Correspondence

692.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 146–150.

Torquay.

Thursday. [16 May 1839] [1]

I knew it was so—I felt it was—& in the course of my long waking last night I had resolved to write to you today, if only six words just to beg for as many from you my beloved friend. I knew that dear Dr Mitford was not well, or that you were not well—& your letter this morning so eagerly seized & opened proves it true of both of you, & yet, I thank God, is far below my fears. Henrietta tried to persuade me that you had begun your tour,—of course all in vain! You wd not have gone away without telling me what had become of you—I knew that. The weather is very trying & accounts for every indisposition—but I do trust & pray that you may have no more anxieties for him the dearest to you—nor any to give away to others, for yourself. Think of your stooping in the sun until you make yourself ill, & all for a garden!– Indeed it is almost unkind to us & quite wrong to do such a thing; & I beg & beseech you to try to find out some other John than the one who married Martha, [2] with some sort of horticultural acquirement, who would spare you from the effect of carrying on this apprenticeship system under the sun—just for a time you know. Surely any Belford Regis [3] gardener wd be proud to be allowed to help you. At any rate, I shall think high treason against the geraniums—& if you dont let them die rather than injure you they shall be as nettles in my sight for ever & ever.

The winds have done me no more harm than to make me feel uncomfortable, & shut me up again in my bedroom where I have been for several days. But what makes me write to you so very soon as this morning, is to beg you not to take the slightest trouble about the baskets which are worth none, & also to beg for Mr Naylor’s book [4] which as he was so kind as to permit me to see, I shd like to see whenever you have time to pack it up in brown paper & direct it to me, per coach or mail. If there shD be a note from you inside, the happier for me you know!——Dont send it in the basket, because that wd be to the overthrowing of the return-basket principle. I mentioned the returning of the baskets only because I had fancied that you wd have no more trouble in accomplishing it than was involved in writing my name on the other side of the direction-card—(by the way, the first came back safely)—but I do assure you that the race of basket-makers is not extinct here, barbarous as we are, & that Dr Mitford may & shall have his fish sometimes without any return-basket to put it in. In the meantime, try to forgive me. I am sure it must need an effort—for if it had not been for this fussy & most unpoetical thrift of mine, you might not have known a word of the neighbourhood of the omnibus—not for another year at least!

Thank you my very dear friend, on the part of “our boys”, for your meditated kindness to them—and as to Papa why I shd certainly disinherit him if he were not three-quarters as delighted as they will be. And then the nosegay for Arabel!—— You are so kind––& with that peculiar sort of kindness which comes close to us & makes us love you!—— It is not thus of all kindnesses––oh no!——

I am glad you have looked at Cheveley. [5]  Now I can confess with one blush less that I have just read it through. People obliged to be dumb like me, & under a medical disciplinarian like Dr Barry have as good an excuse as any can have for reading it—but after all, my curiosity & “not my will consented”. [6] I do believe, if it had not been for you, I shd have looked about for some large Harpocratic cabbage rose—very large—large enough & red enough to cover my offence immediately after its perpetration. [7] The book, if not the reader, is without excuse. It is wonderful in unwomanliness—one thing being easy & clear to see—that grief never made it. My dearest Miss Mitford, if her children had all been rolled to Mount Taygetus [8] in wheelbarrows, grief would never have brought to pass such a book as Cheveley. Wounded vanity might—never, wounded affections! The book is a hard cold coarse book—a bold impudent book—& she who wrote it may have counted many stripes but has felt none—not one—not even the worst & keenest which hardens after it has agonized.

And so I can scarcely agree with you that any possible circumstances cd have made—a woman of her! I cannot, cannot think it. There is indelicacy of intellect & heart, from the root upward. Her very learning has a flippancy in it, & a coarse-coloured blueism in the display of it—nothing of the scholar’s polish & reserve & depth & “signs of meditation”—& everything of the assumption & superficialness of third-form acquirement. Your words “clever & shrewd” are just the right words– Dearest Miss Mitford, Mrs Gore is not a woman of genius [9] ––at least I think not—but she is a woman—& is this Lady Bulwer either?–

Forgive me for being so cross—or laugh, which will be better. I believe I feel a little angry for Bulwer’s sake as well as for our womanhood’s—& you know that you are angry simply for the latter cause. He may have acted “without excuse” as she has written—but not (I very much suspect) without provocation. That he can feel, I am as sure, as that she cannot. And it is as fixed in my creed as it is repudiated from hers, that no human being can write with passion & pathos to whom those things are mere words. That (the supposition of such possibility) is the cant of the world & of the Lady Byrons & the Lady Bulwers in it—& whenever I hear that cant,—I shrink from the canter as from one unsound at heart. Suppose me to write a treatise upon the Corn laws! [10] or a disquisition on Jereny [sic] Bentham’s panopticon! [11] A fine business I shd make of it! And is the heart’s ignorance less impotent than the head’s—?– Oh, do agree with me–

You made me laugh with your report (upon Mr Chorley’s authority) of the process of Mr Tennyson’s inspiration. [12] If I were a Miss Tennyson I shd be so inclined to retort––“Let the brother be taken away & the writing desk” [13] —only I conclude that writing desks are far too sublunary for the inspired. I never shd have expected the affectations of a “gentleman-parcel-poet” [14] from him, & do trust that he may smoke them into ‘thin air’ [15] as soon as may be. It wd be the best use of tobacco, since Phillips’s! [16]

I was speaking of Mr May to Dr Barry—& he said “I think I have heard of him.” Dr Barry is a very intelligent physician—devoted to his profession.

