Correspondence

1072.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 194–196.

[London]

Dec. 4. 1842.

I sympathize indeed with you .. I feel for you indeed deeply, my ever beloved friend. You are tried indeed beyond what is common. May the Divine mercy & grace visit you also in degrees as uncommon as the tribulation. Do you remember the beautiful lyric of the old poet, ending in its lovely burden “Sweet Spirit, come”!? [1] May you feel that holy visiting, & sense of Christ’s help & sympathy, to be softer than the poet’s cadence or the evening’s dew. Sympathy, from Christ the Human!– Comfort from the Spirit, the sent—the sent to be the comforter!!– [2]

But I am a little .. nay, not a little vexed with Mr May. Suppose that he had fears, why should he talk to you of them, when you had suffered a ten-told [sic] death, through fear, fear, fear. Surely you were ‘prepared’ sufficiently .. as much perhaps as we any of us can be before any bitter loss—and it was mere .. I wont say hard-heartedness .. because I believe all you have taught me about your good kind amiable Mr May .. but mere want of consideration, to trouble you with a supposition of a shadow of an event which might not occur, & has not you see occurred. He is better again—the pulse restored from its intermission—“the circulation excellent”.! Thank God. And oh!—have you undressed—gone to bed .. since the change for the better? You terrify me for you my dearest dearest Miss Mitford! You will wear yourself into loss of health & strength, past recovery perhaps, .. if you do not pause & rest & spare yourself a little. Dodo! Did I tell you how Mr Horne asked quite anxiously concerning you, & said “I think much of her”?– And that is to be taken as a type, of the thousand thoughts which go towards you from friends & strangers, to north & south.

I am sorry for Mrs Dupuy—& really believe & hope better of her mind & heart, than to suppose that she could die of the fear of losing her fortune. [3] You say ‘Poor thing’– Well, and so do I!– Still I confess my slowness & obtuseness of sympathy in pecuniary misfortunes generally, & more especially where only one person suffers .. not for others, but in himself or herself. Reduce me to bread & water & a mattrass & a patched garment .. and I should be ashamed before my own soul to shed a tear. I cannot understand these griefs for money’s sake—mere personal griefs for money’s sake. They are griefs to be sure, but of the lowest & lightest burden. Who would not embrace them, kiss them fervently as a great good, in change for other griefs which strike our hearts darken our eyes & bereave our affections!– Who would not? Not I!– Oh that I had my beloveds back, to work for, starve for, beg for in the street-crossings, —work & watch for by day & night! But it is best for them otherwise—though saddest for me.

Oh—what blackness am I writing to you for light. Forgive me.

May the dear letter of which today I heard a prophecy, come on Monday, to prove you better & brighter in hope & spirit than you were yesterday.

Your most attached

EBB–

I say ‘yea’ to your admission of Mdme D’Arblay’s being interesting in her new volume [4] —& ‘nay’ to your mistrust of Macauley’s verse—but I only judge, yet, by the extracts. [5] Lockhart was a translator [6] —but this Macaulay, .. there is a trumpet & a battle-energy in his poetry, surely surely!– Oh the post!—it puts an end to me as a critic.

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 100–102.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Robert Herrick, “His Litanie, to the Holy Spirit” (His Noble Numbers: or, His Pious Pieces, 1647); each verse ends with “Sweet Spirit, comfort me.”

2. Cf. John 14:16.

3. See letter 1055, note 10.

4. The fifth volume of her Diary and Letters had been published in October.

5. Lengthy extracts from Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome were included in a review in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, December 1842, pp. 802–824.

6. In addition to editing the works of Byron and Scott, Lockhart had published translations of Ancient Spanish Ballads Historical and Romantic (1823, revised edition 1841; see letter 881).

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