Correspondence

727.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 222–226.

[Torquay]

Jany 15th 1840.

Dearest dearest Miss Mitford,

Shame on me to have let you write again, without any words of mine, in grief & sympathy for your illness, coming in between! It seemed to me when I received your letter just now that I deserved much less than usual all your affectionateness & dear Dr Mitford’s too!– And yet if loving you very much & thinking very much of you make the silence excusable, I am safe– You said you were a good deal better again,—& I on my own part was wrestling with the east wind or rather prostrated by it, & waiting for its going away, to get up again & write to you!—the getting up being altogether metaphorical, inasmuch as there appears no hope of leaving my bed until the warm months begin–

How very very ill you must have been—& suffering severe pain, I dare say, which is not the necessary consequence of illness– For the betterness I do thank God! May He grant it to grow better & better. I cannot bear to hear of your being ill––you are too dear, perhaps to the many, certainly to the few—& certainly, in a sense, to the many also!– What is Mr May doing? Pray if he shd not quite & finally succeed, take an opinion when you go to London. Do you walk enough, & lie down the rest, almost all the rest of the time? Have you not learnt to write in a horizontal posture as I do? Remember how we love you––I cannot count how many do, but I feel well how some do, without algebra– Did not dear Dr Mitford forget Don Pedro [1] & me & everybody else when you were ill—& do we not feel honored by the forgetfulness? Yes—but we wont, at least one of us wont, be forgotten by him on other occasions—& pray give him my affectionate & thankful remembrances to that effect!——

I am very sorry to hear your bad tiding of poor Mr Brown, but Consumptive affections are so various in character, & so chronic sometimes that I wd hope something better for him than one is apt to take for granted from the first sound of Mrs Howitt’s information. [2] You see how I have gone on,—& that the complaint is upon the lungs nobody can doubt—although what they call tubercular desease is supposed to have not yet taken place in me. The spitting of blood has never intermitted from last March twelvemonth, & my voice has never been able to lift itself above a whisper since October. There has been by Dr Scully’s desire, a consultation lately with a physician high in authority in Exeter [3] whom I was ensnared into seeing,—& they agreed that after all I was likely with care to get through the winter safely, & to be better in the warmer season. I made an enquiry whether it was considered medically possible for me to be ever quite well,—and the answer modified my ‘quite well’ into a tolerably well––such a degree of health as wd admit of my creeping about again with some comfort & independence; & this is considered both possible & probable. I heard it thankfully. As to strength, I must do without it, & bless God for what is left. The chest never does, I suppose, completely rally, after having undergone certain affections. I suffer no pain to signify—& the principal inconvenience, to my sensation, is debility & palpitation, & intermission of the heart’s beating. Even the cough is not troublesome at all.

Think of your remembering Ibbit Jane. [4] Talking of my maladies reminds me of her philosophy such as I heard it a short time ago. “Mama” said she, lifting up her little foot in both her little hands in the triumph of vanity (& of all the Aphrodites [5] you ever saw Ibbit is the vainest) “have’nt I dot a pretty little foot.” “You have a nice little foot enough Ibbit, to suit your little body”. She stopped for a moment, & then said, rather disappointed I do not doubt but with a very reflective face, “Yes, it must be a nice little foot, because it is glueded on to my leg.” Did you ever hear a better illustration of the doctrine of optimism? [6] She was learned in the “relations of things”, of old, & amused me once last spring by an account of meeting an old gentleman on her way to Beacon Terrace, who begged her to give him one of her ringlets to fasten upon his own head– “I told him” she said with dramatic gesture, “I told him that my hair would’nt loot well at all, mixed with his! Only sink Ba!—bwown & white!!–”

How is your godchild? [7] Do tell me.

The Bishop of Exeter’s dealing damnation round the church on Christmas day, is no romance. The curate was I suppose a soft-hearted man & tried to escape the Athanasian creed, when “Wher<eas>,” prompted the episcopal voice from the episcopal pew, & “whereas” said the curate by constraint. And then again at the sacrament, he, in his benignity substituted the word “condemnation”, .. “damnation” cried the Bishop, [8] holding up the book of Common prayer as if it were a missile! [9] And then once again—for [‘]‘thrice the brindled cat has mewed” [10] —he cried out “That bread is not consecrated!”—which really, taking one demonstration with another, was enough to tempt any person into responding “That bishop is not consecrated”. He is the very parody of what a minister of peace shd be—& this is the consequence of crowning pamphleteers with mitres. Is’nt it enough to provoke many thinking & feeling people into dissent—or at least to beguile all thinking & feeling people into forgiving that offence?

I know you of old in your theory of names my dearest Miss Mitford (which parenthesis began itself by breaking through a reverie upon Philpots) but I thought then & think now that you stand upon terrible vantage ground in holding it. Mary Russell Mitford is simple & noble at once—but what are we of the commonalty to do—& others of the more decided mobocracy & cacology? What are they to do? Would you for instance sweep away all the multitudinous Smiths in the predestination of this new nominalism [11] —all the Thomsons & Simpsons & Browns without the e? As to my first name, you have made me like it—but

 

“One name is Elizabeth

Th’ others let them sleep in death.” [12]

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett .. so that I never never could by the shining of any connubial star, have put away both Barretts .. & have nothing as it is, for consolation except etymology .. Barrett Barrett meaning in the Saxon tongue helmet upon helmet,—& even that is indicative of some unheroic liking for a superfluity of defence. No, you can say nothing for the Barretts—therefore you could’nt expect me to embrace any theory of the sort! & have I not heard, not merely of ‘savans in us’ but of excellent & accomplished families in Bottom––& out of Titania’s court? [13] And was I not told high praises only yesterday of an admirable Mr Sheepshanks who illuminated all Torquay [14] & its vicinity a few years ago? And as to Christian names, was there not a stern unbending “Rosalinda Theodora Mary” (yes, Mary!) who officiated as nurse when I lived in a nursery—? and did I not know a Clementina lovely in face & heart & mind, [15] yet simple & natural as any Lucy under Sun? [16]

