Correspondence

1369.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 305–307.

[London]

Sept. 2. 1843.

Ever dearest Miss Mitford I am quite disappointed!

After all my waiting I have no cayenne pepper to send you,—nothing except a piece of chocolate, tamarinds & shaddocks. Only one however of the ships has yet come in, & something more according to my hope may reach us by the David Lyon [1] —& in the meantime you wd rather have the chocolate than wait for it. I send therefore what is in my power to send—& your kindness will suffer it to prove acceptable.

I have had a letter from George, & am quite satisfied to let them go. [2] Yes—it is a right & wise arrangement. I try to be even glad of it—but to admit it to be right & wise is in any way a good equivalent for gladness, & more, natural, for me!

Yesterday the whole house turned into the woods round Claremont, [3] & took syllabub in the shade, & were pastoral for the day. It was delightful, they said. Flush & I stayed at home lying on the floor & trying for a breath of air which wd not come. Oh, it is so hot!—so suddenly hot! It is so hot that I do not dare to get out into the chair, lest I suffer as in the case of my last experiment!–

You made me smile at your fear about the heiress. What! Did you think that by a coup de main [4] she was to be attempted to be carried away & fixed among the stars by our Orion, like another Berenice? [5] Oh no, no! Now you see how your imagination did him injustice!– ‘My Araminta’ [6] would never have thought of doing such a thing—that is,—not to heiress as heiress .. I do think!– Depend upon it he is generous, & high-hearted—& more thoroughly so than you believe even in this state of moderated retrospection. I protest however against any invitation for next year. Why “two or three” days?– Living alone as you do, your resources depending upon your exertions, you are perfectly justified as it appears to me in being even fastidious in the persons you receive as visitors.

I do not dare to say anything—I am under a vow besides—! but something written in this welcome letter about what is to be done in “the long winter evenings,” fills me with satisfaction. I am sure that you are right,—and that by a calmer life & a little regular exertion attended by a result, you will be better in health & quieter in nerves than you have been lately under this perpetual ruffling from slight causes in which the spirits spend themselves for nought .. There is no excitement so irritating I have sometimes observed, as the excitement of perpetual company. It wastes you & does not pay for the waste! But then you have more active benevolence than I have—& your sympathies like birds are never weary of leaping from spray to spray! I cannot judge for you!

So the brother of my Flush is called Flush besides!– My poor Flush is suffering from the heat, [7] —walking from sofa to chair, .. following every visible shadow—he is very very hot, he says with his eyes!–

I have not seen Mr Kenyon for some days.

Suddenly they come for my letter—who could have dreamt of this lateness? Not I, I am sure!

Ever your EBB

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

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 292–293.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. The ship in which EBB held a one-eighth share (see SD865).

2. On the journey to the Rhine, mentioned in letter 1366.

3. Claremont, some 14 miles S.W. of Hyde Park, was built for Lord Clive in 1768–72. It was later purchased by the Prince of Wales for his daughter, the Princess Charlotte, the Heiress Presumptive, who died there in 1817.

4. “Surprise attack.” Horne’s alleged suit is referred to in more detail in letters 1373 and 1377.

5. When Berenice’s husband went on a dangerous expedition, she pledged all the hair of her head to Venus for his safe return. The consecrated locks later disappeared from the temple of Venus; and Conon, an astronomer, announced that Jupiter had carried them off and made a constellation of them (coma Berenices, seven stars near the tail of Leo).

6. i.e., Horne. EBB may have adopted this name for him because of the smell of brandy associated with the fictional Araminta (see letter 1364).

7. The maximum temperature on 2 September was 78.3° F.

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