Correspondence

2771.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 216–219.

Florence.

January 30– [1849] [1]

My dearest Miss Mitford, since we have taken to reforming in this Tuscany, everything of course goes to ruin, & among other things, the arrangements of the post office. I did not get your letter for days after the right time—which must account for most of the apparent delay in replying to it!—and now let me say first, how anxiously I read what you write about your health, & how gladly I venture to hope that really you are making progress in spite of all. Is it not so, dearest Miss Mitford? Oh, mind, in all your letters to send me details of yourself & to let them be most faithful in every case. I cant bear to think of your being weak & depressed, you who are associated in my mind with strength & cheerfulness & an unextinguishable sort of fire! Burn brightly still, I beseech you, & let us warm our hearts at you for many a year! That you should give up the poney-carriage quite vexes me. Would that I were rich to prevent the idea of such a thing! and is it absolutely necessary after all? To keep a poney costs so little in the country! Is K. a good manager? or do you not think too much of other people, to be careful for yourself? That is like you, you know. I should be joyful if you kept the poney-carriage on, because, though walking is an excellent thing, walking wont take a person quite as far as she wishes to go, & you may often be tied from pleasant engagements, particularly at night, by having to walk to them. But can this which I have just heard of you from Mr Kenyon be true .. that you are meditating an excursion to Paris? Oh, I never shall believe it till I have your own affidavit of having actually been there .. though one may understand how the temptation of a Napoleonic dynasty may draw such as you. If you go, remember the Hotel de la ville de Paris, close to the Madelaine church. We were there, & found it the pleasantest & quietest of residences for the quietly inclined, & singularly cheap—we paid only seven francs the four & twenty hours, for a suite of rooms .. dining room, drawing room, & three bedrooms—small, but full of elegance & comfort—dining out at the traiteur close by, but finding excellent coffee, eggs & French rolls at home, for which, & attendance, of course there was some extra expense. Mrs Jameson who found us going mad at the Messageries, introduced us to this hotel, & in every respect it was delightful, & I, for one, could have stayed there a month, I liked it so much. Therefore remember it in case of not being advised to better courses. As to Florence, & your kind wish of under certain conditions being able to come here, I never should be so selfish as to wish you to come, I on my side. There are many reasons why it would not suit you, want of fresh literature, want of sympathetic society, want of old associations which you are not made, I fancy, to do without. No, no, no—it would not do. We like it: but you would not like our way of life, we live so very much like snails in a shell. It sounds scarcely credible to some of my husband’s friends, that, for these two years we have been together, he has never spent one evening from home—rather “domestic”, is it not?, .. for a “good for nothing poet,” such as dear Mr Chorley & you write verses upon & make mouths at? Here are theatres, concerts, operas, going on night after night,—& never yet have I succeeded in persuading him ..... still, if it shall please God that I get happily over the trial before me, there will come a respite perhaps, from sofas & armchairs, and I shall go with him to see a play of Alfieri’s & hear music of Rossini’s: for quite a reproach it sounds to be so long in Italy & to live on as if the only neighbourhood were a frog-marsh, however enjoyable may be the home-evenings by the blazing pine-wood, & over the little supper tray’s Montepulciano & roasted chesnuts. I am very well .. really better than most women are apt to be in a similar position, & likely, say the learned, to suffer less at the crisis, from the very peculiarities of temperament which hitherto have been my bane .. so that altogether I do venture to hope that the fall has done no harm—God grant it!—the thought occurs uncomfortably now & then. One thing is certain, .. that it did not affect the vital principle—for I had not felt the dear second life until a full fortnight after the accident, & I felt it at the usual time– Therefore nothing is to be feared for the life. The opium is being steadily diminished too—and nothing can be more favorable than the medical opinions—& I have no misgivings, no fatal presentiments for myself—the only feeling with me being (I mean the only personal feeling) a sort of impression that a cup filled runs over, & that my happiness as a wife is too great to bear other kinds of happiness to be superadded—also that a life, overladen with gifts, drops naturally in the course. God be praised in all cases. I have no right to say a word but just that. Medical men hold that my health will be reinstated by the event,—and my advisor in England [2] has even counselled nursing myself, though, here, there is a difference of judgement, & with good reason as I am persuaded, considering my long morbid tendencies & present lack of vigour. The Miss Hardings, if still Miss Hardings, which they were, one or two of them, last year, might be easily “found out” with the help of your name & Dr Harding’s introduction; [3] but the truth is, we would rather not make general acquaintances though of an agreeable kind. We have not even presented certain introductory letters to accomplished persons in Florence, it being our object to live quietly & to keep clear of the turbid waters on each side of us called Florentine society. I hear that your friend Mrs Trollope holds royal “drawingrooms” some once a week—for, remain in Florence quite enough English, in spite of our Italian patriots, to do the usual English work of routs & whist & double gossip. Mr Ware is nearly by this time in England, & you will surely see him. We have had a long letter from Mr Kenyon, giving an account of his brother’s dangers during the siege of Vienna, cannons & bombs setting fire to out houses, & soldiers fighting in his garden. [4] He appears to have caught the feeling which we republicans nearly all have caught, that the horrors of popular despotism exceed the terrors of despotism after the old fashion. For my part I detect in myself spasms of an unnatural & ghastly sympathy with ancient forms & princedoms. Our poor, conscientious tender-hearted Grand Duke gives me the heartache to hear of—& Powers the sculptor was saying the other day that he would’nt last long under the sovereignty of the people .. he had too weak a frame for it. Meantime, church-affairs are in a still more curious state then political—the papacy is essentially down. The Florentine populace has sent away its archbishop under a hail of potatoes & apples .. & now, they are (by my fay) about to elect another, of their own liking .. yes, & the favorite candidate is not in orders—but what of that, I wonder? where’s the objection to that? He’ll sing his Te Deum to their “Evviva la republica”, [5] which is the principal point. Singular is it, that our English Puseyites should take up the worn out formulas of these Roman Catholics, precisely as the latter discover the fact of the wearing out. Our books are come, & our rooms look perfect in comfort. Somebody has lent us Jane Eyre– [6] As interesting, but much over-rated, it strikes us both—& how it could be doubtfully with any, a woman’s book, surprises me a good deal. Yes, the intermixtures (talking of women) in Constant’s memoirs are curious enough, but unpleasant. Louis Napoleon has a great position, & is likely to have a greater—at least I am perfectly prepared for the revival of the Empire in France– We shall see. The Orleans family, [7] on the other hand, may have an excellent chance of catching back the crown in the rebound. I believe in France, but not in the French republic. My uncles & aunts [8] are staying quietly at Tours, & there’s nothing, I should think, to fear. Father Prout remains at Rome. Tell me of your friend Mrs Acton Tyndal’s health, & of Mr Lovejoy’s little girl, & of all dear & interesting to you. Let me feel myself near to you beloved friend,—let me press close to your side. I pray God to bless & make you happy. Are any friends of yours sharpening their spades for California? What a dismal dreary gold-fever! What a dirty dust of gold!–

