845. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 114–116.
[Torquay]
August 25. 1841
My beloved friend,
Thank you again & again for gilding a little the cloud which was up in the sky when you wrote before. No—do not forsee miseries. It is not good for us to do it. It wd be the bitter part of prudence—if it were prudence at all. Only in the case of any sadness, dont let me go for nothing, while a true & tender love can go for anything. True that I have still a broad circle of family affection,—even now—even with these gaps in it—the dearest of the dearest away!—but how wrong you wd be, how you wd wrong me, should you suppose for such a reason that I cd love you less. There are two ways of loving, you know– The “after the flesh” way, & the “after the spirit” [1] way. Both may go together—but they do not always: and a bare relationship-love, (beyond the very nearest cordon), is a cold skeleton-love. What heaps of cousins & uncles & aunts I have, whom, for love’s sake, I shd be ashamed to mention in the same page with you– Two aunts out of them, I do love– [2] Hearts wont branch out after the pattern of genealogical trees—at least not mine! And it does not wrong my very nearest, (for whose lives or for whose delights, this frail life of mine shd be laid down quickly as a thought, & without a thought of withdrawing it)—that you hold a place all to yourself in my affection & power of appreciation, dear in a manner peculiar. Let me love you, although I love them. If I did not love them,
“I could not love thee, Sweet, so much”. [3]
Look at them as my sureties for loving you!—& dont look at me, as if I had a heart of ‘bride-cake’! [4] I have’nt, I do assure you. I can count my friends (beyond my own beloved’s) on the fingers of one hand—& indeed shd be at a loss to get from the thumb quite to the little finger. I never tried the homœopathic infinitesimal system of love! I give it to you, dearest friend, by handfulls! But you dont say whether you mean to give me (in exchange) the precious shred of hair. Refuse it if you like—say ‘no’ freely in a moment!—only not because you dont think I love you enough!
Thank you for speaking to Mr May. Or rather I shd thank Mr May for making you. Ah! do—do take care of yourself. You are in the prime of life & faculty—and England looks to you for the infusion of still more freshness & sweetness into her literature. Take care of your health—and do, do beware of that horse. I cannot approve of your daring—you & K___ alone. It’s independence certainly—but it[’]s not safety. If I were with you—I driving too—I might perhaps like it—there’s no saying—although Flush & I are much on a par as to cowardice: but since I am away, I very decidedly protest against the whole system.
Your letter found me considering whether I shd send you the playbill, or trust to the probability of Mr Horne’s having enclosed one to you when he did so to me. [5] He merely did so—without note or comment—therefore I cant answer from authority one of your questions. But of course Cosmo & Gregory will take their turns, if the thing survive the first step across the threshold. I apprehend it will not—although the first step wont be less costly for that: & I am sorry Mr Horne shd involve himself in such a gulf. The getting out, as the poet said of his Avernus, will be harder than the getting in.– [6] Should they succeed, or show like it, what do you say to trusting your Otto.? I thought of you directly—that is, I thought silently—for not a word has passed my lips to Mr Horne, I do assure you. By the way—in sending the cream yesterday, I doubted for a minute whether I wd or would not send you the Medium together with your Pippa, by the same opportunity. And then I considered how we were on the verge of setting out to London, where communications might be thick & rapid–
We are going, I believe. The carriage, the patent carriage, was to have set out yesterday—& if it arrive in time, we may leave this place on Monday. Dr Scully, a most kind intelligent man—as in his department there cannot be more—is yet very nervous, & as the hour approaches, seems frightened out of his wits. I can only say again & again—“If I suffer, it’s my own fault”—which it is altogether. And whatever be the consequence, my beloved friend, I never shall regret the step I am about to take. It is necessary to my happiness—and what is of far more importance,—to Papa’s. If I stay here, I stay alone—I must & will. And even that wd be painful to my family—while a continuation of the present state of things, wd be still more destructive to their domestic union & peace. For myself I ought not to care. And dreadful as this place must ever be to me, & oppressive & miserable, I yet might be talked into staying—if I stayed alone– But even that wd give pain. I cannot. I have considered the subject in all ways, & I must go– And after all I may go quite safely, perhaps. There is a bed in the carriage—and its springs are numberless—and I am so much better—and Papa’s permission frees me to my bravery. You shall hear everything– So dont fancy a single evil out of a silence!–
Your romance of your Flush is delightful! and dont think, because I say romance, that I disbelieve the least detail of it. But he must stand high amid his species, in regard to intelligence. The “Nodding” is his prerogative—shared between him & Olympian Jove. My Flush has not attained to it. He is however, I think, trying to speak, & may burst out some day in a “Romans, countrymen & lovers”, [7] when we least expect it.– Indeed already he deals in all sorts of inarticulate sounds—low & not inharmonious for the most part. Whenever he is scolded long together, he answers (first throwing himself into my arms) with a plaintive apologetic cry—as much as to say “I did’nt mean any harm—pray have mercy on me.” Or sometimes, if he appears to be very ill used, he grumbles to himself,—“This really is past bearing”. There is never the least sign of ill humour. His temper wd show well in a monastery—among the most saintly. I say sometimes that we may all take a lesson in minor morals from Flush!
Mr Kenyon, I understand, is expected here today, with Miss Baillie & another lady. What Miss Baillie? Any other than the poetess? [8] They have taken a house for a week, & Mr Bezzi only hopes to detain them longer. You shall hear the details. I will write again before I go– My love to dear Dr Mitford with my wishes that he may like the cream– I must try to find some other way of pleasing myself by pleasing him, when I get to London & lose this one.
Your ever affectionate
EBB.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 265–267.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Romans, 8:1.
2. Arabella Graham-Clarke (“Bummy”) and her sister, Jane Hedley.
3. Richard Lovelace (1617–57), “To Lucasta, Going to the Warres” (1649), line 11.
4. See letter 834, note 9.
5. The playbill was of Martinuzzi, or The Hungarian Daughter, a tragedy by George Stephens (1800–51), produced at the English Opera House on 26 August 1841. In an effort to circumvent the monopoly of the patent theatres (see letter 767, note 3), songs had been arbitrarily introduced to convert it to a musical drama. Horne’s interest, of course, was in the test of the monopoly, the subject of his petition to Parliament.
6. Cf. Æneid, VI, 126: “Facilis descensus Averno.”
7. Julius Caesar, III, 2, 13.
8. The lady was not Joanna Baillie the poetess; she was Sarah Bayley (?–1868), Kenyon’s close friend and companion, to whom he bequeathed £5,000 and his house in Wimbledon. She had an adopted son, Watkin William Lloyd, and there seems to have been speculation that he was really her illegitimate son—perhaps by Kenyon; RB, in a letter to Isa Blagden on 19 October 1869, after Miss Bayley’s death, spoke of “a mild little doubt” about Lloyd’s being her “adopted son.”
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