1058. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 165–168.
[London]
Novr 23. 1842–
My beloved friend I thank you for & return these enclosed letters. Mrs Davidson seems to have had the medical advice within her reach & it is probably on that account that she dwells the less on the peradventures of life & death: & I hope, poor thing, she may never know what Mr May’s opinion is. For the rest, I was a little struck by the calm, almost cold ennumeration of symptoms & apprehensions & their result,—& by the slight expression anywhere of personal feelings & affliction. Is she calm always? of a calm slow temperament? I should judge her so by that letter. Made a widow by such a sudden stroke—& with the consciousness too that she had not given her full sympathy to the sufferer, through her ignorance of his actual state! I shd have feared that the reaction might be violent. But no—so calm! so little emotion!
Mr Chorley is very good, very easily pleased I am sure. My note was laudable for its brevity [1] —but really I cant remember being “charming” in it otherwise. I hope to know him some day both for your sake & his own—and my own, as the person benefitted––for I like what you say of him & what his books say of him too. Is it not true that Mrs Hemans’s friends took offence at his work respecting her? I inferred so from the memoir written by her sister & could not make out why [2] —for surely nothing could be more delicate, even hyper-delicate, than his manner of treating the subject. For my own part & as you & I my dearest friend are talking low together & nobody by to hear us, I will think aloud in my low talk that the sister’s memoir touching as it is in many ways, & in its sisterhood & pure affection, always, is totally void of character, undescriptive of character, scentless, colorless .. with the taste of holy water. It partakes of the fault of the commemorated person .. of being too ladylike in proportion to its humanity. Is not that Mrs Hemans’s own fault? I admire her genius—love her memory—respect her piety & high moral tone. But she always does seem to me a lady rather than a woman, & so, much rather than a poetess––her refinement, like the prisoner’s iron .. enters into her soul. [3] She is polished all over to one smoothness & one level, & is monotonous in her best qualities. We say “How sweet & noble” & then we are silent & can say no more—perhaps, presently, we go to sleep, with angels in our dreams. We grow tired, not so much of hearing her called, as of calling her ‘the just’. [4] Is this not just? Do you agree with me? Or can you read her poems one after another, & feel a vital difference in them, & no diminution of your own delight?–
Well—they are monotonous music. But the sister’s memoir according to my doxy, is monotonous, not being music.
Mr Kenyon does not come. My sister Anne doesn’t see even a flock of sheep in sign of him!– [5]
Thank you, thank you for wishing me to know your Miss Harrison, while entertaining of her so high an opinion: I feel the full force of that compliment. But now I will tell you (which she will rather care to hear of than of an acquaintance with me—or even of the other hypothesis!) that I believe notwithstanding Mr Chorley’s despondency, that the Metropolitan Magazine at least, & very possibly the New Monthly wd gladly admit such poetry as you describe. [6] You know I have no influence—not a feather’s! nor a gleam of personal knowledge. And I speak hesitatingly of the ‘New Monthly’, because since Hood’s editorship it seems well supported, & perhaps sufficiently so, by popular writers. It used to be very benign to my poetry & very eager to get it, & paid me the half guinea a page which makes the pen & ink trade so much better than sweeping an unpopular crossing. I quarrelled with the New Monthly—at least was offended by their impropriety in losing certain sheets of a poem of mine—and took a glorious revenge by not writing any more for them [7] —and as I said before, I dont in the least know whether they wd be obliged or not, or pay or not, Miss Harrison or another, now. But there is the Metropolitan. Why not try the Metropolitan? If she does not mind being the best of her constituents, why not try the Metropolitan? If the Metropolitan knows its own needs, it will rejoice to receive her—for at present, its chief poets are Mrs Abdy the “Honorable Julia Maynard” [8] & such writers without honor. The manner, you know, wd be to enclose a poem to the editor—one of the poetical tales you speak of,––with a note with her name & address, to enquire whether a continuance of those contributions wd be acceptable. Where is the objection to trying this?–
My beloved friend, how I feel—deeply, deeply—your feeling about that apparent coldness! [9] Still you were wrong in your logic—as Love often is, when most right Love. Which sounds like a riddle, & me!
