990. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 44–48.
[London]
July 26. 1842–
Angry with you for importunity my beloved friend—angry with you for love! why what stuff can you suppose me made of, to suppose that? On the contrary I thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring to think & write & be persuaded about good for me in any possible respect—nay, I wd rather act upon your opinion than upon any medical opinion,—which might send me, for aught I know, to Madeira quite as soon as to Hampstead. Oh how perverse I am! Mr Kenyon told me so on sunday—and on this tuesday I am sure of it—how perverse, how perverse I am!– But “I hear a voice you cannot hear” & ‘I see a hand you cannot see’, [1] & all my omens bid me stay where I am—and then, I am under a vow, that I never will leave my family for health’s sake any more. It is my vow. I have wept tears of blood for going: I will never do it again. And besides .. Dr Chambers told me once “You are as well in London during the summer months as anywhere else”: he told me so himself. And besides .... if I wished to go, I shd have a delicacy about saying the wish. There are reasons, & ties. Be satisfied my beloved friend, & let me ‘gather my roses’ [2] in you, & feel my sunshine by reflection—which makes it twice as warm you know!– Be sure that I am advancing as rapidly towards being better as any mortal medical oracle cd predict or hope for me. Think of my standing alone, with only one hand upon Flush—he standing quietly upon on [sic] the sofa—only one hand leaning on Flush, to steady me. And I am less thin,—I look better altogether. Mr Kenyon who had not seen me for some three weeks cried out upon the improvement! and I mean to get down to the drawingroom, for the glory of it, as I told you, and to please Papa.
And now, you are to reward me for my docility & obedience (I deserve most of your praises full as well as this of my own) by sitting down directly if you please, & telling me the whole story about Miss Pickering. [3] Oh! you are a knitter of a mystery!– I am curious to the very extent of my capacity. “Bridecake—bridecake”! Why do you mean, can you possibly mean, that Miss P. the second, signified to you that Mr Kenyon proposed to her or meant to propose to her, or considered her directly or indirectly “par amour”—? [4] Is that your meaning? Now I do beseech you,—if any compassion for or sympathy with an unfortunate victim of curiosity remain with you, tell me your story. I wont tell it over again to Mr Kenyon—be sure of that: but if I see him before he goes abroad, I will assuredly ask him if he is acquainted with Miss P the second, & how she stands in what Howell calls “the horizon of his love”. [5] I may say that—all except the last word, for which of course I shd give small change. I may look in his face & talk of Miss P the second & think .... metaphysics. I wdnt betray you dearest Miss Mitford—not for a wilderness of bridecake! so do, do, open your chronicles [6] in my sight!—& consider the weakness of our common womanhood by eschewing farther delays!
It seems to me that (talking of womanhood) your pen & ink odiosities do beguile you (for you) into wonderful injustices sometimes. [7] For instance, is’nt it hard for women in the majority,—hard for them not as “great writers” but as petticoated creatures, to go down hill in the dreadful metaphorical sense of growing old? Dont they slip down, creep down backwards, & send all spectators over the stiles? Do the devotees to German sti[t]chery get down any better in general than the Miss Ps? I trow not. And even if you are right in straightening your remark within such limits .. why you shd be tenderhearted my dearest friend & consider. Miss P. the first, wishes to propose; Miss P. the second, to be proposed to. Now how effective can the most active exertions towards those meritorious ends, hope to be, without a little youth for a groundwork? One might faint nine times at forty, & dead away, and in vain, when the mere asking for hartshorn at eighteen wd do it. The inference is clear—it is better to be eighteen than forty, for marriageable women [8] —that is, for women resolved on being married—and it is clear to me besides that your Miss P the second, is far from being such a ‘fool’ as your Master Ben took her for.
