1286. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 186–188.
[London]
June 15. 1843.
My dearest friend how can I thank you? Before I was up this morning, .. just in the twilight of my last dream, .. into the room came, lifted by Arabel & Crow, your grove of geraniums with a nest of invisible singing birds in the shadow of it, extolling your kindness & goodness to me. My dearest, dearest Miss Mitford! how cd you come to think of such a thing,—generous as you have been before to me; & with people on all sides of you holding out their hands for your gifts in the flower way! If I could be angry I would!—— I wd even upbraid you with this misplaced, superabundant, supererogatory … by what names shall I call it? But I cant! I am too much pleased. I only thank you again & again & again! They all arrived without losing a freshness or color, .. even to the flowers—altho’ I do suspect, not without losing of the flowers themselves—seeing that the string was very loose around them (proving that it held more once) & that few people’s virtue cd resist the temptation of such beautiful robberies .. particularly when the moralists were travelling by railroad, with heads, inclusive of principles, turning round fast. Happy for me that the geranium pots were not light to suit the principles! Thank you my dearest friend!
I am going down stairs today .. the summer having relented & returned to us,—& therefore this is to be a brevity—I shall be too dizzy & weak to write when I get down there––that is next to certain .. & I make the best of the time I have, writing quickly.
First in regard to poor Mrs Dupuy—I imagined that you wd be nearly as surprised as you express yourself– It is absolutely impossible (even I can see it) that she can be living as she does, only on the principal of three thousand pounds .. viz about a hundred a year! Therefore in losing the said three thousand pounds, there can be no destruction of income .. nothing to make the difference of poverty to her, supposing that she was not poor before. The worst is .. the taint upon the character—the vice-chancellor having used such an expression as <this> ... “There must have been great fraud on one side or the other”, [1] .. which is dreadful to feelings of honor & sensibility, to listen to, even as the bare hypothesis it is. Moreover, as you ask me to tell you all, I will not conceal from you, that Septimus’s impression from the Times report was, .. ‘There has been a defectiveness in honorable conduct on Mrs Dupuy’s side—whether she gains the cause or not.’ I did not myself see the Times—& the report did not appear in the Morning Chronicle .. but his account of it to me was, that the money left to her by her sister being claimed by another party in consequence of a will of later date, found accidentally, (I dont pretend to be clear as to the details) she had made use of this man (the traitor) in order to conceal in the hands of several different brokers the disposition of the money,—frustrating the claim of the law. I am giving you my impression of my brother’s impression—& am so ignorant about brokery & law-crookery, that it may for aught I know to the contrary, be as fine a display of ability as my former dissertation upon annuities—but my sense of simple integrity was rather revolted by the sound of those words, & is, certainly, as I repeat them .. & I fervently hope that one half may be mistaken & the other half misrepresented!– If Sette can get that number of the Times, he shall get it for you. I will speak to him about it. In any case, & if poor Mrs Dupuy is quite pure of all fault except imprudence, I shall be more sorry for her now, than I was at first in the supposed prospect of utter poverty. A tainted honor is ten times more pitiable than ragged hose——do you not agree with me?
Yes—I was happily unconscious of dear Flush’s “wandering mazes” [2] —the worst I had to bear being a pre-sentiment, a metaphysical misgiving about something being wrong with him!– So little am I a philosopher on such occasions, that twice, when I have been aware of an unusual absence, .... I began to cry .. & I am not given much to inordinate weepings at any time. But his heart wd soon break, dear little thing, if he were placed among strangers .. & it is impossible to think of such a thing without being affected. And besides (to be honest) it is’nt all pity for him! I love him—& he sleeps on my pillow, & drinks from my cup like Sterne’s Maria [3] —& I need not make excuses to you for a weakness or a virtue consecrated by your partaking of it. Now I must go—I hate going!–
Ever your own
EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 246–248.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The Times reported arguments in the case in the issues of 5, 6 and 7 June. The first of these, covering the proceedings of 2 and 3 June, stated that the judge had observed “that whichever side was right, whichever side was wrong, the case was one of the most melancholy that had occurred in this court. Whichever statement was correct, it showed, from first to last, an attempted spoliation and fraud.”
2. Paradise Lost, II, 561. EBB refers to the misadventure recounted in letter 1280.
3. In A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768).
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