1433. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 45.
[London]
Nov. 14. 1843.
My dearest Miss Mitford I seem to be farther from you than ever now that you are coming to see me—for you do not come, & your letters are gradually wasting away to nothing at all. Nevertheless I will hold my grumbling—I have no right to grumble as long as you are about to come—any of the future in ms shd be competent to keep me in contentment—and then, if [1] you come on thursday .. oh joy!—who cd grumble then?
My dearest friend I do hope that you have made a contract with Mr Chorley to be ready to meet you here on whatever day you please to come—and in the case of uncertainties, that you are prepared with a word for us to send down to him immediately on your arrival in Wimpole Street. Do not scruple to see any other friend, I beseech you moreover. This plan of coming & going in a day, is kinder than wise, I fear I fear; and I am anxious that you may have as much pleasure more than a bare visiting of the prisons & being charitable to me, as it is possible for us to contrive. Now, you must not be tired beyond measure by going about London—and therefore the inference is clear that you must make a focus of this house & converge your rays of light here. Do arrange everything as if we were keeping your town house for you. I dare not, for fear of teazing past enduring, recur to the point of your sleeping here—and indeed this week our cousin Robin Hedley is staying here & we have not a bed at liberty. Next week there will be room again,—and you understand thoroughly, I trust, how much you may command it. There!—I do not mean to teaze: & I have done! I look to thursday eagerly & anxiously & affectionately, … my beloved friend—but do not come if you are unwell.
When you come, I am going to ask you if you know anything of a Miss Maurice who writes to me from Wellington Place Reading. [2]
May God bless you—I long so to see you!
Ever your attached
EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 339–340.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Underscored four times.
2. Priscilla Maurice (1810–54), the sister of the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72), Professor of English Literature and History at King’s College, London, and a prolific author on theological subjects. The Post-Office Reading Directory (1842) gives his address as 5, Wellington Place, King’s Road, with a Ladies’ School, run by the Misses Maurice, at 6 Wellington Place.
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