1386. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 339–342.
[London]
Sept. 25. 1843.
My ever dearest friend, you are rashly kind surely, in inviting Araminta; [1] and I cannot but exceedingly regret that having extricated yourself from a position unpleasant to you, you should have replaced yourself in it. I hold my breath in expectation of the result. If a new impression or a modification of the old impression be produced, well—there will be nothing to regret! but in the meantime I am frightened; & certainly should not have advised the effort at emendation. Do tell me all. I am quite nervous lest you shd be annoyed again—even although this time I hold myself to be innocent of whatever tribulations may follow this new opening of the arms of your household gods.
Your Ben is a very fine fellow––and I am sure I ought to thank him for his generous sympathies in Flush’s sorrows & mine. Flush however is a Duke again, (I am glad his brother is a Viscount both for the sake of the ennobling of the family & the particular precedence left to us) & appears to have forgotten the rough plucking at his strawberryleaves [2] by the ignominious hands of the Fancy-men. By the way, Mr Kenyon was here yesterday, & told me that Mr Curtis’s [3] coachman told him, in à proposity to Flushie, a story in the high romantic style of an adventure which happened to a tradesman, a friend of the said coachman, in this neighbourhood, & not long ago. The tradesman is a breeder of dogs, a member of “the Spaniel club,” & has in his own possession several very beautiful dogs with the due length of ears & shortness of noses, & valued by him exceedingly. One day he was at a public house; when the conversation turning upon dogstealers, he inveighed vehemently against them, observing that he never had lost a dog, but that if he ever did such a thing he wd spare no labour & no expense necessary to reach & punish the rascals to the utmost rigour of the law. “He spake” as the epic poets say—and at the end of two days, one of his prettiest dogs had vanished. Everything was tried, & every means failed except .. a bribery of the offenders—and, to this, notwithstanding his resolute intentions, the poor man was reduced. He was directed (upon yielding to terms) to a house near the Edgeware Road, and to a room appearing uninhabited at the top of the house, with a command, that if he identified his dog, he was to take it up with one hand & lay down a five pound note with the other. A trap door opened in the floor, & the dog was put up through it, .. and while he immediately identified it & throwing down the money, prepared to depart, a voice of one invisible spoke out from the wall .. “Go! go! and take care of your dog!– And remember the next time you are in a public house, that you keep your tongue between your teeth, & speak no evil of the Fancy.”
This is the sublime of Dogstealing, & as such I recommend it to Ben’s & your attention. He is very kind, & I do not doubt, very energetic & very adroit; but these Fancy-men are an organized body & play into each other[’]s hands in the very mystery of iniquity, [4] —and it is doing him no dishonor to suppose that he wd fail before them. The fault is in the Law—and perhaps in the application of the law—for I am as little inclined to acquit the Police, as either Ben or yourself. The Police seemed as powerless as I was– Unless I could tell them where the dog was, what could they do, they said!– And afterwards, when the theft was proved .. what could they do, they said. Oh! they knew of these nests of dog-stealers, & they knew Taylor personally for a “rascal”——but what could they do, they still said. It was the very languor of powerlessness!–
How I should like to see your Flush!– But I do not invite him—I am afraid! If the Fancy took a fancy to him we shd be undone. But he must be beautiful. So is my Flush—I call my Flush beautiful. And I like him the better just for what people reproach in him, .. his innocence of blood. “Oh”—my brothers say, “Flush is’nt worth ....” I wont say what. I say he is worth so much the more for his innocence. As to “pen & ink” .. I acquit it—altho’ the idea, & the compliment in it, made me smile complacently. But you see, Mr Taylor does not probably take in the Athenæum; & the popularity of my stanzas in St Giles’s (where my Flush, they say, was taken) I have not the imagination or vanity to believe in.
My dearest friend, I am vexed about this Chapel Street plan more than I can tell you today. I should have liked you to be nearest to me. Still, if the convenience is greater to you, & if you bribe high in coming oftener to see me in consequence of the distance (still I dont understand how that can be) I may be satisfied to let the grand pleasure of your coming to London at all, swallow up the lesser consideration of the details. I am half afraid that the forty or fifty people you mention, may swallow you up altogether from me. I begin to be jealous of them in perspective. At any rate, if you go to Chapel Street, you will promise to use this house as an inn,—& breakfast, have luncheon & dinner, at any hour here, according to your own orders to me. You will do that—in any case—will you not, my dearest friend? You shall be disturbed by nobody,—you shall have precisely what you like to order—and thus you will be as absolutely independent as if you did the eating where you did the sleeping. I think this worth considering—I feel almost sure of you on this point at least! And then, I do hope that you wont insist upon going away at the end of two or three days—it will be pitiful work if you do—just enough time to throw me into the sorrow of parting! No, no! Why if you do go to Chapel Street to sleep, lodgings at that time of year are only obliged to anybody who will take them, & by no means expensive. A fortnight would be nothing or very little I shd think, in the way of expense—the eating being all done here,—I mean always for K & Ben, .. and for yourself dearest friend, whenever you will be gracious, & the forty nine persons spare you to me!—forty nine thieves I was going to write!—— But now I cannot write any more. Tell me of Araminta,—& how your dear self is. By the way I have not heard from the former since .. I cannot tell you when. You & your Bessies do verily absorb him–
Your ever attached
EBB–
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 312–314.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. i.e., Horne.
2. Extending her playful references to “Duke” Flush, EBB equates his crowning glory—his ears—with the strawberry leaves embellishing a duke’s coronet.
3. John Curteis, Kenyon’s brother-in-law.
4. II Thessalonians, 2:7.
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