750. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 265–267.
[Torquay]
April 4th [1840] [1]
My beloved friend,
It came into my head a day or two since, that dear Dr Mitford might like some of our cream with his coffee just now—& the people promised to have it ready to go, tonight.
A slip of paper may go with it, doing no dishonor to Rowland Hill [2] —& your letter has just come in time to be thanked by the same opportunity.
I am very very glad to hear the better news of Dr Mitford .. & pray that it may wax better & better. The weather is unbending—& altho’ the east wind returned yesterday, we are not likely to be long molested. By favor of its absence I had my bed made three days ago—the first time for six weeks—but the moving to the sofa produced great faintness & exhaustion—to which however I shall not yield the point about trying again. Indeed we—Dr Scully & I—are beginning to talk of transferring me by the said sofa, & additional wheels, thro’ the one intervening door into the drawing room—let but the weather be settled, & one of us something stronger.
Thank you again & again for your endeavour to insinuate my poetry into Dionysius’s ear! [3] The failure “came as nat’ral” [4] as the kindness—albeit the last was yours. Thank you again & again dearest Miss Mitford.
I am not as severe as you—oh nothing like it—for the rest. Royalty does not sit in an elbow chair—& is forced to wear a backboard—& we shd make allowances—we who loll at ease!– A more than commonly strong soul is requisite in order to burst thro’ the cerements of the ceremonies of that unhappy condition—& there may be a want of the right degree of magnanimous peculiarity, without absolute ‘hardness’ or ‘coldness’. May there not? Miss Skerrett must indeed be a prize in the acquaintanceship of anyone [5] —but I believe I cannot claim it even by hereditary right. The family she refers to, [6] is not connected with mine on either side .. May it not be, & partly from the character of her office,—that the Queen suspects nothing of her height above it?– But oh—I am growing afraid of you–
Your most obstinate … ly affectionate
EBB—
I have written to Mr Merry—‘Merry & wise’ [7] – Is’nt he?
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 194–195.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by internal references.
2. Under the new Postal Duties Act (effective January 1840) formulated by Hill, postage was assessed only by weight; under the prior regulations the number of sheets was also a factor affecting the postage due. EBB was, therefore, now able to send an enclosure without additional payment.
3. Dionysius the Elder, King of Sicily, caused to be made a subterranean room in the form of a human ear; a communication with an adjoining room enabled Dionysius to overhear what was said by those he had confined in the cave. The workmen who had constructed the chamber were all put to death to prevent them from revealing its purpose.
EBB is referring to Miss Mitford’s attempt to bring “The Crowned and Wedded Queen” to Victoria’s attention (see letter 735).
4. We have not located the source of this quotation.
5. T.A. Trollope believed that “of all those in the immediate service of Her Majesty, it is probable that there was not one, whether menial or other, equal to Miss Skerret [sic] in native power of intellect, extent of reading, and linguistic accomplishment. And this the Queen very speedily discovered” (What I Remember, 1887, I, 362–363).
6. Possibly that of the poet Andrew Marvell, from whom Miss Skerrett claimed descent.
7. The original derivation of this is obscure; it occurs in old ballads (e.g., “The Good Fellow’s Advice” and “The Father’s Wholesome Admonition”) and Burns uses it in “Here’s a Health to Them That’s Awa” (1792), line 5.
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