869. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 163–165.
[London]
Nov. 8. 1841
I hasten to return Mr Haydon’s letter,—altho’ I shall be driven to write hurried lines in the process. Of course it can only be felt as an honor that he shd take any care about coming here—and he may like to see two or three of the pictures whatever else he may not. [1]
As for the fresco, the ideal fresco,—wiser than you all, I mean to postpone my opinion until I see it. [2] Mr Haydon’s mystical way of talking of the “poetry of dark” is winning to certain of my weaknesses—and I could’nt help smiling at my own inward sense of approval, clashing as it did just exactly with dear Arabel’s “Now what can he mean by that? I cant understand it”– Well—but—one thing is clear .. these frescos cant be after visible nature .. they cannot—and therefore I hesitate to believe their suitableness to historical pictures, exclusive of queen Elizabeth. On the other hand I dare to perceive or imagine the grandeur of spiritual subjects—spirits & angels—spreading their faint shadowless glories over a vast surface,—with an effect more lustral & supernatural than even the seraphic Guido cd drag up into his skies together with those dark blue many-shaded draperies. [3] Tell me if this may not be. And do tell me besides why Mr Haydon seems sure of the immutability of his frescos in our atmosphere of fog-smoke—why he does’nt fear for the water colour the fate of the oil. I like his letters. That intense love of Art & self-renunciation before it & selfglorying within it, I love– Even when the object is not poetry, “I love love”. [4] Do not you?–
How I loiter on my way,—never till this moment thanking you for your kindest letter. Every drop of your affection being precious to me my beloved friend, am I to say nothing to such an overflowing? Yes—nothing—or the next thing! or I will answer it better,—indeed in the only possible availing way,—by loving you back again.
But now you want to hear something of dear Mr Kenyon, who must have reached London as you say about the beginning of last week, absolutely in time to be too late! He came, we never hearing a word of it!—he living at I wont count the precise number of paces from where we live. He might have sent us a word—an “all hail”—might’nt he? But he did’nt—he did’nt. Henrietta & Septimus came into collision with him in the street on saturday—and though no lives & tempers were lost, he looked a little remorseful, & I, if I had been there, shd have looked a little ruffled. He had had a cold, however, since his arrival, & he was coming to us, & wd come the next day at two oclock & see me. I wish he had, for the sake of what I might tell you of him, & also for the sake of seeing him—dear Mr Kenyon—my own self. But he did’nt come, because Papa, in ignorance of the arrangement, went to his house instead, & I have not seen him or had a line from him up to this moment. Papa says he is to remain in town a very short time—perhaps a very few days—that he has been journeying through Herefordshire, to Malvern .. “tramp tramp across the land” [5] with his fairer demon [6] —& is now about to return .. to Torquay!! He goes to spend a fortnight with Mr Bezzi!–
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, may God bless you. I feel unreasonably disappointed (perhaps) at the drama’s making no more rapid progress towards representation. [7] I want you back again you see. There was the only evil in coming! I shall be always restless, & catching at the possibility of looking at you! Give my love to dear Dr Mitford, if I really may say so. Flush is quite well—and siezing upon Mr Haydon’s letter, left his autograph. The letter was barely rescued. Naughty Flush! As mischievous as a magpie, Crow says he grows—more & more mischievous.
Ever your own
EBB—
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 301–303.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Haydon did visit Wimpole Street on 21 November (see letter 874).
2. For previous references to Haydon’s fresco, see letter 854, notes 2 and 3, and letter 861.
3. Guido da Reni (1575–1642), a painter admired by both EBB and Miss Mitford, favoured bright, lighter colours. He had created numerous fresco decorations, including an “Aurora” (1613) on the ceiling of the Casino Ludovisi.
4. Shelley, “Song” (“Rarely, rarely, comest thou,” 1821), line 43.
5. A slight misquotation of Scott’s “William and Helen” (1796), line 185.
6. i.e., Sarah Bayley (see letter 845, note 8).
7. A reference to renewed hopes for the staging of Miss Mitford’s Otto of Wittelsbach.
___________________
