1970. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 297–299.
[London]
Thursday [10 July 1845] [1]
Ever dearest kindest Miss Mitford,
I write to throw at your feet a burden of thanks & praises from many whom you made happy & grateful yesterday. [2] My brother Alfred said to me expressively .. “Miss Mitford won every heart of us”––& that’s true—for he does not often fall or rise into enthusiasms. How kind of you,—how good of you—how I thank you! Only all pic nics are spoilt to the general mind in comparison, from this time forth for ever—nothing after Whiteknights & your garden, being found commonly dreamable. Everybody came home in a sort of ‘tipsy jollity’ [3] & a full bloom of recollection—& you were in each—your name, & that of your cottage & your colossal strawberries in proportion to the joys. And to show that it was’nt all a dream, here are only the flowers!——
Will you ask your gardener, by the way, to look in the garden for a pin of one of my brothers, .. a coral pin, I think .. which, planted there, is not likely to sprout up into a coral grove. And also will you understand that as soon as we can get an order for the post, we will send you our debt about the tickets. Acquit us in the meantime of dishonesty prepense—just as I do your lady of the Browning traditions, [4] of intentional exaggeration—though .. while I receive part of the gossip into belief, I assuredly, like a second Jove, “disperse the rest in empty air”. [5] Do you think that a man can want money, who is travelling .. now to the east, now to Russia .. spending four years in Italy—(for if it is true that he was an attaché when under age, that was years ago—) since from 1836 to 40, he was abroad, & again last year, & would be in the east now, he says, except for his anxiety about his mother’s health. [6] Also he reproaches other poets for that very thing of which his friend accuses him—a want of masculine resolve to work like common men, when they want money like them. “How can work do dishonor to any man?” he has said—“& what is there in poetry to disqualify one from ordinary duties.” So that the charge is altogether unlike & contrary to the nature of the man, which is eminently masculine & down right—strikingly so I think! Not an inch of gold lace or broidery in what Chaucer would call the “full yerdë long.” [7] So I quite, quite disbelieve. You know my dearest candid friend, it[’]s quite possible to be a “visitor & family friend,” without knowing very accurately, .. & without talking very accurately. His family may regret perhaps that he does not, by means of his talents, climb the woolsack rather than Parnassus Hill [8] —that sort of regret is possible enough!—but I feel quite confident that if his position had required him to work, he is the last man under sun to shrink from it—I would throw down my silken gauntlet to maintain that point. That your informant can be wrong, the tradition about the age proves—for here’s a fact——Paracelsus was published in 1835—& not the first work of its author. [9] Now it was well understood that Paracelsus was the production of a young man several years above twenty. No—you were more right at first, be sure. And in fact, if Paracelsus was produced at twenty, with all that curious learning & profound thinking, it is the most wonderful work produced by man—that, I should say. But no—he was young—only not quite so young as that, I believe—in fact, I am confident. And I remember facts enough to justify much confidence. It is true that Mr Browning senior, is full of refinement, book-refinement,—without the son’s genius. He (the father) was at school with Mr Kenyon. [10] The sister is considerably younger than her brother,—“by many years,” he has told me—& I hear that she is something more than a girl. So you see! Mind you dont talk of my mysteries of Eleusis [11] before Mr Horne when he comes—or indeed before any other person—for, if you do, my beloved friend, you will bring me to bane. Also I trust to you—heart to heart .. & gossip to gossip.
Oh—Conti! I thank you. I would not send Elliot, [12] because I shall have a parcel to send presently .. with a little tribute.
I have been talking, & am so tired that I begin to feel for you! Write to me—will you?
I am your ever affectionate
Ba–
shall it be?
Talking of Eleusinian mysteries, did you understand that the escapade yesterday was unknown to the High priest here?—to Papa, I mean?–– Very wrong!– Yes—that is true. You must not mention it!– A little over-strictness sometimes drives into temptation.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 126–128.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the picnic at Three Mile Cross the previous day.
2. Regarding the picnic, EBB’s cousin, Surtees Cook, recorded the following in his journal: “Susan [Surtees’s sister] was brought up at 11 [Downing Street] to my lodging by 9—& I took her up with Tresier [Surtees’s batman] on the box of a cab to Paddington Station. Here we met the party—Henrietta, Harry, Miss Minto, Mrs. Geo. Hedley, Mr. & Mrs. Roberts, & of course Mr. Chapman (the banker’s clerk) [Henrietta’s suitor, as was Surtees] & Bell. We went per train to Reading—then to White Knight’s Park where we met Miss Mitford the authoress, Arabel, Alfred, Ocky, & Charlie Bell who had come earlier. We dined on the grass & proceeded to Miss Mitford’s cottage at a village three miles off. Here we had tea, strawberries & other fruit. Came to the station again by conveyances—and so to London” (Surtees, 9 July 1845).
3. Cf. Milton, Comus, line 104.
4. The editors of EBB-MRM suggest that this may be a reference to Anna Maria Goldsmid (1805–89) whose father was Miss Mitford’s friend. Later in 1848, Miss Mitford mentions to EBB that she has seen “the Miss Goldsmids, Sir Issac Goldsmid’s daughters. The eldest is a remarkable woman, and she spoke of Mr. Browning with great interest, as having been at the London University with her brothers” (L’Estrange (2), III, 211).
5. Cf. I Corinthians 14:9.
6. EBB is mistaken about RB’s travels; he did not spend four years in Italy. For a chronology of his travels, see Checklist, pp. 492–498.
7. Cf. Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale,” line 192.
8. i.e., become a lawyer instead of a poet; however, there is no evidence that RB’s parents discouraged his career as a poet. Parnassus was considered sacred to Apollo and the muses, and thus referred to as a seat of music and poetry. The Woolsack is the Lord Chancellor’s seat in the House of Lords.
9. Pauline, published anonymously in 1833, was RB’s first publication.
10. At the school of the Rev. A. Bell at Cheshunt (see vol. 3, p. 307). RB’s sister, Sarianna, was born on 7 January 1814.
11. A reference to the most secret rites associated with the worship of Demeter and Persephone, celebrating the coming of spring.
12. Perhaps a reference to the Corn-Law Rhymes (1831) by Ebenezer Elliott. Conti the Discarded; with Other Tales and Fancies (3 vols., 1835) is by Henry Fothergill Chorley.
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