sic] of Sweden.”
7. “Young France,” a general expression EBB uses from time to time to encompass the contemporary French novelists.
8. Apparently a reference to Miss Mitford’s “plot” to move to new quarters owing to her straitened circumstances.
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