1044. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 141–143.
[London]
Nov. 5th 1842–
My beloved friend, your little bit of dear letter quite frightened me today, at the first sight—but nothing seems to be worse & you do not complain yourself of illness. May God support you constantly. I have had a letter from Mr Haydon today & he just speaks of you. Be sure of the deep interest & sympathy not merely of those whom you call ‘friends’, but of many many besides, who conscious of the circumstances, are yet unacquainted with you personally & <be>yond your books. You are dear everywhere!
Crow says that the rough chocolate shd be boiled, & that the other in lead, shd have hot water only poured upon it—and she will have & hold [1] that you must understand this difference of process by instinct or inspiration or something, without my saying a word about it. Tell me (mind) which you prefer. The rough unsightly-looking material comes straight to us from the West Indies.
Did you ever hear of a Mr Westwood? He is the author of a volume of poems with poetical feeling in them & grace—not much power or originality,—& several graceful lyrics have appeared with his name in the Athenæum. [2] He lives somewhere at Enfield, and is so kindly, even cordially inclined towards me, that I feel quite obliged to him. I had a letter from him two or three days since for the second or third, .. nay, I do believe, the fourth time, .. (now that I consider, ..) saying much of the “household” influence of my poems with him & his friends to my great gratification. “His soul has entered into my secret” [3] —but the majority of readers, unfortunately, does not live at riddledom. I will try to attend to your admonitions, my dearest kind friend! Yes! Nevertheless we must bear in mind the distinction, of what is obscure through imperfection of the expression, & what is obscure by the nature of the thought. The first kind of obscurity belongs to weak writers, and <I> admit frankly my share in it,—but the second is the property of the strongest, & cannot be abandoned without a descent. Æschylus & Pindar, down to Wordsworth & Coleridge have borne & deserve whatever reproach attends the second species of obscurity: and Wordsworth & Coleridge have both declared in their prefaces that to be incompletely understood by their contemporaries must be the portion of all true poets whatever. [4] Not that I say this, as my excuse! for I am dark in common things [5] —I admit it sorrowfully. But Mr Browning who is obscure also, so, sometimes,—is very often out of sight because he stands on an elevation. You will grant that to me, I am sure.
And now I shall wander away & grant to Mrs Leslie some part of her pleading against Mr Kenyon. [6] I forgot to tell it to you when I told you of the marriage, [7] but he certainly did say—. “I arranged it all—I did it! yet I am averse to marriage in general—I am opposed to it usually.”
So she had good ground for what she said of his marriage-hating after all. I did not ask ‘Why are you opposed to it,’—having no particular interest in arguing the point with him.
Poor Mr Walters! And your quick sympathies all in a flame of course, because his premises were!– [8]
You are quite right about Mrs Orme. She is a kind, warm-hearted woman of the world,—rather clever & shrewd than ‘sensible’ in the usual sense,—well-informed but not literary. There are remains of great beauty in her now—beauty on a large scale, but lit up with what Mr Horne calls fitly “a beautiful smile”, .. a smile more brilliant than soft. Think of a governess—& then reverse her for Mrs Orme! Never was any woman less like a governess between the poles. Very agreeable, .. a little indiscreet, .. with polished animated manners .. & talk of everybody in the world who is anybody in the world. And through it all,—oh you are so right!—is this devotion to quacks one after another as they come, from generation to generation. She is sure to die some day, by a quack. From homœopathy to the Cold water cure [9] she has passed since last year—with a background of Mesmerism to suit! She sate in a tub till she almost lost both her eyes—and altho’ they look as bright as ever now, yet I am by no means sure that she wont go back to the tub again between this & Christmas day. It must be tempting ‘at these presents’—must’nt it? Dear Mrs Orme! I love her, & she loves me. She lived with us as governess for two years,—with my sisters for the whole two,—& with me for the first. Afterward I was ill as usual: and that one year was the only governessing I ever had. [10]
Dearest friend, dearest Miss Mitford, may God bless you! I meant to write six lines, because I cant write at all tomorrow,—& you see how they are multiplied! How I think of you, you cannot guess!–
Your own
EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 69–71.
Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library and Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Solemnization of Matrimony in The Book of Common Prayer.
2. Westwood had sent EBB a copy of his Poems (1840) earlier in the year (see letter 909). Four of his contributions appeared in The Athenæum in the course of 1842.
3. Cf. Genesis, 49:6.
4. In the preface to the 1802 edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth dealt with a poet’s objective and the means of achieving it. Coleridge, in chapter XXII of Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions (1817), discussed the characteristic defects of Wordsworth’s poetry.
5. Jeremiah, 31:5.
6. See letter 1037 for prior reference to Mrs. Leslie’s criticism of Kenyon.
7. Of Edward Kenyon, in letter 1039
8. John Walter (1776–1847), M.P. and proprietor of The Times, lived at Bear Wood, some four miles E.N.E. of Three Mile Cross. On 4 November the paper reported a fire that “occasioned the loss of much valuable property, and for some hours threatened the whole mansion with destruction.”
9. Hydropathy was a newly-fashionable medical treatment involving the application of water both externally and internally.
10. Mrs. Orme is first mentioned by EBB in 1821 (letter 119); she left the Moulton-Barretts in 1823 (see letter 177).
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