1085. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 217–218.
Three Mile Cross,
Dec. 12, 1842.
All friends are kind and very soothing, but not half so soothing as your sweet kindness, my dearest. Oh! let me think of you as a most dear friend—almost a daughter, for such you have been to me.
I’ll let you know when the French books arrive. [1] You should not have done it, my sweetest—I would have contrived to see them some way or other. In the meanwhile, even in all my affliction, Tennyson has had a power over my imagination which I could not have believed possible. You love the great and the deep—I, the bright and the beautiful, and therefore, each loving those delicious poems, we prefer the different ones, according to our several fancies. I thought so as I read them.
Everybody is so kind! The principal farmers are striving who shall carry the coffin. Surely this is not common—to an impoverished man—one long impoverished—one whose successor is utterly powerless! This is disinterested, if ever any thing were so, and therefore very touching, very dear. Perhaps I have shed more tears for the gratitude caused by this kindness and other kindnesses than for the great, great grief! That seems to lock up the fountain; this to unseal it. Bless you, my beloved, for all your inimitable kindness! Oh! how he loved to bless you! He seldom spoke the dear name without the benediction—“Miss Barrett! dear Miss Barrett! Heaven bless her!” How often has he said that! I seem to love the name the better for that recollection. And now, my most beloved friend, good-night! Let me say how very, very kind everybody is! I think, I am sure, that you will like to hear that.
God bless you, my precious friend! I am resigned—indeed I am. I know that it is right; and that is His will. Heaven bless you, my very dearest—my best comforter!
Ever your own,
M.R.M.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 166–167.
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