Correspondence

1275.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 172–175.

[London]

June 7– 1843.

My dearest friend, your letters are a hundred times welcome in their golden shower—& I look up to them as Danae to Jove! [1] Yesterday & the day before too, I should have written to you, & would, but for other letters pressing in for answers, & Nelly Bordman’s coming to spend some three hours at once with me– With thoughts however, more active than fingers, I have been close to you—& you may be sure of my sympathy on the matrimonial-controversy-subject, [2] as well as on matters of graver upholstery, & decadence of geraniums. [3] Did you do “t’other thing”? the desperate alternative suggested by Master Ben? Are you likely to have your neighbour with the half brother, after ‘the peace’? [4] And does Mr Eagles, whose agreeable note I return to you, pass more than one day with you? And when do you see Mr Reade? And have you seen his ‘Sacred Poems’? There’s a catechism for you worthy of the Presbytery!–

My dearest friend, either today or tomorrow there shall go to your address a little hamper containing my shabby offerings to your Penates. May the latter be propitious .. & Ben & you, forbear a frown, from any want of fragrance in the incense. Orions shd go to you by conglomeration of constellations, by the same opportunity, if it were not for the difficulties in the way of my procuring copies, [5] —& as it is, they shall go when I can send them. On the day of publication I told George to bring me a shilling’s worth of epics, imagining that said epic must consist of one or two pages dignified facetiously. He when he held in his hand a real book, & inferred that it wd be hard for him to carry a shilling’s worth .. i.e. 48 copies!,—yet said to the bookseller that he wd take three or four. ‘No,’ said the bookseller .. “I cant permit it. I am desired to sell only one copy to one person– Even if you come again I cant give you another copy.” Since then, Papa has bought one—and I have written one sincere note & another forgery, in order to get at two copies in addition: and I have vainly tried George’s eloquence in further progress. To a servant or a bookseller’s messenger no copy is vouchsafed—& really when I begin to consider what the intention of it all can be, I find myself in Puzzledom. They advertise their goodwill to send copies to any part of the kingdom during the course of a fortnight only, on a certain number of stamps being enclosed; therefore if you will send me Dr Baines’s exact address (how do you direct to him? as bishop of what?) I will write a command to Miller in your name. But then you must on the other hand, apprize the bishop of the fact of the poem’s coming from you. Also tell me if there is another person in England to whom you wd like to send a copy,—and I will take care that he or she shall have it. I can direct the bookseller you see in the name of any individual person to send a single poem anywhere in England. As to America, I must try to procure one for your Professor Norton; but I, who wished to send one to Mr Mathews of New York, .. have failed hitherto both for you & myself. Mr Kenyon wants a copy too in vain.

The poem is full of noble beauty; & has that unity of design which Mr Horne never forgets to bear on nobly through every species of composition attempted by him. [6] Still it will not be a popular poem, let the price of the poem be ever so popular. There is a want of action; & the personality fades off in a mist of allegorism, until at last we are scarcely surprised at seeing Time standing & talking on the brown-ribbed sea sand. Still the design of the whole is adjusted to an elevated aim; and particular passages of the highest beauty abound. We shd give him a bay for a noble ambition in the two highest classes of poetry, the dramatic & epic; & you, being a sister of the buskin, shd gather it from your garden. [7] But is it an epic? Perhaps no—! But yes or no, it’s a true poem, & worthy of recognition as poet’s work. The blank verse to which you advisedly object as a popular medium, appears to me rounder & more harmonious than he is used to make it in his tragedies.

Ah—you are at home again! I am glad yet afraid. Dearest dearest Miss Mitford! I beseech you to watch your sensations & not expose yourself to any risk of injury from that pestilential smell. [8] Blacksmiths are evils: but the smell of paint if less repulsive at the moment, may be worse in its consequences than any blacksmith’s anvil save Vulcan’s in the shaping of a first-class thunderbolt—otherwise I can only wonder at your past meekness under the blacksmith persecution; & not at all at your eagerness to escape from it.

Mr Haydon enquires about you always. His daughter is not consumptive,—the medical men infer now from the pulse.

