3452. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 271–273.
Florence.
July 20– [1854] [1]
My dearest Miss Mitford, I this moment receive your little note. It makes me very sad & apprehensive about you—and I would give all this bright sunshine for weeks, for one explanatory word which might make me more easy. Arabel speaks of receiving your books .. I suppose ‘Atherton’ [2] .. and of having heard from yourself a very bad account of your state of health. Are you worse, my beloved friend? I have been waiting to hear the solution of our own plans (dependent upon letters from England) in order to write to you—; and when I found our journey to London was definitively rendered impossible till next spring, I deferred writing yet again, it was so painful to me to say to you that our meeting would not take place this year. Now, I receive your little note & write at once to say how sad that makes me. It is the first time that the expression of your love, my beloved friend, has made me sad—and I start as from an omen. On the other hand, the character you write in is so firm & like yourself, that I do hope & trust you are not sensibly worse. Let me hear by a word, if possible, that the change of weather has done you some little good. I understand there has scarcely been any summer in England, and this must necessarily have been adverse to you. A gleam of fine weather would revive you by God’s help. Oh—that I could look in your face, & say ‘God bless you’ as I feel it!– May God bless you, my dear dear friend–
Our reason for not going to England has not been from caprice, but a cross in money-matters. A ship was to have brought us in something, & brought us in nothing instead, with a discount—the consequence of which is that we are transfixed at Florence, & unable even to ‘fly to the mountains’ [3] as a refuge from the summer heat. It has been a great disappointment to us all, & to our respective families—my poor darling Arabel especially—but we can only be patient, & I take comfort in the obvious fact that my Penini is quite well & almost as rosy as ever in spite of the excessive Florence heat. One of the worst thoughts I have, is about you—I had longed so to see you this summer & had calculated with such certainty upon doing so– I would have gone to England for that single reason if I could .. but I cant .. we cant stir really. That we should be able to sit quietly still at Florence & eat our bread & maccaroni, is the utmost of our possibilities this summer.
Mrs Trollope has gone to the Baths of Lucca & thus I have not seen her. She will be very interested about you, of course. How many hang their hearts upon your sickbed, dearest Miss Mitford– Yes, and their prayers too–
The other day, by an accident, an old number of the Athenæum fell into my hands, & I read for the second time Mr Chorley’s criticism upon ‘Atherton’. [4] It is evidently written in a hurried manner, & is quite inadequate as a notice of the book—but do you know, I am of opinion that if you considered it more closely you would lose your impression of its being depreciatory & cold– He says that the only fault of the work is its shortness [5] .. a rare piece of praise to be given to a work now a days. You see your reputation is at the height,—neither he nor another could help you .. such books as yours make their own way. The Athenæum does’nt give full critiques of Dickens .. for instance—and it is Arctical in general temperature. I thought I would say this to you. Certainly I do know that Mr Chorley highly regards you in every capacity .. as writer and as woman .. and in the manner in which he named you to me in his last letter, there was no chill of sentiment nor recoil of opinion. So, do not admit a doubt of him—he is a sure & affectionate friend, & absolutely highminded & reliable, .. of an intact & even chivalrous delicacy. I say it, lest you might have need of him & be scrupulous, (from your late feeling), about making him useful. It is horrible to doubt of one’s friends—oh, I know that, and would save you from it.
We had a letter from Paris two days ago from one of the noblest & most intellectual men in the country,—M. Milsand, a writer in the “Deux Mondes.” He complains of a stagnation in the imaginative literature, but adds that he is consoled for everything by the “state of politics.” Your Napoleon is doing you credit, his very enemies must confess.
As for me I cant write today. Your little precious, melancholy note hangs round the neck of my heart like a stone. Arabel simply says, she is afraid from what you have written to you [sic, for her] that you must be very ill—she does not tell me what you wrote to her—perhaps for fear of paining me—and now I am pained by the silence beyond measure.
Robert’s love & warmest wishes for you– He appreciates your kind word to him. And I .. what am I to say? I love you from a very sad & grateful heart—looking backwards & forwards .. and upwards to pray God’s love down on you!
Your ever affectionate
EBB–
rather Ba.
Precious the books will be to me– [6] I hope not to wait to read them till they reach me, as there is a bookseller [7] here who will be sure to have them. Thank you, thank you.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 415–417.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by EBB’s references to Atherton, which was published in late March 1854.
2. A presentation copy of Atherton, and Other Tales (3 vols., 1854), inscribed by Miss Mitford “To her beloved friend E. B. Browning” and dated 4 July 1854, sold as lot 933 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1626).
3. Cf. Matthew 24:16.
4. See letter 3425, note 14.
5. In The Athenæum’s notice of Atherton, the reviewer, Geraldine Jewsbury, remarked: “It is written in a cheerful, kindly, buoyant spirit, and leaves but one thing to be desired—that it had been longer, and the plot more worked out” (15 April 1854, no. 1381, p. 463).
6. In addition to Atherton, EBB has in mind The Dramatic Works of Mary Russell Mitford, published 20 July 1854. We have been unable to trace a presentation copy of the latter.
7. Presumably Brecker’s bookshop, located in Via Maggio.
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