Correspondence

1980.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 317–319.

[London]

Tuesday. [?22] [July 1845] [1]

My dearest Miss Mitford, our letters crossing always bring on a silence, I observe. You wait for me—& I wait for you .. which last is a pure impertinence .. & in fact I must explain that, this time, I have waited rather for myself & for Wilson than for you, inasmuch as I have had it in my head to send your parcel & have been deterred over & over. Today it goes to you—nothing worth a thank, in the most ungrammatical of singular numbers, I do assure you—only three little table cloths & a dozen napkins, & a pair of Honiton lace gloves which are rather pretty, & may be worthy of your hands .. though I by no means can be sure of it. Such as they are, however, you will accept them from me for love’s sake—& you will not be sorry to hear at the same time, that, some day before the end of the world, perhaps, I may go & dine with you on the table cloths, .. (if you will provide me such spare diet as I & the gods delight in, dry toast & a cup of milk—) or at least that I say so to myself when I go out in the carriage & bear it tolerably well. Indeed I am prospering this summer—having no books to write as last year—& the temperature being so mild & moderate. People cry out, to see me growing back again into myself, & able to walk & sit in a chair, & various other difficult works of a like order. Still I am forced to devote myself to these good works, as to other good works,—& not to spend my strength for nought on visitors, you see. I go out every day I can—& am resigned to be tired & idle during the intervals of walking or driving—& sit in this armchair like a lady who sits at home at ease––& neglect even Balzac—& fall into musings & dozings,––& shd find carpetwork rather too “intellectual” for my energies. Altogether, it is more dreary to me than usual to look forward to the winter, & forsee the undoing of all these fine silken stitches of my Penelope-health-web [2] ——but it is summer still—& I have no mind to begin murmuring at this hour of the clock.

Oh– For the pink bonnet, [3] you may be right—there may have been two pink bonnets—& for the rest, it is kind & pretty too, what you say about the general tint of rose-colour. All my people were more than inclined to see things just the same way. You charmed them all.

I pity you though, in the midst of my gratitude, & stop short in it to say so. How you can .. how you can .. receive these various strata of company, one upon another .. & yet not be a stone to bear it!– As to Mr Horne, poor Mr Horne .. I scarcely understand the aspect he wears to you. Sometimes you hate him so!—& sometimes you make a king of him, & make yourself agreeable so very much more than is necessary, that he is forced to go & see you again close upon his first visit. Just a minute ago I had a note from him, in which he says that he is to return to you on wednesday. There is good in that man—& more than the bare current good—of that, be sure!—but of course you are better instructed on most points concerning him than I can pretend to be.

Well—now let me see what news I have for you. Oh, none! Mr Kenyon, you know, is my only conduit, & for the present he is stopped—turned aside—. He has not returned from his Hampshire visit yet—& even when he does, it will be to go again .. first, to Malvern .. & secondly, to Norfolk & Suffolk. He means to creep .. creep .. creep through all the green holes in England during the summer & autumn weather—enjoying life upon system, as he does more than any man I ever heard of, I think, much less knew.

Here I pause .. & remember to have forgotten to send you Elliott[’]s poems in my parcel. [4] Now certainly you will think that I never do intend to return that book to you!!– Try to think otherwise of me. I will look for an opportunity. Or have you present occasion for the book, as in that case I wd send it at once & directly. Speak.

And write, when you can breathe from grandees. I am grateful to all my guardian “little spirits with shoe buckles,” [5] who ‘preserve my life’ [6] from grandeeism, & “company” in the general forms of it. ‘Morbid,’ am I? Perhaps so—but I cd not accept life on such terms, as your eighty six morning visitors,—though

Dearest Miss Mitford’s

affectionately attached EBB

Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 131–132 (as [29 July 1845]).

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. The date is suggested by letter 1974 in which EBB tells her brother George: “Mr. Kenyon went away for ten days today,” which places him out of London on 15 and 22 July (Tuesdays). The latter date seems the more likely because of the reference to Horne, who was visiting Miss Mitford on 11 July and was now about to visit her again.

2. See letter 1974, note 3.

3. The reference is to EBB’s aunt, Mrs. Roberts (see letter 1972).

4. See letter 1943, note 2.

5. See letter 1895, note 3.

6. Psalm 64:1.

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