715. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 203–205.
[Torquay]
[?25] October [1839] [1]
I am afraid ever dearest Miss Mitford, to think what you may think of me with all these days nay, weeks between your last interesting letter & my acknowledgement of it. But I have been much grieved—& too unwell to stir to seek for your sympathy. Dear kind Dr Barry is no more. A second relapse followed fast upon the first, & you cd scarcely have read what I wrote in hope & gladness before all lay reversed, & by a startling decree of God, the physician was taken & the patient left—& left of course deeply affected & shaken. He was a young man—full of energy— with a countenance seeming to look towards life—devoted to his profession & rising rapidly into professional eminence—a young man with a young wife & child, & baby unborn .. & in such circumstances there shd not be room for me to feel my own loss in his unslackening kindness & interest—yet I made room for my selfishness & have deeply felt it. To the very last his kindness did not slacken––but I need not bear down upon you with all this sadness. God’s will be done .. be the close of all!——
You did your part in waging war against my obstinancy, beloved friend—but you see I would until dear Dr Barry was gone .. struggle on without medical advice—& the effect was a great deal of irritation superinduced into the system—so that upon my removal to this house [2] & the agitation of mind instantly succeeding, I was ill, & had my old attack of fever & imperviousness to sleep, & have not indeed left my bed for a longer period than three quarters of an hour, these three weeks or more. They called in the senior physician of the place, Dr Scully,—who is considered clever & safe—& his verdict upon the pulse this morning appears much more favorable. But you will understand that I have not been neglecting you through too much prosperity—& forgive a silence so sadly & heavily passed by me. And if you do, prove the clemency by the writing. I want to hear of you so very much, & besides of dear Dr Mitford!–
Oct. 29th
The above was written some days ago. Would that it had been finished & sent then, because in such a case, I might be watching for a letter from you during this now. However, the delay allows me to tell you of my being better,—& able to get to the sofa for an hour every day, notwithstanding the terrible east wind .. Papa being here to counteract it with the ‘sweet south’ [3] of his presence– And he looks so well that everybody who loves him as I do, must begin to look well too.
I had the first glimpse of the new Tableaux on ‘earthly ground’ in the last Athenæum [4] —and to judge by such faintness of light & sight, we seem to have fallen upon our feet after all my dearest Miss Mitford. Not that I ever felt uneasy about you—but what you told me had brought around me some indefinite terrors about somebody or thing in or about the lonely ladye in gold & green. So you drew a song from dear Mr Kenyon after all!– I am very glad. [5]
Miss Anderdon has written. And do when you see her, express my thanks for the kindness which she did write, inclusive of her wish to begin our acquaintanceship to come, next summer. I am sure I cannot know her too soon—but our meeting them at Torquay depends on two great uncertainties, & one of them, the last, is most unpleasant for me to think of—viz—the continuance of my life .. & of my residence at this place. I long to go away. How we drag our weary wills after God’s will .. reluctantly sadly heavily .. as if we did not recognize in it the chief wisdom! ‘We’ is written & it shd be “I” [6] ——“I” being the most inconsistent of all disquieted waters. God teach me & make me better & meeker & lower beneath His feet!——
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, I liked the Athenæum note about your garden & the King of Prussia’s policy!– [7] I wish I cd see it & you—& love both of you at a distance.
Your attached
EBB——
The new house is warm & in all ways or most, superior to the last.
Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 158–160.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Inclusive dating provided by EBB; the year by reference to Dr. Barry’s death.
2. The family had moved to 1 Beacon Terrace on 1 October.
3. See letter 668, note 3.
4. The Athenæum, 26 October 1839 (no. 626, pp. 809–810), under the heading “The Annuals for 1840,” found the latest Findens’ Tableaux “fully equal to the former volumes … Miss Mitford, the editor, is also the principal contributor: and where shall we find a pleasanter narrator of a short, healthy, racy, story, just such a one as is sure to be the gem of an Annual!” The review quoted a lengthy extract from “a wild legend entitled ‘The Brown Rosarie,’ by Miss Barrett.” (For the full text of the review, see pp. 409–411.)
5. Miss Mitford’s story “The Roundhead’s Daughter” incorporated a poem, “To an Æolian Harp,” with a generous acknowledgement to its author, John Kenyon.
6. Underscored twice.
7. The same issue of The Athenæum, in an article dated “Leipsic, October 1839” (pp. 810–811), describes the Pfauen-Insel as “the worst piece of bad taste … as if the Schloss were not already sufficiently incongruous … in the midst of an English garden.” A footnote at this point includes the comment that “There is a greater variety of plants in one patch the size of a table, in Miss Mitford’s flower garden, than in the whole open-air ‘policy’ of the King of Prussia.”
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