992. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 49–52.
[London]
August 1. 1842.
My beloved friend, I am close to you again, not to teaze you long today, but to set myself right in your judgment, which I am quite sure is turned my way with a black condemnation cap. How cd you think me in earnest in taking the part of the fair majority of fair ladies, as to the question of their sunsetting? When I said that women, determined to be married, shd have an eternal youth passed to them by acclamation, you surely, surely cdnt think me quite grave in my reasoning?
And for the rest,—why, although I am, to be sure, a hero & heroine-worshipper by religion, I am not a worshipper of Ps .. (I appreciate a certain letter just before it too well for that!) [1] and if I take the part of Pen & Ink in masses, even inclusive of the P. department, it is only when you seem to me hard upon Pen & Ink & P women, for such frailties as they share in common with needle & thread women, [2] according to the proverb & reproach of all generations. [3] It is as far from me as the Georgium sidus, [4] to defend such frailties—to do anything in fact but laugh them to scorn. Only it seems to me too cruel logic, my beloved friend, to blame Pen & Ink as Pen & Ink, for sins to which Needle & Thread are equally subject. When young ladies of forty wish to pass for eighteen they are very silly [5] —and I willingly moreover wd grant to you that silly women with an assumption of teaching the world through “my publisher,” do emblazon their silliness wonderfully. I scarcely dare to ask you to grant to me in turn, that “my publisher” is not the source of the silliness, & pen & ink not an originating but simply a collateral weakness.
Oh—we shall never agree!– It certainly does appear to my perverseness, that you, having the literary side of the world turned to you, upbraid it for worldliness .. the quality of all corners of the octagon—& that all these dreadful pen & ink people, (convert them in a miraculous moment to needle & thread & guns), as surely as the last, wd be none the less selfish & affected for it. Are not personal vanities, I mean dress & face vanities, & social vanities, dinner & visiting vanities, as bad, of as rank a smell to Heaven, [6] as literary vanities? Indeed, I fancy so—although, as I granted before, people who profess the metier du genie [7] have the less excuse for acting & talking like noodledums.
After all, I am sure I shd join you in hating the Ps, & many other a b c’s besides. Nay, after all I am very sure, that if I were teazed & haunted by them as your own dearest self, I never cd be half as kind & goodtempered & gracious as you are. I cd have thrown a bunch of nettles after P. II, [8] after she threw off your nosegay!
But this is the particular point upon which we diverge particularly. The canaille of literature may be as bad as the rest of the world, as other canailles, & as you say. But I am a hero-worshipper, & it is difficult, nay, impossible for me to believe that the hero, the true genius, is not morally greater, more generous, more faithful, more tender-hearted than the troop of vulgar men. Will you believe harm of your Fletcher? of the whole world’s Shakespeare? Will your own heart let you think either poet a selfish, insensible man? Do not their books testify against such thoughts? Wd you turn back such books as no good witness? For my own part I receive the witness reverently, [9] as if it were the voice of an angel. And however I may be, & am actually, ignorant of the personal manners & moods of the gifted men of our day, my instinct is to love & reverence them as men, & in a trust unshaken by a suspicion. And if that is very perverse,—why, you my dearest kindest friend, shd be the last to be very angry,—if you love me the least bit in the world. Wd it have been right of me not to love & reverence you a long time ago, nor keep a heart wide open for you? Had I been of your sect, I shd have fancied all manner of evil [10] of you—now, shdnt I? Therefore I was right to be ready to love you,—& that I am justified, doubly trebly justified, nay, glorified to the very hem of my perverse doctrine, by the event,—is too well proved to gainsay. Ah my dearest dearest friend! what a luckless person you are, to undo in your own person the most available of your arguments!– But we wont quarrel about who are the naughtiest “in this naughty world”, [11] all the days of our life—shall we? And here is Crow come to ask for my letter for the post, & put an end to the quarrelling for today.
I confess in sackcloth my stupidity about the ‘bridecake’! How cd I take such a fancy into my head?– [12]
No—do not write to me for a long while! do not let me feel myself burdening you!
Mr Kenyon went away yesterday. I did not see him—had a little note for farewell, & he said in it that I was to speak to you of him when I wrote to you next. His opinion of Miss Baillie [13] as a “reasoning woman” is very high.
Ever your most attached EBB.
So much to say & no time to say it in! The post is as ‘naughty’ as any other part of the world I think!–
I am sure I have seen Miss Waddington’s name on the titlepage of a novel, but cant remember, though I cudgell my brains [14] for it, how & where. [15] Thank you for letting me see her letter—although I require no better witness than yrself—& so endeth my P.P.
No. I must say besides that the ship is expected day by day, [16] & that I shall beset you with more chocolate & try to do you a little bit of good very soon, I hope.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 12–14.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. “Ps” refers to Miss Pardoe (“Miss P. the first”) and Miss Pickering (“Miss P. the second”); see letter 990. EBB’s preference for “a certain letter” just before P means, of course, M for Mitford.
2. For previous arguments regarding the merits of “pen and ink” versus “needle and thread” writers, see letters 737 and 990.
3. Cf. Jeremiah, 44:8.
4. Uranus, discovered in 1781, was named Georgium Sidus (“George’s star”) by William Herschel in honour of George III.
5. Another reference to Miss Pardoe’s reluctance to admit, or act, her age (see letter 904, note 1).
6. Cf. Hamlet, III, 3, 36.
7. “Calling of genius.”
8. i.e., Ellen Pickering (“Miss P. the second”).
9. Cf. John, 3:11.
10. Matthew, 5:11.
11. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, V, 1, 91.
12. i.e., that Miss Pickering was Kenyon’s prospective bride (see letter 990, note 3).
13. Kenyon’s companion Sarah Bayley, not Joanna Baillie.
14. Cf. Hamlet, V, 1, 56.
15. A favourable review of Newstoke Priors, by Julia Rattray Waddington, appeared in The Athenæum of 26 March 1842 (no. 752, p. 274). Her previous works were Misrepresentation, or Scenes in Real Life (1838), Janet, or Glances at Human Nature (1839) and The Monk and the Married Man (1840). Miss Mitford spoke of her as “an elegant authoress, who charmed the languors of illness by the creations of fancy” (Recollections, II, 197).
16. The Statira, bringing cargo from the West Indies.
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