574. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 253–254.
London
Thursday. June 29th– [1837] [1]
Will dearest Miss Mitford believe me when I tell her that the first sentence in her note, seeming to express that it was in my power to do her a “favor”, surprised me with a new feeling of pleasure? Would that I could indeed do anything for her!– But it soon turned out that the favor was not to be done to her, but to myself—& that I have only to thank her (which is not a new pleasure) instead of obliging her.
Of course my dear friend, I shall be both pleased & proud, if I find myself conjoined in any way under the same book cover, with you—& in order to it, I will do what I can & as quickly—pushing more terrestrial matters out of the way as much as possible: but I must beg of you for friendship’s sake & adoption’s, [2] that if after all I do not appear to you to succeed, you will not have one scruple or uncomfortable feeling in sending back my MS & rescuing your fair Hindoos. Now do let this be a promise. Because if I feel it to be one, I shall both write & give to you what I write, with more freedom & pleasure. There shall not be a blotted leaf in a book edited by you—a leaf blotted by me!—no! not for the world!——
I was going to accept your proposal of sending me the engraving—but I have thought—& I believe now, that the picture from which it is taken, is one by Daniel, in the Royal Academy this year. [3] I remember that the subject is exactly the one you mention—moonlight & all. If this conjecture is a wrong one, I will ask you to correct me by a line, & a sight of the engraving—if you can conveniently; but should I not hear from you, I will put my faith in Daniel, & look at him again in the Exhibition.
You know of course that Mr Kenyon & his brother are in Devonshire just now, on their tour in search of ‘happy faces’ instead of the picturesque. I heard of them yesterday in the juste milieu [4] between Axminster & Honiton. Mr Edward Kenyon is a remarkable man—a deep & original thinker without any straining after originality—which indeed is the surest & dreariest mark of a mind utterly commonplace. I have seen & heard him two or three times, & liked his conversation very much,—& the under stream of benevolence which ran thro’ it,—but after all, our Mr Kenyon is unapproachable—for poetry of mind & vivacity of association—even when the auld lang syne & auld gramercies, are put out of the question. I envy them the sight they are to have of you on their way back to London. It will lighten the anticipation of a return to prison.
I am sure you must have much more to do than to read a longer letter from me .. But do think of me sometimes dearest Miss Mitford as
Your obliged & affectionate
E B Barrett
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 36–37.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by previous letter, to which this is a reply.
2. A reference to EBB’s being Miss Mitford’s “adopted niece” (see letter 560).
3. William Daniell (1769–1837). His Oriental Annual of Eastern Legends (1839) used as its frontispiece an engraving of his “Hindoo Maidens Floating Lamps”; as EBB says, the picture was included in the Royal Academy exhibition (no. 46 in the catalogue).
4. “Exact mean.” Axminster and Honiton are about 10 miles apart.
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