792. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 10–11.
[Torquay]
Thursday– [?21] [January 1841] [1]
My dearest dearest Miss Mitford I am so grieved in this new grief of yours—and although I did “read the last page first” & carried from it all hopeful inferences, yet the hope is scarcely like enough to certainty to make me easy, or less earnest in my petition to hear how dear Dr Mitford is now. Send me some broken words, my beloved friend—will you? And oh may God be near your prayers, & blessing you beyond them.
I sent a little cream as soon as the lazy farm-people here would let me have it– Indeed I delayed longer than my wishes in applying for it—because I did want to send with it, besides Chaucer, Mr Horne’s Cosmo which Mr Bezzi seems to hold fast with both hands [2] & much resolution. I never saw him (Mr Bezzi) you know—& he is said to be an arch-amiable person. But I am in the confidence of one fault .. his tendency to the ‘retinence’ of books. Several books he has of mine, besides Cosmo—and really my prospect of seeing them again becomes more cloudy to my own perception every day.
Tell me just what you think of Chaucer—will you, dearest Miss Mitford?
Oh and I do trust that by this time you may have a freer heart for the thought of such things. The cause of the attack was sufficiently salient & evident to exonerate the constitution from unprovoked failure: and a little more prudence (such as the evil itself will naturally induce) will give room (may God grant it!) for the health which returns, to remain.
Do give my love to dear Dr Mitford—my thanks (again & again) for the kindness of his thought of me at such a time, & my hope … my humble hope, limping after all the rest .. of his being able & inclined perhaps to take a little of my cream!—& so, confer on it, a dignity above any pertaining to Mrs Trollope’s dear “crême” of transcendent lords & ladies at Vienna. [3]
How I thank you for Flush!—dear little Flush [4] —growing dearer every day. He has fallen upon evil days [5] at Torquay,—for a report of ‘mad dogs’ has alarmed the magistrates & loaded the guns, & we dare not trust him out of the house. But he runs & leaps within it enough for exercise & keeps up his spirits & his appetite—only the latter is becoming scrupulous—demurring to any unbuttered bread. In fact, Flush prefers muffins. However we go on delightfully together—that is, Flush & I & Crow (my maid) do. To the rest of the household he is decidedly hostile—will scarcely bestow a mark of courtesy upon either of my sisters, runs away from my brothers, & is coldly disdainful to one little page who has done everything possible to please him & is in despair at the result. But Crow he is very fond of—& he prances up to the side of my bed in an ecstasy to hug the hand he can reach, between his two pretty paws. We are great friends. And when my sisters & brothers are with me, there he lies .. quite down-hearted––responding to no notice .. waiting patiently, as it seems, until he can celebrate their departure by a round of leaps!– Is’nt it strange?– We cant make it out at all. Perhaps he may associate Crow & myself with his deliverance from the basket, & love us out of gratitude—but why he shd be such a hater of the toga [6] (which really is the case) & so little to be won upon by my sisters even, is a riddle to us all.
I have not seen the ‘Hour & Man’ yet. This is such a place for books! But I shall soon, nevertheless.
Oh of course .. judging by extracts .. Toussaint’s eloquence is Miss Martineau’s. [7]
Do send me good news—if God give the power!–
Ever yours in truest
affection
EBB.
Who could be stern to ‘Little David’ [8] ––but your own self?– “I wd not hear your enemy say so” [9] nor cd nor shd Think of my putting such words in a post[s]cript—Oh—the last shred of time–
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 212–214.
Manuscript: Eton College Library and Wellesley College.
1. This is a response to letter 790.
2. Cf. Micah, 7:3.
3. In Vienna and the Austrians (1837), Mrs. Trollope introduces “the circle of the very highest aristocracy … by the style and title they have chosen for themselves; they have … taken the soubriquet of ‘La Crême,’—an expressive phrase enough” (pp. 281–282).
4. The first offspring of Miss Mitford’s Flush, he became a valued and pampered companion to EBB, going with her to Italy, and dying there in 1854. See Flush: A Biography, by Virginia Woolf (1933).
5. Paradise Lost, VII, 25.
6. i.e., of the male sex, the toga being worn by Roman boys and men.
7. Miss Martineau’s The Hour and the Man: A Historical Romance had just been published. A review, with extracts, appeared in The Athenæum of 5 December 1840 (no. 684, pp. 958–959); it included this passage: “Toussaint L’Ouverture is The Man, and The Hour is that remarkable period when the slaves of St. Domingo first declared themselves freemen. The picture drawn by Miss Martineau is one of great moral interest; and she has treated it … with care and ability.” Pierre Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (ca. 1746–1803) commanded the insurgent army and was principally responsible for overthrowing the authority of France and establishing the republic of Haiti. He was, however, taken prisoner through treachery and died in captivity in France.
8. Miss Mitford’s “Little David: A Country Story” appeared in The English Journal: A Miscellany of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts (2 January 1841, pp. 3–6). It was reprinted in Atherton, and Other Tales (1854).
9. Hamlet, I, 2, 170.
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