1375. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 317–320.
[London]
Sept. 7. 1843
Poor Flush indeed!– My dearest friend, his Catiline is worse than Cicero’s! [1] —never was such a savage, on two feet or four!
The night before last as it was verging to ten oclock & Flush had gone down stairs to have some supper, I heard a great dog-storm in the lower part of the house, furious barking upon furious barking, cry upon cry of dog & man,—I rang my bell in fear! There was presently silence however, & I began to blame myself, as I do twice or thrice a week, for bearing about terror in my imagination & unconsciously magnifying noises, when up came Crow carrying Flush. My poor, poor Flush! Catiline & Resolute are usually confined in what may be called the back area; & the door of their prison being left open by some negligence, Flush had come face to face upon his Cuba enemy in the passage. The noise I heard was Catiline in savage fury, & Flush in shrieking agony. Two men were there & several women, but they all thought that the victim wd be utterly worried, so determinedly did the great tusks close upon the little throat, notwithstanding the kicks & blows they cd re-iterate on the worrier. At last, Crewes, the waterman, compressed by main force Catiline’s windpipe; & the butler dragged at him from behind .. and Flush was rescued. He did not attempt to fight, they say—(how cd he, poor little thing?)—he only shrieked & shrieked—and after he had quite escaped he shrieked again, & then cried softly for a long long time, as if he were bewailing the cruelty of his fate. Brought up to me, he cd walk only on three legs, being deeply bitten in three places, besides the old casualty of which I told you before! [2] There, he was laid down on my bed, & coaxed & pitied, & washed gently in lukewarm water, & soon began to receive consolation. By the next morning he was in very low spirits at not being able to leap up on my sofa. They laid him on a chair—and he would’nt be laid on a chair!—he tumbled himself off & crept close to the sofa & stretched himself there on the floor. When Crow lifted him up to me, his eyes beamed & he wagged his tail emphatically. Towards the evening he was much better, recovering his spirits & able to touch the floor with the fourth leg—and today, the convalescence is obvious & satisfactory. We give him no meat—except a little partridge from my dinner—milk & biscuits, or cakes, instead: and he seems to be well in himself, dear little dog!– If you were but to see his eyes when we talk to him of “that naughty Catiline”! Catiline! is he not a savage? He has such a tiger look!—& immense strength—enough to kill a man in ten minutes!
Flush is convicted of having looked out of the Housekeeper’s room window & growled at Catiline, on the morning of the murder—but if he did, that, I maintain, was only a natural expression of feeling after Catiline’s previous conduct to him. I am in great indignation against the Cuban! “Generous”!– You see the length & breadth of his generosity!!–
To turn from the contemplation of these misfortunes, I am very much vexed about the chocolate—very much,—& shall try to investigate the cause of it. We have been unlucky in procuring fit tribute from the West for you this year—there being no peppers, no ginger, no anything you wd care for!–
So you have not heard again from Araminta .. I infer it from what you tell me, & hope that the immediate danger of a visit has past away. Yes—in October, you are likely (if you really do, by a happy star for me, come to London) you are likely to see Mr Kenyon. He is furnishing his house by slow degrees, & has turned a garret into a hermitage looking over a shining river & alleys of trees—& thus, having pastoral joys so near as up three flights of stairs, he has forsworn going into the country to look for them, & means to live at home for evermore. Therefore you are likely to see him in October. For the month after I may not promise perhaps.
No—I do not think with you about Boz—or Dickens—nor did I ever hear of anything unbecoming or undignified in his manner of receiving last year the American vows of allegiance & admiration. A true genius I consider him—if of somewhat less depth & height than the American devotees! & [3] A most ungrateful man he is, as surely as a true genius! As to his conduct in America, how wd you blame it? How cd he help being worshipped, if people chose to worship him? If a host of young ladies supplicated him each for a lock of his hair, how could he help “their most sweet voices”? [4] He refused to wear a wig to serve them—and Diogenes could scarcely under the circumstances, have done more .. or less. [5] But it is his conduct since, which has used all this honor to dishonor himself—he is an ungrateful, an ungrateful man!
Would not Walter Scott have been King too, if he had crossed the Atlantic & picked up the crown? I can fancy so! As to James, I certainly cannot fancy either nation or individual being enthusiastic, much less fanatical, for his sake. He wants—does he not, my dearest friend?, what is called genius. Ah!—can you approach your Beaumont & Fletcher with such an application!– Mr James has taste & talent & good feeling—but genius, .. which draws love to it, & covers, like love itself, a multitude of sins, [6] .. genius, if I know what genius is, .. Mr James has not. Do you think he has? Can you say he has?
And why does my dearest friend “hate” the Americans? “With reason” she says: and “with what reason?,” I am curious enough to ask. Is there any other reason except .... Miss Sedgewick?– [7]
If I write again to Miss Martineau I will certainly make my letter welcome by the Royal flag of your message—but probably I shall not have to write again,—probably she will not write to me again. I asked her not to write,—fearing that I might be adding something to the quantity of occupation which presses, I must believe, upon all her moments of capability: and it is more than enough that she shd have vouchsafed to me two expressions of her precious kindness & appreciation.
Byron, Coleridge .. how many more? .. were contemporaries of mine without my having approached them near enough to look reverently in their faces, or to kiss the hem of their garment [8] —and young as I was, I cannot get rid of a feeling of deep regret that, so,—it shd have been.
I think sometimes .. how many were probably nay certainly, English contemporaries of Shakespeare, who never stood face to face with Him—and the idea startles me as something unnatural & unworthy!
Have you such thoughts & such regrets ever? Or is my organ of veneration as overtopping as a pyramid?
Abruptly I fall rather than come to an end!– May God bless you!
Ever your affectionate
EBB.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 298–301.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See the previous letter.
2. The loss of a nail, reported to Miss Mitford in letter 1275.
3. The ampersand was squeezed in as an afterthought, without changing the punctuation or capitalization.
4. Cf. Coriolanus, II, 3, 172.
5. This is perhaps a reference to Diogenes being ridiculed for going to a party with his head half shaved (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. VI, cap. 33).
6. Cf. I Peter, 4:8.
7. For details of Miss Sedgwick’s offence, see letter 834, note 3.
8. Cf. Matthew, 9:20.
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