As to Mrs Dupuy, her case is being considered: & George is of opinion that the Vice Chancellor (who is accused of pre-judging most cases by the pre-activity of his understanding) has made up his mind in her favor. [9] You will be very glad to hear of this impression—shd it be no more. The book, from what Mr Kenyon told me, will be quite apart from Pen & ink (she is safe you see from that lowest deep of degradation) & will consist simply of the costumes—with dates, & inscriptions perhaps– The engraver (whose name is in the moon with other lost things, as far as my memory is concerned) hearing of the collection, went to her & offered to bring it out—and the advertisement declaring the approaching publication, you will find in the Athenæum of last saturday. “By a lady of distinction”. [10] A little strong I apprehend!–

I am writing all this in gallopade manner, as fast as hand can write—having no comfort because no time for writing to you today as I would fain!– Miss James is amusing with her local antiquities, & I thank you for letting me look at them. Oh Lady Margaret, Lady Margaret [Cocks]! She came once, twice, thrice perhaps! She was kind up to the brink of her capabilities! But never, no, never, could two people come together, each of them loving literature in a particular fashion, & that sincere, .. with such a bare imitation of sympathy!– We both of us talked out into the air [11] & had no answer!– You can fancy it.

Your dear Flush! Mine has been in pain & tribulation from the coming off & replacement of the nail of what Arabel properly calls his thumb. At last, when it hung by a fibre, George performed amputation, which set everything to rights again, but frightened me at first & made me smile afterwards .. because Flush seeing his nail, part & parcel of him, taken away, looked up at me pitiously, then at his foot, then at me .. & then set himself to hunting on the carpet for the missing member. He is quite well now, & just in the sort of spirits he used to riot in as a puppy—playing & leaping for half an hour round the cynosure of a piece of string, or a flower, .. or anything which he wants to have for the reason that you object to it. Never did he look so pretty as now. Fat, yet not too fat—the white hair hanging like floss silk from his breast—his back covered with thick shiney curls—his ears falling lower & lower with a constant light on them, .. and his little legs feathered with fine auburn shades .. till, you think of a bantam’s– He is beautiful—& loves me so much that he almost crushes me to death & suffocation every day. It is overcoming in a strict sense.

May God bless you! I meant to write six lines—& behold!

Ever your attached

EBB–

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 240–244.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Danae was imprisoned by her father after an oracle had predicted that he would meet his death at the hands of her son. However, Jove changed himself into a shower of gold and visited her, after which she gave birth to Perseus, who, as an adult, did inadvertently kill his grandfather.

2. Miss Mitford’s maid’s clandestine marriage, touched upon in letter 1198.

3. Letter 1285 indicates that there was “a catastrophe affecting the buds”.

4. We cannot clarify this reference.

5. After death, the giant Orion was raised to heaven, where the constellation bearing his name consists of 17 stars in the form of a man holding a sword. As Horne had told EBB in letter 1272, the publisher had been instructed not to allow more than one copy of Orion to any purchaser.

6. EBB subsequently reviewed the poem in The Athenæum of 24 June (no. 817, pp. 583–584).

7. The buskin was a thick-soled boot worn by Greek actors to increase their height; by transference, meaning concerned with tragedy, so “sister of the buskin” refers to the revival of Miss Mitford’s play Rienzi at the Reading Theatre. The bay was sacred to Apollo, the god of poetry; there was a bay-tree in Miss Mitford’s garden.

8. Of paint. Miss Mitford had briefly vacated her cottage in order that redecoration might be completed.

9. Opening arguments were presented before the Vice-Chancellor, Sir James Lewis Knight (1791–1866), on 2 June (reported in The Times on 3 June). In essence, Mrs. Dupuy accused Dr. Truman of defrauding her of more than £3,000, while he counter-claimed that the money, which he admitted receiving, was in payment of a debt. The progress of the case was summarized in The Times on 5 and 6 June, and on 7 June the paper reported that judgement would be given on 15 June.

10. See letter 1266, note 9.

11. Cf. I Corinthians, 14:9.

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