1049. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 151–152.
[London]
Novr 14. 1842–
My beloved friend,
I was self convicted of stupidity on Saturday for after that long letter was finished, which I began chiefly for the purpose of telling you of Mr Chorley’s bottle having reached me, I forgot just the principal point—I left out my Hamlet. [1] So I write today, & send the grapes today, by way of convoy to the bottle. It came after the last grapes went,—& being afraid of sending it by itself I ventured to keep it to the next grapeday, .. which, by the way, “falls earlier”, on purpose that the bottle shd be sooner with you.
Yes! The livingness in matters of kindness, the desire to give & love, surviving the other faculties, is very affecting. There is comfort, as well as pathos, in all this my dearest friend—and we regard naturally with a sweet pleasurable pain that the latest earthly manifestations of beloved spirits shd be true to themselves & to the motive of our love for them. Not that your dear sufferer seems at all nearer to his release than he was! On the contrary every day’s account brings to me the assurance that the life is yet strong & that the struggle will be protracted. May God bless him & you, in all the chief tenderness of Christ our saviour!
I must tell you that Mr Chorley had the goodness to satisfy my curiosity about the Quaker phraseology, [2] by the opportunity of the bottle,—writing a kind little note to confess the grammatical “impeachment” on the part of those Friends who are also “fashionables”. The élegantes & exquisites (if you can imagine that order in brown & buckram) distinguish themselves (it appears) by saying ‘Thee hast’—and “Heer can do that herself”, you know, by some analogical form of ignorance & essential vulgarity, over the whole social surface of la crême de la crême. [3] Do you not agree with me, that what passes for style, & fashion, is just the vulgarest thing in the world?– Hear Mrs Trollope talking of les nôtres [4] —& then answer me!
I think her clever .. in the broad coarse meaning of that word. Not that her books ever excite a sympathy or a feeling with me, which I as a writer, shd be emulous to excite. They amuse me as Punch would!—and then I shut the window. Which is such a thoroughly Cockney simile, that I am half afraid of you.
And so you wont like London! Nobody will ever persuade you to live in it!——nobody!– Ah, my dearest friend!–
A note has come from Mr Kenyon, and it explains that he could’nt come on saturday or sunday, & that today he is gone to Dover. He will see me when he ‘comes back’, he says.
Ever your attached
EBB.
Will you be very kind to me indeed, & tell me what I can send besides, to be of any comfort or pleasure to him or you? Will you, for our love’s sake?
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 77–78.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. William T. Parke (1762–1847) recounts an incident at a provincial theatre when “Cubit … was announced to perform the character of Hamlet a second time, though he had not been much relished at his first appearance in that arduous part; but being seized with a sudden and serious illness … just before the play was going to begin, the manager … was constrained to request the audience to suffer them to go through the play, omitting the character of Hamlet; which being complied with, it was afterwards considered by the bulk of the audience to be a great improvement!” (Musical Memoirs, 1830, I, 97.) As letter 1051 indicates, Chorley had sent EBB a bottle of wine for onward transmission to Miss Mitford.
2. In letter 1042, EBB expressed doubts over the accuracy of Mrs. Trollope’s rendering of Quaker forms of speech; she had apparently sought information on this point from Chorley, whose parents were nominally Quakers (DNB).
3. Mrs. Trollope evinced a continuing fascination with upper-class society, “la crême de la crême” (see letter 792, note 3).
4. “Our people.”
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