Correspondence

1297.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 201–204.

[London]

June 23. 1843.

Oh your Miss Brabazon!– Surely she must have been steeped in a cauldron of Ink to have rendered herself so disagreeable to you! [1] What “bad books” did she write? I do not remember her name in my “letters”. Certainly, if she knows how to write, she does’nt know how to behave;—or your whole experience (.. of her coming for a month, & grumbling over her dinners, & inviting herself into your friends[’] carriages, ..) wd have been a good deal modified. I could not help laughing!– It was so bad as to be good!—— The brass was so very Corinthian!– [2] Do you know there is something sublime in the self-reliance which cd determine one to spend a month with a stranger of European reputation, & order fish for dinner? That is not an every-day deed of a commonplace woman!—it wd be unattainable to four fifths of us!– Tell me what books she wrote!–

Dearest friend, you are full of sympathy always!– I like to lay my head on you as on a pillow .. you never slip away! May God bless you!

I sent Mr Horne’s twentyfive copies of the third edition of Orion to you this morning; [3] & I sent your message to him, half an hour afterwards: &, whether he goes to you immediately or not, I am sure he must be touched & gratified by your true kindness & hospitality, for which I infinitely admire you, & which will stand in prodigious contrast to our conduct here in Wimpole Street. Think of my dear naughty Papa’s never asking him to dinner! He called on Mr Horne by his own impulse .. & through a kind wish, quite unprompted by me, of acknowledging kindnesses done to me [4] —but you see the never asking him to dinner makes the calling worse than nugatory. I am very vexed at it!– The obstacle seems to be a kind of shyness of your Pen & Ink—& a feeling of .. “he will lack entertainment here”—: & just the same thing prevents his asking Mr Kenyon, his own college friend & cousin, & my friend .. the only friend (almost) I see in my prison. And unfortunately we never any of us can “reason high” [5] with him, as Adam did with the angel Gabriel, [6] in relation to anything done or undone—he is master as he ought to be! It wd be impossible for anyone to persuade him that Mr Kenyon could dine anywhere out of a draught of epigrams, with a lion’s hide for a table cloth, except by constraint & as a matter of sacrifice. So I remain vexed .. moralizing on what dear Mr Kenyon’s inferences may be. How you were permitted to run the risk of being dull & degraded here, I do not know—except that your affectionateness to me overcame your prestige,—“Dearest Dread!” [7]

Dear Mr Kenyon came to see me yesterday—& I told him that I thought he had begun to leave me off, such a long three weeks is it since he came last. He has been full of business, he says, & of preparation for his brother (who will arrive in ten days or a fortnight) & has shaken himself clear of all invitations into an active solitude. Think of Dr Truman having written to him since the decision!– [8] Dr Truman! Whom he never saw in his life!! He showed me the letter! There was no obvious object in it .. nothing but an expression of hope that Mr Kenyon wd not suffer himself to be influenced by the unfortunate circumstantial evidence which had made him a victim, .. and an interesting announcement, that “through the beneficence of a kind Providence,” (oh! the blasphemy of that traitor!) his spirits were wonderfully supported under the ruin of his prospects in life. It is the letter of a guilty man!—the struggle of a scotched snake, whose head is beneath the heel, [9] & who writhes upwards or downwards without intention & design. Why shd he write to Mr Kenyon? What were Mr Kenyon’s thoughts to him? And if his spirits are bad or good, by the grace of the Divine or the infernal, what is it to Mr Kenyon in particular?– It’s a guilty letter.

Perhaps, as our friend suggests, it may [be] the first of a series of steps tending towards a mediation & a compromise—for altho’ there is talk of an appeal, there is no appearance of Dr Truman’s being likely to venture it. Mr Kenyon will not answer the letter, of course.

He brought the good news to poor Mrs Dupuy—& she was much overcome! She has, I understand, something more than the sum contested,—which sum, being vested in the long annuities, brings her in four hundred a year or thereabouts—also the house & furniture in Welbeck Street are her own property—& altogether, she may not be exceeding her income in continuing to reside there .. particularly if she lets the house for a part of the season, as I hear she does actually. I am heartily glad of her triumph. Mr Kenyon says that he went through the whole of the evidence, & that nothing could be more clear & past dispute than her truth, .. except the false cruelty of her adversary. He has promised the full report of the Times to me, to look at. [10]

You are about to hold a parliament of poets, methinks, under your bay tree!—pray observe my courtesy to Mr Reade!—— [11]

