873. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 170–172.
[London]
Novr 18th 1841.
I felt yesterday & the day before as if I ought to write to you, as if I wished it—& my heart had a pen in its right hand: but the cold dreary weather came between me & the light of your countenance [1] & left me with scarcely energy enough to lay upon paper the thoughts belonging to you.
Oh—I am so glad that you have the habit of returning upon your steps to give me the golden kisses—to put end upon end to your letters—because, as you must observe, that is just my fashion towards you, & I know so well the meaning of it! You must observe how I sometimes, nay, often, write one, two, three, letters running after one another with “last words”. They laugh at me for it here. “What! another letter to Miss Mitford, today!” The fountain once unsealed, will flow on.
But I cannot write much today. I began with being tired—and oh, this frost! I have enough to do, lying still here & bearing it.
Do tell me if the title of the book be simply Joan of Arc [2] —for if I call it so, Saunders & Otley may send me Southey’s epic or Schiller’s play. [3] I shall like very much to read it– Your story of the author is a stirring one, to say nothing of your praise of the book. And how wd you look at me, shd I after all take Joan & leave Napoleon? [4] Shd I be right or wrong? Think of it, as you walk once round your garden. I have been turning Napoleon round & round—& after all, I turn myself wistfully towards Joan. Perhaps my original sin of mysticism is struggling towards her visions—and then I have an inverted enthusiasm about military glories, such as Napoleon’s were for the most part. Walk once round the garden when the sun comes out, & think. The objection of the ground being pre-occupied by Schiller & Southey, I care the less for, that I wd treat the subject differently (—yes—very differently, quoth a critic—) & that Southey sang of that inspired maiden in his youth & not with his best music. By the way—I see that a great epic in six books has just appeared, under the very name of Napoleon—probably greater lengthwise than otherwise. [5]
Here is a little note from Nelly Bordman. Nelly is a pretty name—and the bearer of it, quite a Nelly in herself—with simple, gentle manners, & a sweet voice, & a sense & cultivation & a true womanly loveable nature which do not go necessarily with either. Her delight & pride in your kindness wd please you—and as for me, she is so grateful to me for saying what I did to you, that I really feel as if I had done something great too!! So thank you again, for my share of the pleasure & honor!– She tells me to inclose this note to you, & to take the blame of the blots outside.
You do “encourage” me indeed!– The most modest ill-humour, might, by favour of such fostering, arise & assert itself. Nevertheless I have not frowned myself blind up to the present moment.
No no no—my beloved friend! I do not measure what ought to be, by what is in you—it wd be unfair to everybody. You are too kind—too tender—I [6] love you too much!– And to prove how it is between you & me—–if you were to be in London a fortnight without coming to see me, I shd cry myself blind instead of frowning. [7] There wd be the difference.
I will send the Keepsake in a day or two, & you shall complete your judgment– God bless you!—& keep you better. Do say particularly how you are & how dear Dr Mitford is. I did hate so, to hear of the indisposition. But the weather—the weather. I feel it too. I cd scarcely speak thro’ it yesterday—& today I seem writing in a fog, so gropingly & heavily & wearily.
The end must be another day.
Your ever attached
EBB–
Oh but Joan. My belief is that she was true. Did you ever hear of Stilling, the German’s, book upon Pneumatology? [8] If you have not read it, I mean to make you, when I send the keepsake. There are more things in Heaven & earth than are in other people’s philosophy [9] just now– We, you know,—you & I—believe everything—and Heinrich Stilling wants us to believe more than everything—for all of which, his book interests me.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 307–309.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Psalms, 4:6.
2. The play (1841) by Thomas J. Serle (1798–1889) did have this title.
3. Southey’s poem, also entitled Joan of Arc, was published in 1796. The first English translations (1835 and 1836) of Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans bore the title The Maid of Orleans.
4. Miss Mitford had suggested Napoleon as the subject of a projected epic poem by EBB (see SD1165).
5. Napoleonis Reliquiæ: a Poem, in Six Cantos had been published anonymously by Hatchard in October.
6. Underscored twice.
7. In letter 869, EBB reported Kenyon’s return to London and his promise to visit her on 7 November, but he had failed to do so, hence her “frowning.”
8. Theory of Pneumatology by Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740–1817), translated by Samuel Jackson (1834).
9. Cf. Hamlet, I, 5, 166–167.
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