1842. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 75–77.
[London]
Saturday [15] Feb. 1845. [1]
Ah—my enemy the frost! For an enemy I knew him! He has been making me as uncomfortable as possible for this week past—reserving the great disappointment for saturday, in the news that he should be of a force to prevent your coming on the Monday at hand. Well! I might have been sure of it. Snow & thaw wd make impassable roads, without any manner of doubt!—and also I may comfort myself with the thoughts that by the delay of a few days, my voice will be clarified again, & my heart regulated away from its late stopping & throbbing,—& I altogether fitter to receive you. Only my ever dearest friend, I dont see why you shd fix to come to see me by octaves,—& why the day must of necessity be monday,—& why if you cant come one monday, you must put it off to the monday week. Why should this be? You dont come on monday—well. But if under a bright sun & steady wind the roads shd be dry on wednesday, or thursday, pray who forbids the bans of our being legally joined together on either of those days? Consider the question I beseech you as I wd have you. I cannot consent to the week’s adjournment without an argument stronger than you mention. Only write, to let me know the day! And let me have my dream time pleasure, as well as the fulfilment of the dream. And I, in return, wont teaze you any more about the staying—as you promise to fix about that, at our next meeting. Oh, what pleasure! You do not know what it is to me to look forward to that pleasure!
Well—and I am not sorry that you fell over ‘La veille Fille’ at last—& the ‘Physiologie’ besides. [2] You ought to know Balzac through. And now, remember that the ‘Fille’ which is as disgusting a book as you represent it, was my ‘first fruits’ [3] of Balzac. I made my acquaintance with him in that iniquitous book,—that beastly book—for, as women, we cannot speak of it with too cogent an abhorrence. Is there any wonder that I made a vow deeply within me never to read a book by the writer of it any more. I did vow it. And it was a mere mistake of those librarians who are always making mistakes, (but I forgive a thousand for the dear love of that one) which sent me ‘Le Pere Goriot.’ [4] Now ‘le pere’ is startling enough—but coming after “La fille,” I bore with him wonderfully;—& began to sympathize so immorally besides, (as Mr Kenyon says of me) with the artistic power of the book, that I was tempted to throw my plummet down again into the depths of the artist’s mind– Yes—a ‘beloved abomination’—it is just that. And I am struck just as you are, by this wonderful faculty of lifting up so high & clear above the social pollutions, which it is his delight to dabble in, images & creations most stainless & lovely. I do not say (or think) that such a faculty renders him less dangerous as a writer,—but it is undeniably wonderful as a faculty, & proves him a poet .. minus, the sense of music.
Talking of Charles de Bernard (not that I am talking of him, but that you are—) “Le beau Pere” is excellent,—& in three volumes instead of two as I thought at first. [5] Mind you send for it. But I think you manage ill in consenting to the interregnums. Why not return half the books sent to you .. & always keep a deposit? Write to the people to propose it. Or rather do it, without writing—they will see nothing strange in such an arrangement, I will answer for it—& if they do, it will be time enough for you to explain your reasons.
You are right .. and I (to do myself some shameful justice) am right about the League. [6] I am heartily vexed. Is it not hard to have a power & see a duty, & yet find it impossible to apply one to another? A man would act—a woman ....! I wrote my ‘no’ as feelingly as I could—but if other people think, as I think myself, that I have acted unworthily .. why how can I blame them? Mr Chorley told Mr Kenyon he felt so strongly about it, that if he had heard accidentally of my having such an intention in my head, he wd have written to give his opinion of it unconsulted. Oh—I did not consult him. I consulted Mr Kenyon. But it was Papa in the first place––or I shd have written at once to accept. Seeing Papa adverse, I wanted a quick opinion on my side, & consulted dear kind Mr Kenyon. As to my brothers, .. they just made me angry: & I was very angry, chafed, & out of sorts,—& shd not have minded (as I told them) the great storm of their ‘most sweet voices’ [7] … if it had not been for Papa. The secret of the bearing of men towards women, let it be ever so much “made up of adorations” [8] & the like, is just .. contempt: they make idols of them because they recognize their raw material to be wood or brass. I see this every day in a .....
Not in dearest Mr Kenyon,—who came at that moment to seem to convict me of ungrateful blasphemies against his kindness! I was not going to speak of him indeed. I will tell you next time .. of whom—& how. This letter must go in its sins—unread .. unanealed [9] —for the post goes. May God bless you.
Your ever affectionate
EBB.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 78–80.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Day provided by postmark of 17 February 1845, a Monday.
2. Doubtless EBB refers to Balzac’s Physiologie du mariage (1830); however, Balzac had published a sketch entitled Physiologie de l’employé (1841).
3. I Corinthians 15:20. See letter 1715, note 8.
4. In letter 1091 EBB had described Le Père Goriot, published in 1834–35, as “a very painful book—but full of a moody reckless power.”
5. Un Beau-Père was published in three volumes in 1845 (see letter 1833, note 9).
6. See letter 1835 in which EBB declined an invitation to write a poem for the Anti-Corn Law Bazaar.
7. Coriolanus, II, 3, 172.
8. Cf. As You Like It, V, 2, 95–96.
9. Cf. Hamlet, I, 5, 76–77.
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