827. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 73–76.
[Torquay]
[Postmark: 15 July 1841]
<***> be repeated no where. But is it not abominable cant to cry out as people do in behalf of domestic delicacy, whenever a great man is spoken of abstractedly from his works, as a man? Is’nt it folly besides cant?—or rather, wdnt it be, if all cant were not folly. For my own part, I do feel strongly that when a man has either by great deeds or noble writings, passed into the heart of the world, he gives that world the right of love to sit at his fireside & hear him speak face to face & with a friend’s voice. The man being ours to love, is ours to look at as our familiar—and if he be a man who can love as he is loved, his countenance will gather more brightness from our ‘curious eyes’ [1] than from the sense of his own dignified privacy. Dont you think so? Dont you laugh to scorn Monsieur Neckar’s complaint of the wrong done to men of genius by calling them out of their titles? [2] As if Shakespeare, our Shakespeare, were not better than Master Shakespeare, or for the matter of that, than Monsieur Neckar? As if love were not the best dignity!– And after all, to return to my position which of us wdnt like to know how Shakespeare came down stairs one Wednesday morning with his hose ungartered? Wdnt you climb your ladder ten times, [3] to catch the colour of the garters? I know how you agree with me!—and how, admitting my principle, you give your gracious forgiveness to Miss Sedgewick for that graceful characteristic sketch of your own self in the midst of the geraniums. The words too—the very words full of you & true to you—“I love my geraniums next to my father”—why shdnt we every one hear those words? Well done, Miss Sedgewick!– And you my beloved friend, will guess that I have been reading all this in the Athenæum [4] .. feeling a smile upon my own lips almost as if I saw you!——
But what a wandering from my beginning in which I began to thank you for your letter with its details. They did indeed amuse me—& I have been explaining the length & breadth of one of my ‘Whys’, to you!– Nevertheless it wd be plain to others both from your letter & my answer to it, that we are not quite of a mind as to certain things & that I am deeper in hero- & heroine-worship than you are. Yes! and you shant make me blaspheme my poets, or cease to love people “for blotting paper”—provided the blot be such as I like!– Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, why you love them too! To be sure you do!– What wd your Fletcher say if he heard with his subtle spiritual ear, that you loved nobody for blotting paper? . ! Poor wretched LEL!– I grieve for her. But I hold stedfastly—perversely perhaps you think .. (yet dont!) that her faults were not of her poetry but against it.
To speak generally, there are errors which make a blaze & a noise, more than some of a worse kind, & which are peculiar to quick irritable excitable temperaments—such as go commonly with vivid imaginations. Sin is sin—but it often happens, and did happen in the case of poor Ld Byron, that we do not deal tenderly & pitifully enough with the sinner. We are apt to judge the man of genius by his own ideal—& to apportion our severity by his eminence. This wd be cruel if it were not ungrateful. By the pleasure he has brought us, we measure back our stripes.
The end of it all is, that I do not believe there is or was or ever will be a “good for nothing” poet in the world.
