1964. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 288–290.
[London]
Wednesday morng [2 July 1845] [1]
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,
This little paper just proves what a “beggarly account of empty boxes” [2] I am going to send you again. I have been so busy—& the Hedleys are about to come .. listened for in every sound at the door .. & I have not a free half hour this day—& the pens have conspired against me & wont be written with, .. to make matters worse. Well– The picnicers offer their grateful homage to your ‘seigneurie’ [3] & accede to all you propose—but for tuesday .. according to the present arrangement & not for any day in the actual week. On next tuesday their intention is to go from Paddington by the twelve oclock train, which arrives in Reading at a quarter past or twenty minutes past one. There, the omnibus shd meet them—& as you represent matters, it appears only reasonable to be willing to close with the proposal of taking & keeping it for further use. It wd be too far to walk—after all the romancing at White Knights [4] —far too far. Yes—the omnibus is agreed to by acclamation—as also the two tickets for Whitefriars. And if tuesday is wet, wednesday is heir to it—that’s understood—& I shall write as you bid me. As to poor Mr Horne I protest against your taking him with guile, & pointing to the false ‘cynosure’ through the cypress-trees!—it’s enough to kill his music in his throat .. & make him too melancholy for company.
I had a parcel today from America of a new newspaper .. “devoted to social & political progress,” [5] .. & addressed to Elisabeth Barrett poetess, London. There’s a style & title for you!—quite official. The people at the postoffice, after wondering a little what sort of chimpanzee ‘a poetess’ was, wrote at the top .. “enquire at paternoster row” [6] .. where those sort of beasts are supposed to congregate, .. & the Paternoster people bethought themselves of Mr Moxon & wrote down his name in the left corner. So I received my newspaper .. the ‘Harbinger,’ it’s called .. & properly—as it’s on-looking, at least—& looks far enough “ahead” to think it possible for ‘people in general’ to know what a poet is .. & the feminine of that same.
Which reminds me of .. did I tell you when I wrote in my last hurry, of having received a letter most kind & touching in character, from Mr Hemans .. Charles .. the son of the poetess?– He wanted to come & see me—& I being forced to decline this pleasure .. &, under most circumstances, it wd be a true affecting pleasure to me, .. he has written again today in reply to my note—so kindly, so touchingly! .... I have been quite moved by it!. —“Whose memory,” he says, speaking of his mother, “must to me be of course surrounded with an almost divine lustre, her virtues associated with her genius in my recollections, as they cannot be in those who knew the writer only & not the woman.” You like that—do you not?– And the kindness to me personally, is put with much grace & feeling,—so much, that I wish I cd have seen him!– But it was out of the question—particularly after the refusal to Mr Chorley. He (Mr Hemans) goes abroad today or tomorrow, he tells me.
The Hedleys here! The knock at the door, followed by the foot on the stair! & now I must come to an untimely end .. & you must walk lightly on the clay of my sins. Really I feel as if I had not poured out my gratitude to you for your goodness in coming to see me! My hands are not clean! only my heart! [7] —which leaves me your
Ba.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 124–125.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to a letter from Charles Hemans which EBB answered on 30 June.
2. Romeo and Juliet, V, 1, 45.
3. “Lordship.”
4. See letter 1961.
5. The Harbinger was a weekly newspaper from 1845–49, edited by George Ripley. An announcement in the first issue stated that it was published “for the examination and discussion of the great questions in social science, politics, literature, and the arts, which command the attention of all believers in the progress and elevation of humanity”; and that “the principles of universal unity as taught by Charles Fourier, in their application to society, we believe, are at the foundation of all genuine social progress” (14 June 1845).
6. The famous centre of bookselling in London from after the time of the great fire.
7. Cf. Psalm 24:4.
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