Mr Tulk, his daughter, & two baby-grandchildren, have all been swept into Swedenborg’s world of angels, within the last six weeks, to the deep grief of his poor surviving daughter, Countess Cottrell, here at Florence. [9] How afflictions come in flocks! Often, I observe that. You know of course that Mrs Dupuy has bought a house opposite to my father’s, & that my sisters can nod to her out of the window? [10] Write to me, & love me! I am

your ever affectionate

EBB–

My husband’s regards as always.

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

Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 263–267.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Year provided by postmark.

2. Francis Robert Jago.

3. James Harding had four daughters: Adeline Ellen Elizabeth (1815–94), Margaret (1818–89), Julia Mary (afterwards Lumley, 1823–57), and Augusta Caroline (afterwards Pym, 1830–81).

4. See letter 2751, note 25.

5. “Long live the republic.”

6. According to Henry James, the book was lent by Mrs. Story (William Wetmore Story and His Friends, Edinburgh, 1903, I, 115).

7. A reference to the family of Louis Philippe.

8. Jane and Robert Hedley, James Graham-Clarke, and Arabella Graham-Clark (Bummy).

9. Sophia Cottrell’s father Charles Augustus Tulk died on 16 January 1849. He was preceded in death by his daughter Louisa Ley (née Tulk) and her infant daughter (see letter 2761, note 3). Sometime in the autumn of 1848 the two-month-old child of John and Caroline Gordon (née Tulk) had died.

10. See letter 2769, note 3.

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 3-28-2024.

Copyright © 2024 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top