There is a doxy for you!——
But poor poor LEL!– I feel all you say of the material unworked!– She might indeed have achieved a greatness which her fondest admirers can scarcely consider achieved now. And do you know (ah!—I know that you wont agree with me!) I have sometimes thought to myself that if I had those two powers to choose from .. Mrs Hemans’s & Miss Landon’s .. I mean the raw bare powers .. I wd choose Miss Landon’s. I surmise that it was more elastic, more various, of a stronger web. I fancy it wd have worked out better—had it been worked out—with the right moral & intellectual influences in application. As it is, Mrs Hemans has left the finer poems. Of that there can be no question. But perhaps .. & indeed I do say it very diffidently .. there is a sense of sameness which goes with the sense of excellence,—while we read her poems—a satiety with the satisfaction together with a feeling “this writer has written her best”,—or “It is very well—but it never can be better”. It is the flat smooth ground at the top of a hill—table-ground they call it—& many hills in Devonshire are shaped so:—a little to their loss in picturesqueness–If she had lived longer wd she have been greater? “I trow not”. [5]
I have read the Bells & Pomegranates!– “Pippa passes” .. comprehension, I was going to say!– [6] Think of me, living in my glass house & throwing pebbles out of the windows!! But really “Pippa passes”, I must say, Mr Browning[’]s ordinary measure of mystery. Now laugh at me!– Laugh, as you please!– I like, I do like, the ‘heart of a mystery’ [7] when it beats moderate time! I like a twilight of mysticism—when the sun & moon both shine together! Yes—and I like ‘Pippa’ too. There are fine things in it—& the presence of genius, never to be denied!– At the same time it is hard .. to understand—is’nt it?– Too hard?– I think so!– And the fault of Paracelsus,—the defect in harmony, is here too. After all, Browning is a true poet—& there are not many such poets—and if any critics have, as your critical friend wrote to you, “flattered him into a wilderness & left him” [8] they left him alone with his genius,—& where those two are, despair cannot be. The wilderness will blossom soon, with a brighter rose than “Pippa’. In the meanwhile what do you think of her? Was there any need for so much coarseness? Surely not. But the genius—the genius—it is undeniable—is’nt it?–
I have sent some more cream, which you must tell me about, in the case of its not arriving safe. Only in that case. I have found it to be a possible case lately, in regard to other parcels.
No decision has yet been made. [9] I hold fast to my patience—and everything will be well at last—but I do fear with all my fine words, that if my heart were bare it wd be found a very very impatient heart. This is why I say so little of what is close to it!–
This is a long long letter, & I must put off Flush to another. He is well & happy—as playful as a kitten,—& with a kitten for a playmate! Think of his condescending to a kitten! What wd his great ancestor say? Think of his carrying this little white, snowball of a kitten, no larger than his head, carrying it about the room in his mouth—& playing with it for hours together!– Dear goodnatured Flush!– We are very fond of him—I & the kitten are!– And if he is ever in a scrape, up he leaps to me, & lays his head on my shoulder for sanctuary!– I protect him! He knows that—& so we love each other.
Do you look up under the shame of these elections? I feel abashed!– [10]
God bless you my beloved friend! Tell me of yourself & dear Dr Mitford—of both in detail!– Did Mr Chorley pay you the visit you hoped for? I hope he did. And is his health better than it used to be—and have you read his ‘Manners & Music’?– [11]
God bless you my dearest friend. Love me as long and as much as you can! I love you as long as I cant .. help it!
Ever your EBB–
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 234–237.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, I, 4, 31.
2. Jacques Necker (1732–1804), the father of Mme. de Staël, was a French banker, statesman, and sometime Minister of Finance.
3. EBB’s reference is to the incident recounted by Miss Mitford in letter 825.
4. The passage cited by EBB occurred in the review of Miss Sedgwick’s Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home in The Athenæum of 10 July (no. 715, pp. 516–518). Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867), an American, was the author of A New England Tale (1822) and other works. The book under review was an account of 15 months spent in Europe in 1839–40, with very candid descriptions of some of the people she had met. As later letters show, Kenyon had arbitrarily edited her manuscript when he chanced upon it at the printer’s shop, and Miss Mitford was incensed by some of the comments about her.
5. Luke, 17:9.
6. Pippa Passes had been published in April.
7. Cf. Hamlet, III, 2, 366.
8. The “critical friend” is assumed to be Chorley, who is said, in the following letter, to have read the poem four times.
9. i.e., regarding EBB’s return to London.
10. Allegations of manipulation in the general election were rife. The Examiner of 17 July, reporting the result, wrote: “The country is sold to the highest bidders. By bribery on the largest scale, and intimidation strained to the uttermost, the Tories have obtained a majority of seventy. The sums given for votes have been of unprecedented magnitude.”
11. Apparently Chorley did pay Miss Mitford a visit at this time, as the following letters contain references to his comments to her about Horne. He had suffered a heart condition since childhood (see Henry Fothergill Chorley: Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters, ed. H.G. Hewlett, 1873, I, 158). For EBB’s comments on his new book, see letter 826.
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