Alfred (commonly called Daisy) & Sette & my two little cousins [12] took Flush with Catiline & Resolute the other day to Hyde Park, to see the Review!– [13] Flush in an ecstasy of terror at the sight of the crowd & military assemblage, prancing of steeds & flashing of swords, howled up to the sky, as if he saw the moon there; [14] & the moment after, threw himself upon Alfred, aspiring to be taken up in his arms. But when the artillery thundered along, it was past sustaining any more. One might as well be in a battle you know, & he does’nt pretend to be a hero—and so, down he fell upon his back without a sound—in unutterable & immoveable dread!—& Alfred thought he had fainted. When however, he turned round to look at him again .. to feel his pulse, I suppose, & administer hartshorn .. the patient had disappeared! They looked everywhere—no Flush!!– Had he vanished into a drum? or been blown away by a trumpet? Nobody cd tell! He had left the field of battle “either with his shield or on it”; [15] & not a Spartan of them all, cd enter into further particulars!–

In the meantime my hero, on recovering his breath, turned his back on the “pride, pomp & circumstance of glorious war” [16] & ran away home as fast as his little bantam legs (Flushie’s legs are exactly like a bantam’s!) could carry him. When he arrived, everybody observed that he looked “as if he had been frightened”! Very likely indeed!—— He refused to go out of doors for that day & the next, & has embraced very strong views, I apprehend, of the iniquity & insanity of military glory,—being henceforward & in that relation, of the strictest sect of .. the quakers!– My poor Flushie!–

He never barks for joy either—except when he goes out with the great dogs who always bark, & so inspire him. Think of Flushie’s taking pepper (cayenne) with his chicken, .. & having a particular liking for ginger cake .. so strong with ginger as to light up a little flame on your tongue. There’s social corruption for you!

By the way the ship has not come in yet; & I still wait for the chocolate.

For the geraniums, five of them came in safety, .. with the exception of one or two blossoms (not more) hanging down brokenly & acquitting by their aspect the intention of the breakers. Six plants reached us altogether; inclusive of the one broken from the root & replanted—& the others look healthy & inclined to live with us. I thank you for them again & again! And let us remember my dearest kindest Miss Mitford, that if a hundred bouquets had come to me with their own dew,—fresh & bright .. they wd be dead by this time!—while the impression left on me by your kindness, could not be fresher than it is now, if the hands which stole, had watered!

What you say of the print of Clifton, reminds me of my silence (if I was silent—) about the other print of Prior Park. Did I thank you for it? Am I to return it? I had no idea of the grandeur of the place except by it, & was interested in the sight of it, .. & deserve to be put into a corner if I really forgot to say this before.

You are not well, my dearest friend? Is it right of you to give up your exercise in the poney carriage?

Ever your affectionate

EBB.

You must send one of your own Orions to Professor Norton—for I have great difficulty in getting copies. The third edition was almost sold the day before yesterday, & the demand, increasing.

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 253–256.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Although Chorley omits the name, it is obviously Miss Brabazon whom Miss Mitford describes to Mrs. Partridge, in a letter of 22 June 1843, as “a self-invited guest, who is the finest specimen of Hibernian brass that I have ever seen in my life” (Chorley, I, 216–217).

2. Corinthian brass was an alloy of gold, silver and copper first produced accidentally during the burning of Corinth in 146 B.C.; EBB here equates “brass” with brazen behaviour.

3. The first two editions of Orion, each of 500 copies, sold out in less than three weeks; the third edition was still being offered at one farthing (The Farthing Poet, by Ann Blainey, p. 134).

4. In letter 829, EBB recounted her father’s visit, following the publication of Horne’s “To the Greek Valerian” in The Monthly Chronicle of November 1840 (p. 480).

5. Cf. Paradise Lost, II, 558.

6. Although Gabriel does converse with Adam in the early part of Paradise Lost, it appears that EBB is referring to bk. XI, where the colloquy is with the archangel Michael.

7. Pope, Odyssey, IV, 980.

8. i.e., the judgement in Mrs. Dupuy’s lawsuit, in which he was the defendant.

9. Cf. Genesis, 3:15.

10. In the issue of 16 June.

11. As EBB was very critical of Reade’s plagiarism, it seems probable that she thinks Miss Mitford’s impending meeting with him more akin to Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules.

12. John and George Hedley.

13. To mark the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815.

14. Cf. Julius Cæsar, IV, 3, 27.

15. Plutarch tells how a Spartan mother handed her son his shield as he departed for battle, with the injunction to return “Either with this or upon this” (“Sayings of Spartan Women,” Moralia, 241, 16).

16. Othello, III, 3, 354.

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