797. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 19–21.
[Torquay]
Tuesday. [9 February 1841] [1]
Have you thought me the most ungrateful creature in the world, dearest dearest Miss Mitford? Or have you thought I was out of it?
Indeed the latter supposition is almost the only responsive one, considering the kindness & delightfulness altogether of your letter .. but although I have thought much of it & very much of you & yours, there are sometimes necessities of writing elsewhere & sometimes, especially in this trying weather, disinclinations to any kind of exertion .. & so I put off from day to day, nay, from mondays to saturdays, the expression of that grateful love to you which is always deep down in my heart.
First—I rejoice with you in the blessedness of seeing dear Dr Mitford better. Have you read to him Bulwer’s “Night & Morning.”? [2] Oh—I know you dont like Bulwer—& I myself consider this new romance several paces below Maltravers & Alice. Still it has a good deal of action & .. rather melodramatic .. interest .. and you could not very well,—frown as you may,—lay it down half or three quarters read. Then, if you are looking out for romances to melt away the sense of snow & long evenings from your invalid, there is the American Dr Bird’s ‘Nick of the Woods’ [3] —which for adventure & hair breadth escapes & rapid movement from the beginning to the end, will charm you far above the freezing point, though face to face with a thermometer. I recommend to you “Nick of the Woods”. I read it lately myself, & went forthwith by a metempsychosis into a pilgrim of those vast sighing forests,—& travelled so far & fast & wildly, that I cd scarcely, on my return, believe myself an oyster.
Mr Quillinan’s book I enquired for at the libraries, [4] & shall see perhaps before long. How kind of you to care for the cause of your mentioning it to me! “Your Miss Barrett”! To be sure I am! How, as you say, can I help it?– Yours in the bondage of true grateful affection!– Yours to do what you like with .. except to throw away. You would’nt do that, .. & you could’nt indeed .. you could’nt throw me all away .. not my love for you .. not far! It wd creep back & cling, do what you could!——
I dreamt of you two or three nights ago. Is it strange that I shd dream of you? Yes—because for very very long, it is strange whenever I dream pleasantly. The sun rules the day, [5] exclusively for me—& I have no sunshine in sleep—nothing but broken hidious [sic] shadows, & ghastly lights to mark them. But two or three nights ago I dreamt of you .. dreamt of seeing you at Three Mile Cross. I was there .. in your sitting room .. and what do you think I did? Sate down on your sofa, drawing up my feet beside me in my old lazy way (how impudent!–) and then said … not, “Tell me of the Tragedy” .. not “Where are the letters” .. not even “Can you forgive me?” .. but … “Now let us talk about Flush”.!!! I dont deserve to dream of you,—do I, dearest Miss Mitford?–
It was so kind too, to copy out the long extract from Mr Chorley. You were sure it wd amuse me—& so it did.
And in the meantime the Athenæum, by the hand as I divine of your ‘cynical poet’ has stabbed near the heart if not into it, our poor Chaucer .. adjusting the degrees of illtemper to the Chief chiefly, & so downwards—only gliding with most adroit cowardice, round Mr Wordsworth. Now the great poet of the Lakes was forward in spirit, in the undertaking, although the labor of the editorship fell upon Mr Horne—& if the whole design be evil, evil also was his share of it. [6]
I think about the tragedy. [7] Historical it must be, I know—or you will have none of it—& you will ’bate no inch [8] of the “sweeping pall”. [9] Did you ever try C Kean with Otto? If he is old enough for Sir Giles Overeach, [10] the ‘years’ cant be objected to.
Dear little Flush grows dearer every day—talking of tragedies! & you may assure ‘Master Ben’ [11] that he seems quite happy & grows visibly fat. He is far more courteous to the houshold than he used to be, but keeps his love & familiarity for Crow & me, & positively refuses to stir out of the house in spite of all temptations, with anybody but herself. My sisters feed him & pat him in vain. He is very civil .. & “perverse” like his mistress .. & if carried past the threshold, runs back again at the moment of liberation. A shawl thrown upon a chair by my fireside, is his favorite place—& there he sits most of the day .. coming down occasionally to be patted or enjoy a round of leaps. Such a quiet, loving intelligent little dog—& so very very pretty! He is washed in warm water & soap twice a week, & brushed & combed everyday, & shines as if he carried sunlight about on his back! Is your Flush washed? Do you know,—notwithstanding all the fame & immortality of your Flush,—I am sure he cant be, essentially, more beautiful or good than mine. There’s jealousy for you, instead of gratitude! I shd sleep in sack cloth tonight for a penance.
God bless you my beloved friend. I am tolerably well notwithstanding this intense weather, & the periodical attacks of fever & palpitation which it brings to me regularly every day at three oclock. But I am not really worse .. with a worseness which will not pass with the frost. At least I hope not, for poor Papa’s sake–
Give my love to your dear invalid—& think of <me> yourself as
your own
EBB
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 214–216.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the reference to The Athenæum.
2. Night and Morning, a 3-volume novel, had been published in January 1841.
3. Nick of the Woods; a Story of Kentucky (1837) by Robert Montgomery Bird (1806–54), novelist and physician. He had previously written The Gladiator (1831), which provided the actor Edwin Forrest with one of his favourite roles.
4. The Conspirators, or The Romance of Military Life (1841), by Edward Quillinan (1791–1851), had been labelled by The Athenæum of 5 December 1840 (no. 684, p. 964) as “Wearisome and devoid of artistic construction” though “not without interest, both as regards first invention and detail” despite the author’s being “very prosy.”
5. Cf. Genesis, 1:16.
6. See letter 796, note 3. Although Horne was the editor, it was Wordsworth who had first proposed the project, hence EBB’s statement regarding his share of responsibility for the outcome. The “cynical poet” was undoubtedly George Darley, whose “able guilty article upon Ion” aroused EBB’s ire in letter 748.
7. Miss Mitford was contemplating writing another play, and had asked EBB to propose subjects. Miss Mitford was presumably planning to respond to Charles Kean’s mother’s request for her to write a tragic role for him. Miss Mitford also invited suggestions from her friend Miss Jephson, saying: “The hero must be young and interesting—must have to do, and not merely suffer” (L’Estrange (2), III, 117).
8. Cf. Byron, Don Juan, XIII, 98, 4.
9. Cf. Milton, “Il Penseroso” (1673), 98.
10. Overreach was the avaricious uncle in Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts.
11. Ben Kirby, Miss Mitford’s manservant, who helped look after the Mitfords’ dogs.
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