732. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 236–238.
[Torquay]
[mid-February 1840] [1]
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,
This little sheet must follow the step of my larger letter– I am not content with the latter’s competency to say what I wd say– I am constrained to more penitence before you for that unkindness of silence!– And yet how hard to repent, when the offence brought me such a vision of you & dear kind Dr Mitford sitting over the embers & thinking of me [2] .. all the snow being without .. as it always must, when you are within!!– Thank you,—both of you!– Do my beloved friend give my earnest & thankful love to Dr Mitford!– To think of me!—& to let me see you sitting over the fire & thinking of me!–! Never penitent smiled so before in sackcloth, as I did over that pleasant vision in that pleasant letter which, if my morals were properly balanced, wd have brought me nothing but remorses. I caught myself smiling .. in the sackcloth & in the remorse .. “for a’ that & for a’ that” [3] .. with a kind of heir-in-mourning melancholy-mirth!
If Agnes were not your Agnes, & if you yourself were not the tale-bearer, I never cd believe in the epigrammist being only twelve years old. I believe now, because it is impossible. [4] All you say about the terseness & Mr Kenyonness of the performance is as true as the other truth (viz about the age of the writer) is wonderful [5] —for the wonder of such characteristics & such childhood being synchronous has much more rare wonderfulness than any howsoever early development of imagination .. or genius, strictly so called. I shd be afraid of wearing the mittens for fear of being bewitched. It is very much like a snowdrop growing with the root in the air.
Can anything grow anywhere or any way with this terrible wind? The temperature of my bedroom is kept up day & night to 65 & I am not suffered to be moved from the bed even for its making—& yet the noxious character of the air makes me very uncomfortable & sleepless. I took two draughts of opium last night—but even the second failed to bring sleep. “It is a blessed thing!” [6] that sleep!—one of my worst sufferings being the want of it. Opium—opium—night after night!—& some nights, during east winds, even opium wont do, you see!——
Thank God that you dearest dearest Miss Mitford are able to hope about yourself. Oh may we soon rejoice about you .. without even the degree of fear which enters into the nature of hope– God grant it to be pure joy about you—not hope!– I am an insatiable person–
I have always forgotten to ask you– Did you ever hear how poor Mr Reade has compromised himself with Fraser .. in the magazine?– I always forgot to ask! I mean, how Fraser reviewed his poetry savagely last December or January, & published at full length still more savagely divers applications & supplications which the poet had addressed to his private tender mercies [7] through the post office .. said in observing that said poet’s said supplecatory habits accounted for the degree of notice vouchsafed to said poems by more tender critic’s than said untender Mr Fraser!! [8] Did you hear this before. It made my blood run cold with sympathy for the poor poet when I read it first. Say compassion, rather than sympathy—for one cant feel altogether with anyone capable of canvassing his critics & assuring them sous la rose [9] of high esteem & devoted attachment. Fame is not woo[e]d so by “clear spirits”– [10] How cd Mr Reade do it, or think it, or imagine it .. or bear it all, as it turned out?—— Fraser is a monster—but that being undeniable, how cd Mr Reade do it?–
If you dont see the Athenæum I will send you my verses on the wedding—tho’ they are not worth reading. [11]
Do you remember amusing me by enquiring whether a new contributor of yours to the Tableaux was married or single? [12] Well—do you know, I have not found out even yet. But I have, that he deserves to be married & well-married .. & to be like Shakespeare besides. A very very kind person—with an idiosyncrasy worth looking at, to say nothing of his genius as externally developped. He sent me by the post before last, Leigh Hunt’s Feast of the violets [13] .. after my brothers had looked for it in London quite vainly– Have you seen it? I run the risk of that, & transcribe the verses respecting your dearest self & Apollo speaking to you ..
“And Mitford, all hail!—with a head that for green,
From your glad village crowners can hardly be seen!”
And with that He shone on it & set us all blinking—
And yet at her kind heart sate Tragedy, thinking!–
God bless you beloved friend!–
Your most affectionate EBB–
What do you mean by the week? [‘]‘Do I remember the week”? what week?– I am always forgetting chronologies—times seasons .. & ages .. even Sette’s. Do tell me–
Tell me of Flush––& pray dont insult me by doubting again whether I have natural affections– Poor little Flush! Perhaps if I lived in your neighbourhood I shd prefer him to “the Duke.” [14] Which (mind!) is no want of respect to the Duke! only the heart has its caprices [15] —as they say in romances!
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 178–180 (as [February 1840]).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the reference to EBB’s “The Crowned and Wedded Queen.”
2. See letter 730.
3. Burns, “For A’ That and A’ That” (1790).
4. Tertullian, De Carne Christi, 5; see letter 288.
5. EBB refers to the stanza quoted by Miss Mitford in letter 730.
6. Cf. Coleridge, “Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing” (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 292).
7. Cf. Luke, 1:78.
8. EBB refers to Fraser’s Magazine, December 1839, pp. 758–762. Writing of Reade’s Italy and The Deluge, the reviewer said of the latter “We are not sure that we ever attempted to read such a flood of foolery” and that the former “does not contain so much as one sentence that has a meaning.” He continues “Who is Mr. John Edmund Reade? Is there really such a biped in existence?” but finds Reade’s “boná fide presence among living men” proved by two letters uncovered from him, expressing hopes for the editor’s “good report.” The reviewer speculates that “Numbers of persons … have, if known at all, been pestered with presents of these silly books; for no other reason than that the author’s vanity might be tickled by the note of thanks which common good breeding would, of course, extract from each of them. Now, really, we must enter our protest against such quackery.” After giving some samples of Reade’s verse, the reviewer protests that “Theodore Hook simply deserves to be hanged” for giving The Deluge a favourable notice in The New Monthly Magazine, but says that “a kinder-hearted fellow never lived” and that Hook “could not bring himself to resist the entreaties of Mr. Reade for a notice.”
9. “Under the rose,” i.e., secretly, the rose having been regarded by the ancients as emblematic of secrecy.
10. Cf. Milton, “Lycidas” (1638), 70.
11. The Athenæum of 15 February 1840 (no. 642, p. 131) printed EBB’s verses celebrating Victoria’s wedding, “The Crowned and Wedded Queen.”
12. i.e., Horne. See letter 710.
13. Printed in The Monthly Repository, July 1837, pp. 33–57. See letter 538, note 20 and SD825.1.
14. Taken to be a reference to the Duke of Wellington, whose seat, Stratfield Saye, was about five miles from Three Mile Cross.
15. Cf. “La cœur a ses raisons” (Pascal, Pensées, pt. II, 17, 5).
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