882. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
An amended version of the text that appeared in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 187–188.
[London]
Decr 16th 1841
My beloved friend I shd have written to you today, [1] even if I had not heard from you. The void of your letters .. the aching void .. was becoming oppressive to me—and like a child in the dark I was fancying all sorts of fearful sights just because I cd see nothing– Ah—and after all, it is true that you have been unwell & harrassed by worse than personal painfulness! My beloved friend, how I feel for you! How I understand yet wonder at and admire the strength of your endurance!– How I pray that the burden borne by that tender & strong affection may be lightened, through the Heavenly mercy. Yes—it must be hard—very hard!– In such pain yourself, joined to mental anxiety—& still forced to talk on as the lighthearted & healthy might talk—and ‘no response’! No response!– That is hardest of all. But the recognition of your devotedness must be made inwardly & silently, for all the ‘no response’. You are blessed a hundred times when you do not know it! And you will be blessed hereafter, my beloved friend, were it only in the recollection of this consoling ministry—in the thought that you have been an angel of comfort to the dearest in the world to you! Your incomparable discharge of these hard & high duties will have a crown. [2] You are paying a high price for priceless thoughts. Think so, my dearest dearest friend. Do not let your heart sink. Above all do not permit yourself, for the very work’s sake, to do more than the actual necessity demands. I am so afraid for you! The nobler the energy, the more precious you! And I do fear so, lest your health quite fail under the labour you are vowed to! Oh that he wd admit some one else as a reader & talker .. so as to give you a little rest. May God bless & strengthen you, my beloved friend!– The truest sympathy that ever went from heart to heart, goes from mine to yours!–
Think of dear Mr Kenyon sitting an hour & a half with me yesterday—looking so well, talking so well .. holding up a mirror so full of all the notabilities! He has given up the Torquay plan quite. That I rejoice in. He has given it up quite, & is re-wedded to his old opinion, that “Life is not long enough for two homes.”
In the meantime London has re-charmed him. This is the hour of the day, he says, “when acquaintances grow into friends, whereas in the season, friends grow into acquaintances.” ‘By this sign’ you know Mr Kenyon,—dont you!– He is accordingly receprocating reciprocations, friendship-deep in acquaintance-ship. Mrs Butler & her husband have taken on their house in Harley Street for another year, and he doubts, notwithstanding the eloquent applause he has heard her bestow upon her adopted country, whether she will ever return there to live. Adelaide Kemble is making £400 a month—by the force of undeniable genius. This is his opinion. How that family does strike fire wherever it comes in contact with the public!– It is a wonderful instance of hereditary inspiration, to oppose to those multitudinous pedigrees of fools born of the wisest!–
I heard too a great deal of good from him about Mrs Jameson. Have you? And he had just met Moore at Mr Longman’s, where they dined together,—and six or seven melodies seemed to be ringing in his ears when he spoke to me!
My beloved friend, it is your birthday! May your thoughts & consolations in it be sweeter than the violets you sent to me .. which are very sweet still. We were once, and are even now, in a fashion, great keepers of birthdays— .. but things are changed & lights are gone, & now I try to forget mine, so as to put down that swelling of the heart, which comes instead of the leaping it once rejoiced in. I shd not say so upon your birthday, my beloved friend! May God bless you upon it—and bless us who love you, in its return, while we do!–
Your ever attached EBB–
Do give my love to your dear invalid—and when you can write a line to me, do not scruple that it shd be only a line. “We are better” is worth much to me. Think of that, & try to send me before long the three words. Mind! No more!– I wd not add to your burden, even for the preciousness of your letters! The best part of Mr Kenyon’s talk was of you—of course it was! “That goes without talking of” as the French idiom says clumsily in my English. [3] And his plan is to write to you some day that you may take lodgings for him & make no more complaints of his obstinacy for ever & ever. [4]
Oh Flushie! How you have tumbled my letter!——
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 319–320 (in part).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library, Eton College Library, and Wellesley College.
1. Miss Mitford’s 54th birthday.
2. In letter 877, Miss Mitford had told EBB that Dr. Mitford had “a grievous cough”; writing to William Harness, February 1842, she said “My poor father has passed this winter in a miserable state of health and spirits. His eyesight fails him now so completely that he cannot even read … the newspaper. Accordingly, I have not only every day gone through the daily paper, debates and all … but, after that, I have read to him from dark till bedtime, and then have often (generally) sat at his bedside almost till morning … I have been left no time for composition … so that we have spent money without earning any” (L’Estrange (2), III, 136–137).
3. i.e., “cela va sans dire.”
4. Kenyon was contemplating a visit to Miss Mitford (see letter 886).
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