Correspondence

2626.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 37–40.

Collegio Ferdinando. Pisa.

November 5 & 8– [1846] [1]

I have your letter ever dearest Miss Mitford, & it is welcome even more than your letters have been used to be to me—the last charm was to come, you see, by this distance. For all your affection & solicitude, may you trust my gratitude!—if you love me a little, I love you indeed & never shall cease– The only difference shall be that two may love you where one did—and for my part I will answer for it that if you could love the poor one, you will not refuse any love to the other when you come to know him.– I never could bear to speak to you of him since quite the beginning, or rather I never could dare. But when you know him & understand how the mental gifts are scarcely half of him, you will not wonder at your friend—& indeed two years of stedfast affection from such a man would have overcome any woman’s heart .. I have been neither much wiser nor much foolisher than all the Shes in the world, .. only much happier—the difference is in the happiness. Certainly I am not likely to repent of having given myself to him– I cannot, for all the pain received from another quarter, the comfort for which is that my conscience is pure of the sense of having broken the least known duty, & that the same consequences would follow any marriage of any member of my family with any possible man or woman. [2] I look to time, & reason, & natural love & pity, & to the justification of the events acting through all, .. I look on so & hope: & in the meanwhile it has been a great comfort to have had not merely the indulgence but the approbation & sympathy of most of my old personal friends—oh, such kind letters– For instance, yesterday one came from dear Mrs Martin who has known me[,] she & her husband, since the very beginning of my womanhood, & both of them are acute, thinking people, with heads as strong as their hearts. I, in my haste, left England without a word to them, for which they might naturally have reproached me—instead of which, they write to say that never for a moment have they doubted my having acted for the best & happiest, & to assure me that having sympathized with me in every sorrow & trial, they delightedly feel with me in the new joy—nothing could be more cordially kind. See how I write to you as if I could speak .. all these little things which are great things when seen in the light. Also R & I are not in the least tired of one another notwithstanding the very perpetual tête à tête into which we have fallen & which (past the first fortnight) wd be rather a trial in many cases. Then our housekeeping may end perhaps in being a proverb among the nations, [3] for at the beginning it makes Mrs Jameson laugh heartily—it disappoints her theories, she admits, in finding that, albeit poets, we abstain from burning candles at both ends at once, just as if we did statistics & historical abstracts by nature, instead. And do not think that the trouble falls on me– Even the pouring out of the coffee is a divided labour—& the ordering of the dinner is quite out of my hands. As for me, when I am so good as to let myself be carried upstairs, & so angelical as to sit still on the sofa, & so considerate moreover as not to put my foot into a puddle, why my duty is considered done to a perfection which is worthy of all adoration—: it really is not very hard work to please this taskmaster– For Pisa we both like it extremely. The city is full of beauty & repose—& the purple mountains, gloriously seem to beckon us on deeper into the vineland .. We have rooms close to the Duomo & Leaning Tower, in the great Collegio built by Vasari! [4]  .. three excellent bedrooms & a sitting room, matted & carpeted .. looking comfortable even for England. For the last fortnight except the very last few sunny days, we have had rain—but the climate is as mild as possible, .. no cold, with all the damp. Delightful weather we had for the travelling– Ah, you, with your terrors of travelling—how you amuse me! Why the constant change of air in the continued fine weather, made me better & better instead of worse! It did me infinite good! Mrs– Jameson says, she “wont call me improved, but transformed rather.” [5] I like the new sights & the movement, .. my spirits rise: I live—I can adapt myself. If you really tried it & got as far as Paris, you would be drawn on, I fancy, & on .. on to the East perhaps with H Martineau, [6] or at least as near it as we are here. By the way, or out of the way, it struck me as unfortunate that my poems shd have been printed just now in Blackwood– [7] I wish it had been otherwise. Then I had a letter from one of my Leeds readers the other day, [8] to expostulate about the inappropriateness of certain of them!!!– The fact is, that I sent a heap of verses swept from my desk & belonging to old feelings & impressions, & not imagining that they were to be used in that quick way. There cant be very much to like I fear, apart from your goodness for what calls itself mine. Love me, dearest dear Miss Mitford, my dear kind friend, love me I beg of you still & ever—only ceasing when I cease to think of you .. I will allow of that clause. Mrs Jameson & Gerardine are staying at the Hotel here in Pisa still, & we manage to see them everyday, .. so good & true & affectionate she is, & so much we shall miss her when she goes—which will be in a day or two now. She goes to Florence, to Sienna, to Rome, to complete her work upon Art, which is the object of her Italian journey. [9] I read your vivid & glowing description of the picture to her—or rather, I showed your picture to her, .. & she quite believes with you that it is most probably a Velasquez. [10] Much to be congratulated the owner must be. I mean to know something about pictures some day. Robert does, & I shall get him to open my eyes for me with a little instruction. You know that in this place are to be seen the first steps of art,—& it will be interesting to trace them from it as we go further ourselves. Our present residence we have taken for six months—but we have dreams, dreams!—& we discuss them like soothsayers over the evening’s roasted chesnuts & grapes. Flush highly approves of Pisa (loving the roasted chesnuts)—because here he goes out everyday & speaks Italian to the little dogs. Oh, Mr Chorley! such a kind, feeling note he wrote to Robert from Germany, when he read of our marriage in Galignani! [11] we were both touched by it!– And Mon[c]kton Milnes & others!—very kind all. But in a particular manner I remember the kindness of my valued friend Mr Horne .. who never failed to me nor cd fail. Will you explain to him, or rather ask him to understand why I did not answer his last note?– [12] I forget even Balzac here—tell me what he writes. And help me to love that dear, generous Mr Kenyon, whom I can love without help—— And let me love you! And you love me … as

