987. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 38–41.
[London]
July 18. 1842–
Before your letter came my dearest dearest friend, I was on the edge of one just ten times—& now, since its coming, I have suffered some three days or four to pass without a word. [1] The truth is, I have felt rather depressed & disagreeable—in the sort of spirits which inclines one to lean back from one’s friends for their own dear sakes,—& I thought to myself that you wd be quite as well, .. in fact, quite better, without having anything to do with me. Papa went away suddenly last week for a few days (he has returned now) to look at an estate near the Black Mountains [2] —and their shadow fell upon me. I have been anxious, presentimental .. disquieted without a reason .. or to speak it more briefly, altogether disagreeable.
And now to speak, lest I forget, of your kind castle-building, or rather cottage & bower-building for me my beloved friend! [3] If I could see you I shd be content to forswear the roses—nay, that is not a compliment, for I am content as it is. If I had my ‘choice’ like Hercules & Pomfret, [4] I wd stay here, instead of going bower-hunting. The impressions gathered during my absence were of an ineffaceable character—& so are those of the comparative peace & calm, & positive blessedness of my return. I have a large room with air enough & silence enough. I am as tranquil as if I lived “down in a leafy dell”: [5] and presently I shall get down into the drawing-room—for show rather than use,—because you see, I cant possibly receive my sisters’ visitors, & shall put everybody out of their way directly I go down. But as to leaving London, suppose I went a few miles away, & Papa went with me—first there is the risk of moving, then of fixing in a lodging—& whether the fuss of the whole wd be profitable, I question much. As it is, I make clear progress every week—get up at twelve in the morning—& attach to my daily walk with Crow, an appendix of “standing alone,” [6] which I accomplish almost as well as when I was nine months old. Let me touch a finger, & I do it—otherwise I stagger, waver, have a tendency backwards or forwards—and altogether, this new pedestal of mine is, as I say, far more glorious than safe. But it is a proof of new strength. Two months ago, my knees bent like paper if all my body’s weight were not lent away from them,—& to sustain it even for a moment is decided progress.– And now do try to imagine yourself into my place & prejudices & memories & Being generally. Think what calm is around me now—& how natural it is for me not willingly to stir from the scene of it.
Yes! you wd find contentment in London my beloved friend—there is everything here except the waving trees—everything in London except the country! We lived at Sidmouth for two years, & I who always from my first childhood loved the coast with an how unconscious enthusiasm, liked Sidmouth & very much disliked the thought of being fixed finally in London. It wd be difficult to find fit words for the feelings of depression with which the first week of our living in London abounded to me. There was a sense of impossibility that I cd ever live on so. The narrowness of the streets, .. the want of horizon .. pressed through my senses to my soul, till I struggled to pain with the new obstruction. But in a fortnight I was better—in a month, satisfied, .. in two months, quite happy; free in spite of the streets .. wishing myself no otherwhere,—enjoying the grass & trees of the parks as truly & rustically as I ever did country in my life—with a disciplined imagination & fresh inward senses, & desirous of no more. Just so, wd it be with you, my dearest friend. This London is a wonderful place—the living heart & centre of an immense circle of humanity—the fountain of intellect—of art in all its forms—of the highest memories consecrated by genius; it is your Fletcher’s London, our Shakespeare’s London, my Chaucer’s London .. “this citie of London,” said he, “which is to mee so dere & swete”! [7] And then what a miracle it is to the imagination, & one under which mine cannot cease to thrill, to sit still & silent & serene in a room as tranquil as this, considering what a great roar of life & greatness is without! You wd like my London, my beloved friend, if you knew it well & quietly: not in a whirl of company & sight-seeing, but well & quietly as I do from my sofa. You may be sure Flushie likes it. One might take Flushie for a citizen, to see the pleasure he has in looking about him at the shops, or going to the parks or to Hampstead—& in a carriage if you please: he wd far rather go in a carriage.
While Papa was away, Flushie & I went into his room to sleep, so as to give place to the cleaners. Flush did not hesitate about going—he wd not stay behind for the world—but he was very glad indeed when all the cleaning was done, & he & I cd come home.
That Col. Dundas will bewitch me I believe. [8] Neither I nor anybody in the house can remember what he said—& now I have sent out of it for information. Oh! and the post is going—is nearly going! But if I am too late, you shall hear tomorrow.
You speak mournful words my dearest dearest friend .. I scarcely dare to look back to them: only such words must be remembered. Well! if you “die in a poorhouse”, [9] I shall either have died somewhere before, or be dying or living under the same roof. Be sure of that—& surely you were sure of it even when you wrote those words: or else (which I am loth to believe) you do not love me well enough to understand how well I love you.
May God love you!—& brighten all your days—& make the last day brightest.
You made me smile—how you made me smile!—by the à propo-sity of your desire for my good fame, to Francis’s explosive tobacco pipes!– [10]
As to Mr Kenyon, .. I scarcely know how to answer. I know so few of his admired ones that I am not qualified to sound the depth of the admiration. Shall Mrs Niven be a ‘hot ploughshare’ [11] to prove him? Shall we commit him to that proof, dearest friend?– But he has not come back yet.
Your ever attached EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 4–6.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. In letter 1013, EBB explains that her delay in replying was due in part to her distress over an accident to Septimus while fencing without a mask.
2. See letter 805 for Mr. Moulton-Barrett’s earlier visit to the Black Mountains in search of a suitable estate.
3. Knowing that Mr. Moulton-Barrett was contemplating removing from London for the sake of EBB’s health, Miss Mitford had urged consideration of her own locality.
4. The story of Hercules’ choice of virtue in preference to pleasure was told by Prodicus (fl. ca. 400 B.C.); it survives in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, II, 1, 21–33.
John Pomfret (1667–1702) was the author of The Choice (1700). His choice was described by Johnson, in Lives of the English Poets, as “such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures.”
5. Wordsworth, “The Borderers,” I, 217.
6. Cf. Keats, “When I have Fears” (1817), line 13.
7. For a comment on this quotation, see letter 974, note 4.
8. Henry Dundas (1801–76), later (1851) 3rd Viscount Melville, was an M.P. from 1826 to 1831. His regiment, the 83rd Foot, was in Canada when the revolt of 1837 broke out; for his vigour in suppressing it, he was promoted to full colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to the Queen in November 1841. He was now alleged to have made a “gross and indecent” reference to Her Majesty at a dinner party. Since Dundas was unable to absolve himself, the Commander-in-Chief recommended the termination of his appointment as A.D.C., his removal from command of the 83rd Regiment, and his being placed on the half-pay list; these proposals were approved (see The Morning Chronicle, 4 July 1842, and The Times, 6 July).
9. A reference to Miss Mitford’s gloomy prognostication in the first paragraph of letter 985.
10. EBB has confused the two recent would-be assassins; it was John William Bean whose weapon contained pieces of pipe (see letter 981, note 2).
11. Cf. Southey, Joan of Arc, III, 540. EBB and Miss Mitford evinced a continual interest in the possibility of Kenyon’s re-marriage; Mrs. Niven, a rich widow, was apparently the latest candidate for speculation.
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