Correspondence

1177.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 8–10.

[London]

March 14. 1843–

My beloved friend,

Mr Kenyon, dear Mr Kenyon, has just been here & long been here—enchanting me away from my duty of writing to you which must however be performed in brief, if not at large, before the post hour. In brief then, I fear, .. command me to read any ms you please & to report my impression of it .. in case my doing so is likely to prove of any possible degree of convenience to you. At the same time & altho’ I know the trick of most handwritings, I cannot promise to be right in my judgment—and it will occur to your wisdom that we two often differ upon literary subjects, & that I, of the two, must necessarily be the most fallible. After which consideration, count upon me as willing to be your reader for any quantity of ms, in any hieroglyphic apart from the Pyramidal. [1]

But alas!—I have misgivings. I have tried to read ‘Duty and Inclination’—I tried twice & failed. The first time I tried, it had just come out with Miss Landon’s name on the title page & a laudatory introduction—& I sent it back to the booksellers in the agony of a yawn in the middle of the first volume. [2] A year afterwards I wanted something light to doze over, & I bethought me of ‘Duty & Inclination’,—& how Miss Landon cdnt surely have praised it quite for nothing,—& how the fault of my yawning might have been in my physics rather than in “Duty[’]s” imaginatives, .. & how I wd try it again. So I sent for the book & tried it for the second time. My dearest Miss Mitford, it is as nearly trash as any book as I can think of. Miss Pickering writes Walter Scott to it—and Mrs Maberly, Bulwer! [3] It is of the sort of lightness which tires you to death—of the sort of heaviness which instructs you in no wise. The people crowd each other as in a rout—with rout insignificance in their faces. How Miss Landon came to praise such a book even “to gratify Mr Colburn,” we must look to Mdme de Grandrion’s [4] stars for, rather than to her merits. This is my creed about “Duty & inclination”. Perhaps it may be a wrong creed,—& I shd be sorry in any case that it shd determine you against examining at least the other manuscript if you lean towards imagining that the said manuscript may be a means to you of pecuniary advantage. Said manuscript may also be,—&, you see, the author says it is,—superior & greatly superior to the “juvenile essay” which, as all the gods know, is as bad as juvenile essays are usually. But said manuscript .. the new work, .. is a new case—and “a domestic tale” .. and it may very probably, & certainly it can very possibly, overtower the juvenile essay by the height of a Norwegian pine. [5] So, command me!– I have told you my heart.

Certainly a few newspaper critics did, as in duty bound, echo the praises written by LEL in the introduction [6] —and so they wd echo your praises,—if you supplied a laudatory introduction to the new work. But you are not capable of dishonest praise—and I cannot wish you to be capable of it. Perhaps you wd shrink from even giving your name as editor, to a work unworthy of honest praise—and I almost wish that you might .. whatever the pecuniary advantage of a contrary course, … so, shrink!

Here after all, is a question answered at large.

My beloved friend you are not well yet, .. and you are fatiguing yourself miserably with this letter-upon-letter-writing!! Do not write to me, I beseech you! I will not have you write—I wont be written to! I send you some oysters today & all you have to say to me, you must say to them instead .. tête à tête [7] without their beards. Only if I can do anything for you about the ms. or in any other way, .. or if you are worse ... let me know it by one line—and I will be contented with silence for a groundwork. May God bless you always!–

Do you care about handwritings? Some people read characters in them—and I have heard of a lady who read destinies, & had disciples to her lore. Without going so far, I have an impression from handwritings as from physiognomies. Have you?

Do I wander in my speech? No! the à proposity of that last paragraph was born of a wandering look of mine cast from Madme de Grandrion’s writings to yours, & from yours to … Mr Tennyson’s. I had a kind note from Mr Tennyson this morning … ah! you open your eyes .. but I had indeed. Mr Mathews sent me a review of his poetry in two New York Newspapers, with a desire that I wd send them to the poet,—& I, pausing in perplexity .. unwilling not to oblige Mr Mathews, & unwilling at the same time to send a critique which was not all praiseful, took the middle course of sending the newspapers & writing a little note to show how I was bidden. I wd send you his reply .. only I shall tire you with letter-reading-&-writing! For if I sent it, you wd have to send it back to me directly—I cdnt part with it for the world!–

Always your

EBB–

I send you a note of Mr Horne’s as it is evidence of his interest in the cause. The progress is delightful! [8]

Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 187–189.

Manuscript: Eton College Library and Wellesley College.

1. It is apparent from EBB’s later comments that Miss Mitford had been asked to edit a manuscript by the author of the anonymously-published novel Duty and Inclination (1838). “Pyramidal” may be an allusion to Reade’s drama, A Record of the Pyramids, criticized by EBB in letter 954.

2. For EBB’s earlier comments on the book, see letter 664.

3. Ellen Pickering, a minor novelist, was thought to have been romantically involved with John Kenyon (see letter 990). Catherine Charlotte Maberly (née Prittie, 1805–75) was the author of Emily, or the Countess of Rosendale (1840), The Love Match (1841), and Melanthe, or the Days of the Medici (1843). We have not traced their remarks regarding Duty and Inclination.

4. This is probably a misreading by EBB of Miss Mitford’s handwriting for “de Gaudrion’s” which refers to her friend, Maria de Gaudrion (née Fawcett, b. 1791).

5. Cf. Paradise Lost, I, 292–293.

6. The preface praises Miss Edgeworth and Jane Austen, and says that Duty and Inclination “belongs to a class peculiarly English.... It cannot fail to excite the sympathies of the young, while it must equally satisfy the judgment of the old” and its heroines form “a singularly sweet and original picture.”

7. “Face to face”; i.e., privately.

8. i.e., of the response to the subscription for Miss Mitford.

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 3-28-2024.

Copyright © 2024 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top