Correspondence

1539.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 213–215.

[London]

Feb 20 [–21]– 1844. [1]

My dearest friend, was it really I [2] who should have written? I was waiting for you—in a little wonder at the unaccustomed silence. Thank you my beloved friend for writing when it was my duty to write. The truth is I have a great deal of writing to do just now; & the cold weather, during the few days it lasted, made me less fit than usual for my day’s work, [3] —& meaning to do things every day which I dont do. My poem is not turned off my hands yet, & goes on so slowly, in the transcription & correction department, that at eventime I think it must be morning,—I dont seem to have taken a step. Still I suppose progress is made,—because the fact remains that I shall soon have done. [4]

My beloved friend, I have thought much of you everyday, be sure,—however silent I have been to you. I never could do otherwise than think much of you everyday. And this account, you give me of your new deaf maid, whose gentillese is such a piece of inutility, will not let me be as contented about you as I would fain be. I quite estimated your image (as you presented it to me) of Mrs Barrett [5] —but it was a mistake in her kindness, to send you a deaf maid. She never can be a comfort to you—that, I see at a distance; and I do trust that you will part with her at once, as soon as you can supply her place by somebody more suitable to you. My dearest friend,—if I cd do anything for you, how glad I should be!– Is it impossible? Or will you let me enquire, & try my best for you?–

You see I say nothing of Jersey! Indeed I shall not be afraid about it. It belongs to the supernatural & impossible. Otherwise I shd say plainly .. “You shant go”,—& be done with it.

You go to Jersey! Into banishment—and over the seas!– You had better go to France at once. You wd be nearer England in every way, & less cut off from your friends. Well!– If you go to Jersey, I will go up to the stars and watch over you.

No, no, no, my dearest friend! You speak under the ruffling of an emotion & an inconvenience. Presently it will not be so. And even if, by the light of summer, you shd continue in the mind to leave Three Mile Cross (which I dont quite believe) you shall either go to Bath (at the very uttermost worst) or to the hem of London, .. at the very uppermost best. In the meantime we will talk of Eugene Sue.

I know the “Mysteries of Paris” very well, & much admire the genius which radiates, from end to end, through that extraordinary work. If I did not mention it to you, it was because I fancied (forgive me) that you wd not tolerate it,—& that your perception of its power would not bear you serene through its obvious extravagances & impurities. It is of the school, which you set your noble “constructive” forehead against—and you may infer my view of your “aspectable” attitude in reference to it, from my silence to you about the “Mysteries.” Yet it is an extraordinary book indeed,—& the writer, if of less general power than Balzac, is still more copious in imagination & creation. He glories in all extremities & intensities of evil & passion,—and “sees blood” (as he says of one of his villains) when he looks at human nature. Yes—he has written other works; he is in fact a voluminous writer. He began by writing maritime romances,—not probably very maritimely correct—but, whether on the earth or water, his inferences against humanity are black as ink. Attar Gul is one of his works—Arthur—Le Commandeur de Malthe—L’Hotel Lambert,—Jean Cavalier,—and others. “Mathilde” interested me beyond them all, [6] & consists of some seven or eight volumes (as many as the Mysteries I think) but except for the insight it gives into French society, I am not sure that you wd be pleased with it. It has however less extravagance & defilement than his works have in general,—and you might try it in any wise. I have been thinking that the American translation in which you read the “Mysteries,” may probably be a purified edition, of which I have seen some notices. In how many volumes was the copy which fell into your hands?

This letter was to have gone to you yesterday—but Mr Kenyon came & broke it off. He came upon me with an avalanche of questions about you? when I had heard from you? how you were going on? if you were in spirits? and so forth. I answered generally. You did not seem very well or very blythe—you had had household annoyances, & were uncertain whether you shd remain at Three Mile Cross or not—& you had disquieting dreams moreover about going to Jersey. He said, .. “I hope it is nothing about her boy Ben.” “Yes,” I answered—“& he had left you”. Well!—he was very sorry for that,—but that as to your going to Jersey, he hoped it wd remain a dream, because you could’nt go to a worse purgatory! Bad climate,—said he,—bad society,—& a population somewhat inferior in cultivation to the back-settlers of America. He had at this moment, knowledge,—he exclaimed emphatically,—of the disappointment of some of his own friends who had retired to Jersey to live cheaply & quietly. Three ladies, they are, of no pretension or fastidiousness in regard to society,—sensible, & easily pleased. They removed from Boulogne at a great expence,—& now are forced to remove away again. They cant live in Jersey. The people are savages—the colonists who call themselves the “society,” are of the dullest; the rain falls all day,—the damp exhales all night,—and moreover, “three women living together without a man, cannot expect to escape housebreakers,” which has been abundantly proved in their case. Mr Kenyon made me promise to tell you all this—although I explained to him that your thought about Jersey was more a nightmare than even a dream, & the effect of a moral indigestion which was likely to pass away, I hoped. I did not explain anything more to him,—be sure. I kept the whole secret—and I trust you will not imagine that I said too much. As Ben had actually left you, people must know of his going; & it is well to avoid any appearance of mystery. I shd not however have mentioned his name, had I not been put to my answers.

Dearest Miss Mitford, I have just received the little packet from America for you, & send it today, because we shall gain nothing by any delay. I shall take the opportunity of sending by it, Mr Mathews’s poems which he wished you to have, and some numbers of his prose publications. Keep these. I have a duplicate. And tell me your impression of them all.

A Mr Welford, a bookseller of New York, brought me a letter of introduction the other day, & as I cd not receive him, wrote to me to explain how he had been the first bearer of my poems into America, & owned a “paternal interest” in my reputation there. Also,—which particularly amused me,—he desired me to send him some personal details about my “cousin Tennyson” .. he believed he was not mistaken about the relationship, .. Leigh Hunt having intimated it somewhere.!!– Of course he meant that line in the “Feast of the violets” .. 

“I took her at first for a cousin of Tennyson’s”— [7]

or something to that effect. It amused me exceedingly—but I had to explain how my lineage did not touch so near the gods.

God bless you my beloved friend! My words tumble one over another, .. I write so fast,—am so obliged to write fast.

Ever your most affectionate

EBB

Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 387–390.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. As EBB indicates, this letter was written over two days. She has altered 19 to read 20.

2. Underscored twice.

3. EBB originally ended the sentence here, but altered the punctuation and added the extra phrase as an afterthought.

4. “A Drama of Exile.”

5. A friend of Miss Mitford, not related to EBB.

6. Sue published Atar-Gull in 1831; Arthur in 1838; Jean Cavalier, ou les Fanatiques des Cévennes in 1840; Le Commandeur de Malte in 1841; Mathilde, Memoires d’une Jeune Femme in 1841; and Paula Monti, ou l’Hôtel Lambert in 1842. A translation of Les Mystères de Paris, by Charles H. Town, was published in New York in 1843.

7. See letter 1529 and SD825.1.

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