And now, tell me all about it & about it. Oh no—be sure if our dear Mr Kenyon shd turn out to be bewitched, it was not achieved by the novels. He keeps Wordsworth & Tennyson in his house until weeks count up into months without reading a page of them: he is not likely to read a Miss P. But I who read more of good & bad than I dare confess, & who of late years have stretched out my hand for literature, more sometimes to be languid & half asleep over than for thoughtful purpose, know her novels very well, & have found the degree of amusement or beguilement I sought, from several of them. Nobody can praise them for good writing to be sure,—nor for any other sort of elevation above the commonplace: & the degree of talent shown in them, lies in a slovenly form,—& is not strong enough by nature to stand alone without pains. But there is a degree of amusement to be confessed in the books—at least by me when I am sleepy—& there is an amiableness & good feeling which I was always pleased to confess. Did you ever read a line, a page of them? or try to do it? I dare say not. I heard once that she professes to hate writing, & writes to live. She writes rapidly, because without an ideal: which is a very common reason for uncommon facility. [9]
Well! and dear Mr Kenyon came to see me on sunday. It was cold & rainy by the Lakes, & he & his companions (oh! who were they?) were forced to have a fire every day as it came. He saw Mr Wordsworth by two half hours, & thought him out of spirits—“depressed” was the word!—suffering much from his eyes, & wearing a green shade. He did not go near poor Mr Southey whose case is worse & worse—not recognizing even his wife!– He did’nt see Mr Hartley Coleridge! [10] I asked him if he had enjoyed it all,—& he laughed & told me not to ask questions. And yet, & yet .. if Mr Crabbe Robinson was one of his companions, .. Miss Baillie was another! [11] Yes—it is true! And the circumstance was not so much told to me as betrayed to me,—which makes it significantly true. Oh bridecake, bridecake! was this the Miss Baillie who travelled into Devonshire?—to Ross? the very same. Whether the Miss B shall clash finally with the Miss P. you know better than I do—but verily I am beginning to think that this dear Mr Kenyon of ours will come to belong particularly to somebody distinct from us, in bridecaka bridecakorum. [12]
I asked him if he had seen Mrs Niven. “Mrs Niven, Mrs Niven!!” He had never heard such a name in his life!——
I am delighted with your chronicle of your visitors, & most delighted about the Spanish translation of Our Village! Thank you my dearest kindest friend for telling me! Was it a good translation? But the fact proves the fame. There is a pleasure,—which you will acknowledge,—in the consciousness of having lived & thought not in vain,—& of being a means of extending intellectual influences & innocent enjoyments to the ends of the world. Such a pleasure may well correct the sharpness of many pains—& it is yours proudly & happily my dearest dearest friend,—& your friend’s to see!–
The Black Mountains Papa went near, are Welsh & not Irish. Arabel & Occy have gone not quite so far today .. to spend the day at Hampton Court with some friends of theirs.
Mr Kenyon & I talked of you of course. Today Mr Bezzi is to arrive as his visitor; & next monday, they set out on their continental tour—resolute to return in the second or third week of October.
I had heard of Mrs Trollope at Dr Elliotson’s: indeed one of my brothers met her there—but that was more than a year ago, & she was then less a believer than an investigator. Anybody could talk me into it in half an hour.
Will you give my love to Dr Mitford? Will you try to go on to love me?
Your EBB–
Ah—thank you for the honor you dreamt of for one of my brothers!– May your lovely young friend be as happy as love can make her, [13] —& something richer, presently!– Will you assure her by some opportunity, of my earnest good wishes? What a dreadful story this is (running the clubs I hear) about Lady Winchelsea’s robbery (supposed) of Lady Augusta somebody’s jewels. Mr Kenyon told me that they were traced to Lady W_____ & that Ld Winchelsea, noble & chivalrous in all things, & confident & indignant in this, placed his wife’s jewel case in the hands of the lady robbed—the lost jewels being found in the case!! Can it be true? [14]
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 8–12.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Colin and Lucy (1725), verse 7, lines 25 and 27, by Thomas Tickell (1686–1740).
2. Cf. Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II, xii, 75, line 8.
3. Ellen Pickering (d. 1843), a popular novelist, was, from the context, yet another presumptive bride for Kenyon. Miss Mitford described her as “so fertile as a novelist, so excellent as a woman” (Recollections of a Literary Life, 1852, II, 197). She is subsequently referred to as “Miss P. the second.”
4. “For the sake of love.”
5. Howell used the phrase “the horizon of my love” in a letter of 30 May 1619 to Richard Altham (Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ: Familiar Letters domestic and forren, 1645–47).
6. Cf. The Taming of the Shrew, Introduction, 4.
7. Yet another reference to the on-going argument between EBB and Miss Mitford regarding the relative merits of “pen and ink” writers (i.e., professional, albeit superficial) versus “needle and thread” (amateur, domestic) writers. EBB deprecates the latter class, the “devotees to German sti[t]chery”.
8. “Miss P. the first” is Julia Pardoe. See letters 897 and 903 for her supposed matrimonial pursuit of Chorley and reluctance to admit to her real age.
9. Miss Pickering’s novels included The Heiress (1833), Agnes Serle (1835), The Merchant’s Daughter (1836), and Nan Darrell (1839), her most successful work.
10. Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849), the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
11. Sarah Bayley, not Joanna Baillie (see letter 845, note 8).
12. “In the bride cake of all bride cakes” (cf. in sæcula sæculorum). See letter 834, note 9, for an explanation of bride cake.
13. Miss Mitford’s friend, Lucy Anderdon, was to marry the Rev. W.E. Partridge. As is made clear in letter 1013, Miss Mitford had hoped for a match between Miss Anderdon and George Moulton-Barrett.
14. The Times of 22 August 1842 wrote of “the loss of some jewels by Lady Augusta Gordon, in which the niece of Lady Winchilsea was plainly implicated”. It transpired that “Lord Winchilsea, a long time before, had presented to Lady Winchilsea a bracelet, &c., precisely similar to those lost by Lady Augusta Gordon.”
Lady Augusta Gordon (née FitzClarence, 1803–65), one of the children of the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, and Mrs. Dorothea Jordan, was the wife of John Frederick Gordon (1799–1878), son of the 9th Marquis of Huntly. George William Finch-Hatton (1791–1858), 9th Earl of Winchilsea had married in 1837, as his second wife, Emily Georgiana Bagot (1809?–48).
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