1601. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 303–305.
[London]
Saturday April 20. 1844
Ever dearest friend,
Not to see you, was a disappointment only until the evening of today. After, I must be glad to have the prospect instead of the retrospection [1] —only not glad, that you shd have more trouble, & more pain in sympathy. That poor, poor Mrs Bartholomew. How dreadful! [2]
You see in what haste I write. With this book, sent to me to be conveyed to you, [3] I send the catalogue of the Foreign Library, Rolandi’s, to which you are a subscriber for six months from this day. [4] I say six months—but the subscription shall of course be continued as long as you feel any pleasure in it– In the meantime I have been puzzling my head how to contrive that you shd receive the books without expense, & return them without expense—as otherwise I shd not be providing you with a cheap pleasure: & after all my calculations, I can think of nothing better than the direct way—(& its directness you love me enough, .. I take courage to believe,—to tolerate & accept—) the very, very direct way of sending you this little coin which will probably cover the travelling expenses of the books from London to Reading & back, once a fortnight. For you have a right to twelve volumes at a time, & I calculate that you, who walk so much, & read English besides, will not change them oftener than once a fortnight. If I am wrong, tell me. Indulge me in the pleasure of the imagination that I procure a pleasure to you, without a penny’s cost to you. The 1s .. 2d is the railroad carriage price for very large parcels .. even to oyster barrels .. & is charged upon the smallest.
The catalogue I enclose. But I wrote a command to Mr Rolandi to send you all Paul de Kock’s works, except Moustache, [5] some fifty volumes,—for a beginning—after which, you must order, if you please, for yourself. And now my beloved friend, you will not be angry at any word I have written, or at the impertinent pretensions of the yellow double of our sovereign lady the queen. I have the right of love,—have’nt I? to take such liberties [6] .. & I may use it to the end of my life.
May God bless you. At the top of hurry, .. & of hope too .. to see you on thursday, ..
Ever your attached
EBB
Certainly I might have had the parcels sent here to be forwarded— but I thought it best & most discreet not to break the secresy of our mystery, in any manner or degree. We (you & I) hold it between us for a mystery—& there is not a transcendentalist who can rise to the guessing of it. Rolandi promises to despatch the first parcel today, & I do hope he will keep his word.
Oh—now at the last hour I remember. Your friend who performed pilgrimage to Three Mile Cross to kiss your foot, the Miss Pyer (is that the name?) who is daughter to a dissenting minister, & acquaintance of Mr Hunter’s,—has written to tell him that she is about to publish by subscription & prospectus (such a prospectus!) a volume of poems, [7] & to supplicate for his name & that of his friends. I have given mine—& will you let me give your’s? It is only your name we ask for .. understand fully. And if you have a shadow of disinclination to giving it, “say naye say naye”. [8] I have no personal interest—you know.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 406–407.
Manuscript: Eton College Library and Wellesley College.
1. EBB’s concluding reference to Thursday places the date of Miss Mitford’s visit as 25 April.
2. The Reading Mercury of 20 April reported on an inquest the previous Tuesday into the death of Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Bartholomew’s servant, Harriet Digwood, who was found in the privy after having given birth there to a girl, whose body was recovered from the cesspool.
3. Presumably the volume of poems by Mathews mentioned in letter 1405.
4. Pietro Rolandi, a dealer in foreign publications, had premises at 20 Berners Street in London. EBB had proposed subscribing on Miss Mitford’s behalf in letter 1577.
5. EBB had already sent Moustache (see letter 1567).
6. EBB alludes to the effigy of Victoria on the coinage, the half-sovereign, sovereign and guinea pieces being struck in gold, and expresses the hope that her gesture in sending money to cover carriage of the books will not give offence.
7. Catherine Smith Pyer published Wild Flowers; or Poetic Gleanings from Natural Objects in 1844.
8. Cf. Chaucer, “The Parson’s Tale,” 590.
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