653. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 59–62.
50 Wimpole Street.
Saturday– [14 July 1838] [1]
My ever dearest Miss Mitford’s discernment was at fault when she decided that we must want the papers again. Perhaps the late arrival of the Atlas made her decide so—but we sent it late, only because we heard late of the review contained in it—& now I am provoked that this little mistake shd have driven you into the trouble—you, with so much to bear for yourself & to do for the whole world—of writing extracts about me! That it shd have done so has at once provoked & touched me! How kind you are! But pray for the future keep whatever we send to you. Papa had packed up a number of the Athenæum to the same destination, & was withheld from sending it only by the fierce evidence contained in your letter, of its being already in your possession.
And this fierce evidence is just one of my excuses (call it a reason by courtesy) for writing to you quite so soon again—for indeed while your kindness ‘rejoices’ in hearing from me, I am not easy in adding to those burdens which your most affectionate friends (& should I appear the least so?) would rather not add to, even by such a straw as this.
I am anxious to say that dear as your love is to me, & dear therefore as every proof of it must be, it wd pain me the only way it ever could, if it led you to be displeased with any who see me & judge me & whose office it is, to see me & judge me, by a colder & less deceptive light. And I wish besides to impress it upon you my very dear & generous friend, that so far from being annoyed or even disappointed by the review in the Athenæum I was abundantly satisfied & gratified by it. There are more who will complain of its praising me too much than of its blaming me at all—and I have good reason to be obliged to the critic, to Mr Chorley, both for the actual praise he gives my poetry & for the willingness to praise, manifest I think in all parts of his criticism. As to the blame—certainly it is not pleasant to be called “affected” as in the Atlas (I confess to eschewing some things in that review) or even to be charged with attitudinizing as in the more gentle Athenæum. [2] But you know if things appear so to critics, it is quite right & honest for corresponding statements to be made. Indeed I am not ‘perverse’ as dear Mr Kenyon calls it. I can understand what he means in his charge of unintelligibility, & often try tho’ so often in vain, not to deserve it. But I do not understand how anyone who writes from the real natural impulse of feeling & thought,—& if I know myself, I [3] do—can write affectedly, even in the manner of it. As to attitudes I never did study them. I never did take any thought as to forming a style—which formed itsel<f> by force of writing, & which (without perverseness) it will be a hard thing to form anew. But this is “a groan” aside—& expressive of my misfortune & of nobody’s fault. If I live I hope & believe I shall write better—not more from natural impulse—I cannot do that—I deny that charge of affectation—but better. But were I to do so, I would turn from the pleasure & the pride of hearing it confessed (were that also mine) to the dearer pride & pleasure of being so loved by you—I would indeed. You may believe it, for all this egotism.
Your note is so characteristic that it made me smile again & again. Lady Mary Shepherd is a kind & cordial woman—& I admire her talents & conversational eloquence. But she is ‘terrible’ notwithstanding, without the intent of being so—& whenever I used to like to hear her talk, it was always under the proviso, that she did’nt talk to me. And I have know<n> gentlemen shrink away from her, from a mor<e> definite fear than mine—for fear of being examined in metaphysics!!– Yet, I admire & like her—& the strongest remembrance I have of the short & distant period of our acquaintance is a grateful one. She once gave me sympathy when I needed it.
Your note—the chapter on authoresses—how it amused me—& how characteristic, I mean in the manner of it, of the most earnest & womanly authoress in all England! I had asked (long ago) Mr Kenyon, on the subject of Miss Landon—but he never met her anywhere, & could tell me nothing.
Your mentioning Mrs Opie has dovetailed an old dream. With all her feeblenesses, yes, & sillinesses sometimes, she is very moving in her best stories. Her ‘Father & daughter’ used to draw my childish tears—& so did ‘Valentine’s Eve’—& these constitute my chief impressions of her writings. The Illustrations of lying, which I read more lately, I made it a point of conscience (very congenially) to forget immediately. If she shd come here I shall be glad & with reason. [4]
Mr Townsend had been so kind as to send me a supplement to his Rail Road—the Poems on the Liverpool Association [5] —& a very flattering & pleasing letter—some more of the reflection of your friendship.
But if I write any more you will believe what I do already, that it is nearly impossible to write a short letter to you. I assure you I began this one with the best intentions—& you see how they end– Give my thankful regards to Dr Mitford. I do hope he continues tolerably well—& you yourself!— I am better for the sun–
My beloved friend’s grateful
E B Barrett.
Mr Kenyon we said goodbye to, on tuesday. He went on Wednesday to Cheltenham & Malvern & the Wye for ten days. On reading the Athenæum, I sent my brother out on a vain search for Edgar Quinet whom I never heard of before. [6] A foreign bookseller told him that he had had one or two copies from Paris—“But” (he added ominously) “the English wont buy poetry”.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 82–85.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by Miss Mitford’s returning the magazine reviews of The Seraphim.
2. For details of The Atlas and Athenæum reviews, see letter 655, notes 2 and 3.
3. Underscored twice.
4. Amelia Opie (née Alderson, 1769–1853), poet and novelist, the widow of John Opie the painter, was a friend of Miss Mitford. EBB refers to Father and Daughter (1801), Valentine’s Eve (1816) and Illustrations of Lying in All Its Branches (1825). Mrs. Opie became a Quaker in 1825, at which time she abandoned the writing of novels.
5. Presumably a privately-printed work, as there is no formal record of publication.
6. The reviewer (Chorley) remarked on “a remarkable coincidence” in spirit, in EBB’s preface, to some observations in the prelude to Prométhée (1838) by Quinet (1803–75), the French poet-philosopher, “in which the lofty-thoughted but wild genius also proposes to himself the completion of the Pagan fable.” He then quoted Quinet at some length.
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