Still there is something in your doctrine—some occult truth– And that reminds me of dear little Mary Hunter’s question to me years ago. She was brought up a dissenter among dissenters, & amused herself one day when she & I were together in a bookseller’s shop, with looking over for a novelty the church catechism—“What is your name? M or N! [17] How very odd! Is that a doctrine of the Church of England”? If it had happened now of course I shd have answered—“No—not of the church of England but of Miss Mitford”!– Dear Child!– I think I see her grave considering little face!–

But now here is a problem. When two contradictory names come together, what happens?– Is one soluble in the other? Does one negative the other? What do you make out of a Sophonisba Anne? I know an Eliza Wilhelmina– [18]

I used to marvel sometimes at the two most popular poetesses of the day being each named after happiness; & each by a Latin derivative—Felicia Hemans .. Lætitia Landon. And, alas, an old latin adage was exemplified in each!—. [19]

They have not yet sent me the parcel, & will not, I know, for a more eloquent tongue than mine, until certain shoes are made in London, which they mean to put up with it. Be very sure that Mr Merry shall have a candid letter from me. [20] A want of truthfulness in such cases is not one of my sins & I always feel that the very obligation under which such undeserved attention as his must place me, extracts & necessitates my openness & gratitude together–

My beloved friend, good night. I am so tired. Can you make out this intolerable writing? May God bless & keep you & dear Dr Mitford.

Your ever attached

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.

Yes—Eliza Cook suits the theory exactly. You have seen nothing if you have not seen her book—book, binding, frontispiece, autograph, preface & all!– You might make her out by the Brutus if you know anything of comparative anatomy—but the all is prodigious. [21]

I had heard some of the Jerdan murmurs, & had hoped them into slanders. [22] I never saw him in my life, nor any live critic.

Do thank Mr Townsend for so kindly sending me his hymns!– [23] Or ought I to do so myself? & if I ought, will you send me his address which I dont know– Once more goodbye– I long to hear again of your continuing better.

Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 167–171.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Henry J. Shepherd’s Pedro of Castile.

2. In a letter of 8 January 1840, Mary Howitt congratulated Miss Mitford on the latest Findens’ Tableaux, and said “We are so delighted with poor Mr. Brown’s designs. … Poor man! he is doomed, we fear, to die of consumption” (L’Estrange (1), II, 59–60). The 1840 volume was illustrated with engravings by W. and E. Finden from paintings by J. Browne. Browne also illustrated works by Dickens and Charles James Lever; in a letter of November 1841 Miss Mitford spoke of “their extraordinary individuality and variety” (Chorley, I, 190).

3. i.e., Dr. Miller (see letter 726).

4. EBB’s cousin, Elizabeth Jane Hedley.

5. The Greek name for Venus, the goddess of beauty.

6. “The doctrine propounded by Leibnitz, that the actual world is the ‘best of all possible worlds’, being chosen by the Creator as that in which most good could be obtained at the cost of least evil” (OED). The German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) is also known for his formulation of calculus, independently of Isaac Newton.

7. Agnes Niven, the daughter of Miss Mitford’s friend and frequent visitor, Mrs. Niven.

8. See letter 725, notes 3 and 4.

9. Punning “missile” and “missal,” EBB wrote the letters “al” above “ile.”

10. Macbeth, IV, 1, 1.

11. Nominalism is “the view which regards universals or abstract concepts as mere names without any corresponding realities” (OED). Miss Mitford’s “new nominalism” propounded a correlation between name and personality.

12. Jonson, “Epitaph on Elizabeth, L.H.” (Epigrams, 1616, CXXIV, 9–10), slightly misquoted.

13. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

14. The Rev. J. Sheepshanks was licensed in 1823 as Perpetual Curate of the Torquay Chapel-of-Ease (later called St. John’s Chapel). It is assumed that his having “illuminated all Torquay” refers in some way to his manner of preaching, or perhaps to some unorthodox opinions.

15. Mary Clementina Moulton-Barrett, the late wife of EBB’s uncle Sam.

16. Lucy “grew in the sun and shower” in Wordsworth’s “Stanzas Composed in the Hartz Forest” (1799).

17. In The Book of Common Prayer, the form of catechism prior to confirmation starts with the question “What is your name?” and answer “N. or M.” The candidate for confirmation gives his name or names (M being a contraction of NN).

18. Her friend and neighbour of Hope End days, Eliza Wilhelmina Cliffe, with whom EBB still corresponded occasionally.

19. The names derive from the Latin felicitas (good fortune, happiness) and lætitia (gladness, delight). It is not possible to be sure which Latin adage EBB thought appropriate; as both ladies died young (41 and 36 respectively), it obviously had something to do with the transitoriness of life: perhaps Cicero’s observation “Nature gives us a short life, but the memory of one well-spent is eternal” (Philippicæ, XIV, cap. 12).

20. Miss Mitford had obtained for EBB a copy of Shepherd’s Pedro of Castile and Merry’s The Philosophy of a Happy Futurity; she had sent them to Wimpole Street, and EBB was waiting for them to be forwarded to her.

21. See letter 720, note 14.

22. There had been gossip about the nature of Miss Landon’s relationship with William Jerdan (1782–1869), editor of The Literary Gazette and Miss Landon’s mentor.

23. In a letter dated 1 January 1840 to Lucy Anderdon, Miss Mitford had mentioned receipt “last week” of a sheet of Christmas carols from her friend Richard Townsend (Chorley, I, 167). It seems probable that EBB had received a copy also.

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