1152. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 323–326.
[London]
Valentine’s day, 1843
I cant help thinking my beloved friend that the kindest thing wd be not to take any notice of you just now—but since you say “write,” why I must write, were it only for obedience’[s] sake. In the first place to congratulate you & myself & everybody who cares for you, on the address being in the papers at last,—& then to say how pleased I was, down to the bottom of my love for you, with the kind & cordial remarks on it by the Chronicle! [1] May the Times deliver itself as well, [2] & take absolution from its political iniquities in righteous exchange!– There is reason for hoping that the great end of relieving your mind & placing you in comfortable circumstances, will be gained for you & all of us.
In respect to the circulars, perhaps I should tell you at once that being cast out of the pale of society by circumstances, & holding intercourse by letter, chiefly with pen & ink people who are not purse people, it is not in my power to do much good in the way of spreading them abroad. It surprised me too a little that you shd think it necessary to circulate these papers,—when the public prints are using their trumpets. Why not trust to the trumpets & give up the private whispering? Why not save yourself all this trouble of circulating the papers? Not that I speak in regard to my own trouble. It wd be at once honor & gladness for me to help in anything—if I could help in anything—and you must know this as well as I do, through your knowledge of my earnest affection for you.
I have not heard one word of Lady Blessington—never read a word about her in the newspapers; & must hope that the story you had from hearsay stood less repellently in the pica– [3]
Your gain in the Book of relics, .. & above all, in the precious picture, [4] .. I congratulated you on in my thoughts & dreams long & long ago. Are you aware that Mrs Sigou<rney> in her new publication of “Pleasant memorials of pleasant lands” has given to the public a detached passage of a letter of yours, at once graphic & touching in its filial tenderness? [5] Had she done only that, it had been well. But even I shrink back from the publication of the fragment of a letter from Mrs Southey, showing how her husband had not written his own name for two years,—cd scarcely be supposed to recognize her,—& had been shaken in health & partially in intellect ever since the insanity & death of his first love & wife, Edith!! [6] Now to cut out of a letter that tender mystery & coldly print it among “Pleasant memorials” seems to me, .. yes, even to me, .. who when you & all the world were a little cruel to poor Miss Sedgewick, shook my relenting head, [7] .. the most inexcusable sin in its degree that has been sinned by man or woman. Yet the book which sins so, appears to me an amiable book, a pleasant book, a book with heart & head in it. It is a mixture of prose & verse .. & smiles in the spirit everywhere. Not much power, to be sure, in either prose or verse––nothing beyond pretty description & gentle sentiment!—still it is an amiable book—& it is ‘wondrous pitiful’ [8] to see it so deformed. Mrs Southey wont mind perhaps: but his children will—& we all start back before this lifting of the grave-cloth on a face more sacredly removed than by Death, from the public gazing.
Have you heard yet of the new tragedy by Mr Browning?—& of its success—for it did succeed? Mr Kenyon saw it acted at Drury Lane & witnessed the sensation in the house, the tears upon stedfast faces, the silence & applause not offered but compelled. [9] It is a fine production, I think,––this “Blot on the ’Scutcheon”—: and though only in three acts, you must not lift your dramatic brows in derision of these three. As a composition, I seem to be aware of a little weakness towards the close—but I always believed that Mr Browning was a master in clenched passion, .. concentrated passion .. burning through the metallic fissures of language—and this last trial of his, & the last but one ‘The return of the Druses’ do not cause me to waver– You shall see them both before long. [10] And yet you half-frighten me from sending you Mr Browning’s poetry. Promise not to say again that it was a pity he missed being .. an attorney .. an engineer .. a merchant’s clerk .. what trade was it?
As to Wakondah, I dont praise it for genius—for original power: but I did think it had occasional fine lines & general strength of diction, & certainly did, in no degree, perceive the mistiness you complain of, [11] —farther than that the production being fragmentary we cd no more divine by it what the whole estate of the future poem was likely to be, than infer a palace from a pane of glass– Moreover, my dearest friend, I do rather, .. nay, to be honest I do quite, entirely .. disagree with you as to “obscurity being the fashion” in these latter days upon the earth.! [12] Take away Mr Browning—& Mr Townsend, who is scarcely before the public—and your friend [13] ––and who in the world else can you account obscure & misty among the poets? Mr Tennyson has some hard parts—but you do not complain of him as a son of the mist– Therefore I defend the times against your imputation!
But I cant do that or anything beside a moment longer today. I write in the dark without a metaphor & the time of posts is at hand– [14]
Do you try a fumigation of tobacco for that pain in the face which I grieve to hear of? It is imperious over the nerves—& if you call it an unpleasant remedy, why pain is a still worse evil– Do not write to me. I [15] ask that of yr love!
Ever your attached
Valentine EBB–
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 171–174.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Notice of the public subscription, dated 8 February, appeared on the front page of The Morning Chronicle of 13 February, stating Miss Mitford’s debts at between £800 and £900. Included in the 37 signatories were the names of Harness, Kenyon, May, Merry and Talfourd. An editorial on page 3, referring to the subscription, said: “There is something inexpressibly noble in this devotion by Miss Mitford … during so many of her best years, to the support of an aged parent.... there are few, very few instances, we believe, of so perfect an instance of filial devotion, as has been exemplified by Miss Mitford.”
2. The Times carried the same notice the following day, and its editorial said: “We plead on behalf of one who has strong claims on the notice of her country—one whose chaste and simple pen has portrayed the features of English rural life with a felicitous gracefulness not unworthy of Washington Irving, and whose kind and gentle nature enhances the charm of her literary powers.”
3. We have not established the nature of the specific story to which EBB refers. Although Lady Blessington received £2,000 a year from her late husband’s estate, and earned a similar amount from her literary endeavours, her expenditure at Gore House, where she entertained lavishly, amounted to more than £4,000 per annum, and in 1843 her pecuniary difficulties were increasing (DNB).
4. Taken to be a reference to the loan of Jane Austen relics, mentioned in letter 1132.
5. Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands (1842) speaks of Miss Mitford’s “constant cherishing care” of her “aged father” and quotes a passage from one of her letters, ending with the sentence: “It is my privilege to make many sacrifices to this blessed duty; for with my dearest father, should I be so unhappy as to survive him, will depart all that binds me to this world” (pp. 282–283; see also The Times of 23 February).
6. Op. cit., pp. 54–55.
8. Othello, I, 3, 161.
9. Kenyon’s opinion was not shared by the reviewer in The Times (13 February), who found the play “one of the most faulty dramas we ever beheld” and said that “though there were many who applauded the piece, there was very little sympathy.” The Morning Chronicle, however, found the play “quite successful” and praised the acting. (For the full text of both reviews, see pp. 394–395 and 398–400.)
10. Kenyon gave EBB the first six parts of Bells and Pomegranates (see Reconstruction, A407).
12. Cf. Deuteronomy, 31:29.
13. i.e., EBB herself.
14. Cf. Revelation, 1:3.
15. Underscored twice.
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