Some oysters shall go to you on saturday, to be ready for next week.
Tell me if your dear patient succeeds in eating the meat he thought of!—& do let Ben (I was going to say dear Ben .. I was really!) succeed in keeping up your spirits.
Talking of riddles (my favorite subject!) solve me those twain, contained in the reputation of Robert Montgomery the poet—the only poet in the world who sells his poems by sixteen editions—and of Miss Sinclair, who sells her prose books by “five ten thousands” or something more [10] … I really have not arithmetic for the computation. Can you solve me my riddles of “Les deux reputations”? [11]
For me, I am as puzzled as I shd be, if I were not myself, & were reading my own verses for only the sixth time. Nota bene et accuratè [12] —that Mr Robert Montgomery is no more a poet than my Flush is. He knows simply how to keep up “a dreadful pother oer our heads” [13] —which some of us, not curious in refinement, might call “a dreadful bother”. Miss Sinclair has more merit—is shrewd, quick, active-thoughted, distinctly & boldly religious, & cheerful-hearted in her best sense—still, the mind is not of a high order,—& there is no sign of either superior attainment or of native force & depth of thought. Now solve me my riddles—or let us unite in looking coldly at that thing called popularity.
How I am writing!
My dearest friend, is it possible that you can apologize to me for not having anything to tell me? What do I ever tell you? I live in a cell though in London. Almost all my news comes from you. If I were not perverse sometimes, & obstinate at other times, there wd be no bearing to hear from me!–
May God bless you out of Heaven & earth!—bless & help & strengthen you!– Take your Flush & go out to walk, & keep up yr spirits!
Ever your
EBB–
Give my love to yr dear invalid, if he will have it! I am so glad you can count no better than I.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 87–91.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. i.e., the note thanking him for information on Quaker speech (see letter 1051).
2. Chorley’s Memorials of Mrs. Hemans appeared in 1836, when EBB read it (see letter 538). Harriet Browne Hughes published A Memoir of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Hemans in 1839. We found no direct reference in it to Chorley’s work; EBB’s inference was presumably founded on the remark that “so many imperfect notices have been given to the world … creating a very inadequate estimate of her” (I, 1–2).
3. Laurence Sterne, “The Captive. Paris” in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (III, 103).
4. Asked why he was voting to ostracize Aristides, a citizen replied “I don’t even know the fellow, but I am tired of hearing him everywhere called ‘The Just’” (Plutarch’s Lives, VII, 6).
5. One of Bluebeard’s wives, pleading for time to pray when threatened with death, sent her sister Anne to look out from a high tower, hoping to see the expected arrival of their brothers. Sight of a cloud of dust gave rise to hope, but Anne reported “Alas, my sister, it is a flock of sheep” (Perrault, Contes, 1697 text ed. Andrew Lang, 1977, pp. 27–28).
6. Henrietta Harrison contributed to Findens’ Tableaux, but we have not found any of her verses in either of these magazines.
7. EBB’s last contribution to The New Monthly Magazine was “The Island” in the issue of January 1837.
8. Maria Abdy (née Smith, d. 1867) was a frequent contributor to The Metropolitan Magazine and The New Monthly Magazine; several volumes of her poems were privately printed between 1830 and 1862. Julia Augusta Maynard also contributed to magazines and published Records of Scenery, and Other Poems (1844) and Poems (1845).
9. i.e., Dr. Mitford’s; see letter 1056.
10. Despite EBB’s low opinion of Robert Montgomery’s poems (shared by RB; see letter 952), Montgomery’s works were phenomenally popular, both The Omnipresence of the Deity (1828) and The Messiah (1832) having multiple printings, the former reaching a 28th edition in 1855. Catherine Sinclair (1800–64), although not rivalling Montgomery in popular esteem, achieved considerable success with Scotland and the Scotch; or, The Western Circuit (1840), which was reprinted in America and also translated into several languages.
11. “The two reputations” of Montgomery and Miss Sinclair.
12. “Note well and carefully.”
13. King Lear, III, 2, 50.
___________________
