1887. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 163–164.
[London]
[mid-April 1845] [1]
<***> I am sure you do. To invalidate her ‘honour’, in the phrases to which I look back, was hastily done & hardly. She loves the truth, as the world loves pleasure. There never was a nobler woman, [2] as both you & I know well.
For the Athen[a]eum, I have always held it as a journal, first, .. in the very first rank, .. both in ability & integrity; & knowing Mr Dilke is the Atheneum, I could make no mistake in my estimation of himself. I have personal reasons for gratitude to both him & his journal, & I have always felt that it was honorable to me to have them. Also, I do not at all think that because a woman is a woman, she is on that account to be spared the ordinary risks of the arena in literature & philosophy. I think no such thing– Logical chivalry wd be still more radically debasing to us, than any other. It is not therefore at all as a Harriet Martineau but as a thinking & feeling Martineau (now dont laugh!) that I hold her to have been hardly used in the late controversy. And if you dont laugh at that, .. don’t be too grave either, with the thought of your own share & position in the matter,—because, as must be obvious to everyone (yourself included) you did everything possible to you to prevent the catastrophe, and no man & no friend could have done better. [3] My brother George told me of his conversation with you at Mr Lough’s [4] ——but are you not mistaken in fancying that she blames you, .. that she is cold with you? I really think you must be. Why if she is displeased with you she must be unjust—& is she ever unjust?—I ask you. I shd imagine not!—but then, with all my insolence of talking of her as my friend, I only admire & love her at a distance, .. in her books & in her letters, .. & do not know her face to face & in living womanhood at all. She wrote to me once,—& since, .. we have corresponded,—& as, in her kindness she has called me her friend, I leap hastily at an unripe fruit, .. perhaps, .. & echo back the word– She is your friend in a completer, or, at least, a more ordinary sense,—& indeed it is impossible for me to believe without strong evidence that she cd cease to be your friend on such grounds as are apparent. Perhaps she does not write because she cannot contain her wrath against Mr Dilke (which, between ourselves, she cannot, very well!) & respects your connection & regard for him. Is not that a ‘peradventure’ worth considering? I am sure that you have no right to be uneasy, in any case.
And now I do not like to send you this letter without telling you my impression about Mesmerism,—lest I seem reserved & ‘afraid of committing myself,’ as prudent people are. I will confess then, that my impression is in favour of the reality of mesmerism to some unknown extent. I particularly dislike believing it—I wd rather believe most other things in the world:—but the evidence of the “cloud of witnesses” [5] does thunder & lightning so in my ears & eyes, that I believe, while my blood runs cold. I wd not be practised upon .. no, not for one of Flushie’s ears!—and I hate the whole theory. It is hideous to my imagination—especially what is called phrenological mesmerism. After all, however, truth is to be accepted; & testimony, when so various & decisive, is an ascertainer of truth. Now do not tell Mr Dilke, lest he excommunicate me.
But I will not pity you for the increase of occupation produced by an increase of such comfort as your mother’s & sisters’ [6] presence must give– What it will be for you to have a branch to sun yourself on, after a long flight against the wind! <***>
Publication: LEBB, I, 227–228 (in part, as [end of December 1844]).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Approximate dating suggested by internal reference to Dilke’s article in The Athenæum of 12 April 1845; see letter 1883, note 2.
2. From the context, we infer this to be a reference to Harriet Martineau.
3. See letter 1771.
4. As previously identified (letter 1790), the sculptor John Graham Lough.
5. Cf. Hebrews 12:1.
6. In 1842 Mrs. Jameson moved to Ealing with her mother and four sisters where they remained for ten years. Although she travelled, she regarded this as home and her mother and sisters her main responsibility (Clara Thomas, Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson, Toronto, 1967, pp. 160–161).
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