your ever affectionate & grateful

EBB.

Poste Restante Pisa

Since I began this note Mrs Jameson has left us much to our regret. Her kindness has been past forgetting indeed. How are you in health? Tell me dearest friend. Everybody writes kind letters.

Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.

Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 193–196 (as [5 November 1846]).

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Year determined from the Brownings’ residence in Pisa in November 1846.

2. See note 3 in the preceding letter.

3. Cf. Deuteronomy 28:37.

4. See letter 2624, note 10.

5. For Mrs. Jameson’s account of EBB’s health on the journey, see pp. 362–368.

6. Harriet Martineau left England in October 1846 and travelled for the next eight months with Richard Vaughan Yates and his wife on a tour of Egypt and the Holy Land. She described her journeys in Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848).

7. Seven poems by EBB were published in the October 1846 issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. They were “A Woman’s Shortcomings,” “A Man’s Requirements,” “Maud’s Spinning,” “A Dead Rose,” “Change on Change,” “A Reed,” and “Hector in the Garden.” In the following letter to Mrs. Martin, EBB reiterated her vexation at the “unfortunate” timing of the printing of these poems; and to Miss Mitford in letter 2642, she voiced her regret that anyone would associate the meaning of the poems with the recent events in her life. As she indicates at the end of letter 2627, her main concern was that her father might have interpreted the publication of the poems as a lack of regard for him. For her query to RB about publishing the poems and his reply, see letters 2554 and 2556.

8. Probably Ellen Heaton (1816–94), a wealthy lady from Leeds who had corresponded with and visited EBB in London. She became associated with the Brownings later in Italy.

9. See letter 2620, note 6.

10. In a letter to Emily Jephson, dated [ca. March 1847], Miss Mitford described “a magnificent portrait of Charles the First when Prince Charles, taken during his romantic expedition into Spain [1623], and supposed to be the last picture which Velasquez painted” (L’Estrange (2), III, 204–205, as Spring 1846). Miss Mitford had been shown the painting by the owner, John Snare, a Reading merchant. In early 1847, he took the picture to London where it was exhibited at a gallery in Bond Street. At the same time, he published The History and Pedigree of the Portrait of Prince Charles, (Afterwards Charles I.) painted by Velasquez (Reading, 1847), in which he acknowledged Miss Mitford’s assistance in verifying the authenticity of the picture: “I was about this time much delighted by the approval of Miss Mitford, who came to see the Portrait, accompanied by Henry Richard Dearsly, Esq. The accomplished authoress of ‘Our Village,’ having scrutinized the Picture, and permitted me to state the facts I had ascertained, thought well of my ultimate success in establishing the authenticity of the Painting. Approval from a lady, for whose learning, taste, and genius, I have always entertained the most profound veneration, emboldened me to declare what I believe to be the truth” (p. 66). Despite Snare’s conviction and Miss Mitford’s “approval,” the authenticity of the painting was disputed, and the painting has since disappeared. Some sources suggest the painting was taken to America; however, we have found no evidence to support this claim.

11. Chorley had left for the continent at the end of August (see letter 2570). He had seen a notice of the Brownings’ marriage that appeared in the 28 September 1846 issue of Galignani’s Messenger, an English-language newspaper started in Paris by Giovanni Galignani (1757–1821) and his English wife in 1814. The notice read: “R. Browning, Jun., Esq., of Hatcham, to Elizabeth Barrett, daughter of E.M. Barrett, Esq., of Wimpole Street.” This daily paper was much relied upon by English residents and visitors on the continent.

12. Horne had written to EBB in early August to say he was returning to England and hoped to call on her, which she called a “vexation” and wanted to avoid (see letter 2523). RB had been concerned that if Horne saw her, he would then announce that she was either still a hopeless invalid, or that she had made a miraculous recovery, either way making marriage and a journey to Italy seem untimely (see letters 2527 and 2529).

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