1688. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 99–102.
[London]
August 14. 1844–
Ill, at last, my beloved friend! Ah, I knew perfectly well how it wd be, with your excess of the social principle boiling up & running over on all sides! You, who are a Juno hospitalis, [1] & none other,—& shd have the constitution of that queen of the goddesses to bear the effects of the tendencies of your own divinity! Ill, at last. I do beseech you, now that it is done, so far that you are in bed & have an opportunity for moralizing & wholesome remorses, to make up your mind never to do the like any more. Be sure that nobody can bear such a wear & tear. If your body does not fail by illness, your spirits will, with lowness—& this lawless excitement of night after night, day after day, will have its cost out of you, while those angels the booksellers look on impotently. Dearest Miss Mitford, listen to reason,—& either shut your house door on the “peoples,” or go for retirement to Paris or London. There, is the evil of country society. You either must taste not that Pierian spring, or you must drink it dry. [2] There is no middle,—or at least there is considerable difficulty in finding a middle—& more especially to persons like yourself whose acquaintance is sought as a distinction to the seeker. Why if I were ever so well, I shd be driven mad by the excess of company which you contrive to see. It wd turn my brain inside out. I never could bear it,—no, nor would—I would not bear it. And now it appears to me that the only commendable agent throughout, is the rain, .. which came just in time to prevent you from dying of syllabub & the Mechanics Institute. The Institute wd assuredly have finished the slaying of you! Commend me to pic niªc-ing with a Mechanic’s Institute, for a sylvan joy of the extremest!– [3] Happily you escaped that,—happily, & praising not your prudence for it, but the rain. My dearest friend, do be cautious in the comparative degree, .. & spare yourself in the positive. Otherwise it will be worse than it is even now as I lament it,—for I am by no means easy about you, & wd give much at the present moment to hear of your being a little better, or quite better. In the meantime I send you some oysters which may be good for you,—& my earnest warmhearted thanks besides for all your goodness & dearness in thinking of my book & even writing of it when you were so unwell! That was so kind—so like you,—that it touches me to think of it. And as for your judgment of the book, it makes me happy, my dearest Miss Mitford. When I asked you to write the truth to me, I wished of course to hear the truth,—but still I might have known then, as I cannot but know now, that the truth will magnify itself with the love, which wont be put away by a critical parenthesis. You exaggerate unawares—and I unawares perhaps also, love you the better for the reason of such exaggeration. Well!—let it be so! There are critics enough in the world; & they will weigh me out, scruple by scruple, their judicial verdicts, with quite sufficient nicety. Only you must not think that I have the presumption of an intention in a dream even, to write tragedies after the fashion of Fletcher, “without his flaws.” I know better than to dream such dreams.
But you have given me great gladness by seeming to like the little volumes as far as they go. There are faults enough to overcome, I am certain,—even if upon the whole, I have made some degree of advance, as I hope of myself. As to the ‘Cloud House’ I plead guilty to blowing away one or two syllables which seemed to me nothing but dust, & apparently impeded the flow & correctness of the rhythm, .. & also to the adding of some three stanzas, which do not, I trust, go wrong with the general tune. [4] I spent the greater part of two days upon that poem: & although my creed is that poems are sooner marred than mended by after-strokes, yet I fancied I had done good rather than harm to it. The line in Pan, of
––“His soul was faint with Loss”— [5]
may appear less weak when the theological consideration is admitted which I had in my mind,—the reference being to that “emptying” of the Saviour’s soul from Deity, which is a scriptural doctrine. It is said that He emptied Himself. [6]
You made me smile with your Io pæan for Napoleon– Yet it is an enthusiasm which I can partly understand. After all however he was scarcely greater than Alexander, as a poet .. (that weeping for new worlds was a fine stroke of imagination!) & even Alexander shed some salt tears over the want of a poet—he was conscious that he could not suffice unto himself. [7] Thank you for all your partial affection my dearest Miss Mitford! I asked you for truth, & am thanking you for partiality–!!! Behold!–
And I have been so busy these two days, in seeing to parcels being made up, & so forth, as scarcely to have time to be nervous.
Mrs Gore sent me ‘Agathonia’: but really the number of books I have to give away is great, & my doubt as to whether she wd care for my poetry, great also,—and I believe I shall not return her compliment. Do you think I ought? [8]
I have taken a great gasp of courage, & sent a copy to Carlyle, .. as “a tribute of admiration & respect.” [9] I pray all the heroes that he may not devote the entrails of my votive sacrifice to make curlpapers for Mrs Carlyle,—but can scarcely aspire to a higher destiny. He is a stern-mannered man, people tell me. Only I admire him so much,—that even if he maltreats me, I shall have satisfied a need of my nature by this offering, & shall scarcely repent it. Ought I?
Perhaps I shd send to Lady Dacre—but I have not, & shall not, I think. There are so many to whom to send—and she has dropped the thread of me,—& it wd be saying, .. “Do take it up again.” No—I wont send to Lady Dacre this time. [10] I have sent to nobody except Carlyle, without some justifying antecedent.
Well, now—do let me have a word from you to say that you are better! I thirst for that word. Mr Kenyon saw Mr Rogers yesterday who was suffering just from your present malady, & feared being prevented from going down with Moxon on thursday, to see Wordsworth. “After all though,” said he “this is not the pleasantest time of year for visiting Wordsworth. The god is on his pedestal, & the worshippers wont let him talk.” Then he (Mr Rogers) spoke of a plan of getting to Paris later in the autumn. “There is much variety of amusement there,—” he said to Mr Kenyon, .. “& it is very pleasant to be able to go to Orleans by the railroad in two hours, & back again in the same morning.”!! There, is an untired energy for you, after eighty! Now has’nt such a man a right to make fifty young ladies in love with him, if he pleases? Surely, yes! I admire him more for his old age than for his “Pleasures of Memory” … infinitely.
May God bless you!– Take care of yourself—do!—& love your ever affectionate
EBB—or Ba.
And the booksellers? ..
You will be sorry to hear that Alfred Tennyson is ill in London, of scarlet fever. [11] I am very sorry indeed.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 437–440.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. “Hospitalis” applied to a class of gods, guardians of the laws of hospitality (cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, V, 45), but principally to Jupiter.
2. Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), line 216.
3. In addition to promoting industrial and manufacturing education, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, established by Lord Brougham, developed the Mechanics’ Institutes. One example is the London Institute (1823) which was later named Birkbeck College after one of its founders. By 1850, there were over 600 such institutes. We have been unable to identify which specific institute EBB is referring to here and in letters 1704 and 1706.
4. “The House of Clouds” appeared in the second volume of Poems (1844), but was first printed in The Athenæum (no. 721, 21 August 1841, p. 643).
5. “The Dead Pan,” line 186.
6. Cf. the Greek text of Philippians 2:7: “ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν,” “emptied himself.”
7. Standing by the tomb of Achilles, Alexander said: “Fortunate youth, to have found in Homer an herald of thy valour!” (Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta, X, 24, trans. N.H. Watts).
8. Although Mrs. Gore’s name is on the list EBB made in her address book of persons to whom she apparently intended to send copies (see p. 388), We have no evidence that Mrs. Gore ever received one.
9. See previous letter.
10. We have been unable to verify that EBB changed her mind and sent a copy to Lady Dacre, although her name appears on the list mentioned in note 8 above.
11. EBB later explains that it was not scarlet fever (see letter 1715).
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