No plan fixed about my removal to London! I long to be at home—but am none the nearer for that. God’s mercies are very very undeservedly great to me,—& for me to be patient under any little trial, shd be called rather gratitude than patience—but I do hope to be at home this summer.

Is Mr Townsend married? [17] Have you any communication with him now?

Tell me all you can about yourself. Mr Tilt’s silence, if it continue silence, becomes ominous. Mr Kenyon is quite well again (so Arabel says) & Mr Wordsworth either is or has been staying with him, & Mr Southey has been asked, in vain—being about, you know, to marry a wife. [18] Think of Mr Rogers doing the like?—I mean as to marrying the wife [19] —“Deities, are you all agreed?” [20] You will forgive the Queen now for going to see the Lions! [21] She deserves it of you!—and you deserve of me, that I shd not weary you to death! Goodbye dearest dearest Miss Mitford. Love to Dr Mitford—he shall have more fish—& how cd you fancy that it was a trouble or anything except a pleasure, for me to send it!–

Thank you again & again, though so late, for your valued letter. May the next speak more blythely of you both!—that it may, so do the part of all your writings, letters & all––“bring delight & hurt not”– [22]

Most affectly

Your EBB.

I hear that Ld Methuen has had a letter from Sir John C Hobhouse in wh. he says that the Queen is in the utmost indignation—declaring that as long as she sits on the throne of England Sir R Peel shall never be reinvited to pass her palace gates. [23] Hic jacet Toryism– [24]

I am so glad Taite & Blackwood pleased Dr Mitford—& I will not forget to please him again when the opportunity arises.

How & where is Mrs Dupuy? And is Mr H. Chorley’s health better?– Do you ever think of going to London?–

Addressed and franked by Lord Methuen: Torquay May Twenty 1839 / Miss Mitford / Three Mile’s Cross / Reading / Methuen / [and in EBB’s hand on reverse of envelope] Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.

Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 125–129.

Manuscript: Eton College Library and Wellesley College.

1. Dated by the frank.

2. i.e., a gardener to replace John Lediard, who had left Miss Mitford’s employment after his marriage to Miss Mitford’s maid.

3. i.e., local, Miss Mitford’s fictional Belford Regis having been modelled on Reading.

4. See letter 687, note 35.

5. See letter 691, note 13.

6. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V, 1, 75.

7. Harpocrates, the Greek version of the Egyptian sun-god Horus, was represented as a naked boy sucking his finger, and was venerated by the Greeks as the god of silence and secrecy. The association of Harpocrates with the large flowers of the cabbage rose suggests that EBB means she would have buried her face in the flower, in an embarrassed silence.

8. The Spartans killed deformed or unwanted children by throwing them from Mt. Taygetus, in the southern part of the Pelopennesus.

9. Catherine Grace Frances Gore (née Moody, 1798–1861), a prolific novelist, playwright and composer.

10. See letter 540, note 2.

11. Bentham, author of Rationale of Punishments and Rewards (11825), expended much time and effort advocating the use of the pantopticon, a design for a prison which was to be “circular, with cells on every story of the circumference. In the centre there was a lodge for the inspector, who would be able to see all the prisoners without being himself seen, and who could give directions without being obliged to quit his post” (DNB).

12. Doubtless a reference to Tennyson’s being a heavy smoker.

13. In letter 700, also speaking of Tennyson, EBB says “let the sisters be brought & the harps.” This phrase appears to be a humorous variation.

14. Jonson, The Poëtaster; or, His Arraignment (1616), IV, 6, 28.

15. The Tempest, IV, l1, 150.

16. John Philips (1676–1709) praised the properties of tobacco in most of his writings.

17. See letter 664, note 11.

18. His marriage to Caroline Anne Bowles took place on 5 June 1839.

19. Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) never married, but there was a rumour that he was to marry Miss Clarke, Lady Morgan’s niece (L’Estrange (2), III, 98).

20. Jonson, The Poëtaster,f IV, 5, 42.

21. Queen Victoria went six times to see the American lion-tamer, Isaac Van Amburgh (1811–65), at Drury Lane Theatre.

22. Cf. The Tempest, III, 2, 136.

23. When Melbourne’s ministry resigned on 6 May, the Duke of Wellington was invited to form an administration, but he advised the Queen to entrust Peel with the formation of a new ministry. Peel was prepared to do so, but stipulated that the Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber (all appointed on the advice of Melbourne) be removed. The Queen wrote to Peel on 10 May, saying that she “cannot consent to adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage, and which is repugnant to her feelings;” and refusing to be parted from the “companions of her childhood, the friends of her youth.” Peel then declined to take office, and Melbourne was recalled. Much discussion ensued regarding Peel’s assertion that the appointments were more political than ceremonial and were, therefore, subject to change by any incoming ministry. See The Times, 13 May 1839.

24. “Here lies Toryism.”

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