1164. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 342–344.
[London]
[?3] [March 1843] [1]
<***> without reference to the ‘literary society’ which you profess to dislike. It must be pleasant to you, as to all the world, to be understood.
Believe me my dearest friend,—I may speak selfishly in all this—but I have tried to put away selfish thoughts in thinking of what may be best for you. With my uncertain life, .. my selfishness (did I suffer it to influence me in trying to influence you upon the selection of your residence—) wd be less excusable than another’s—and then I am well aware that, .. whatever your kindness may put into your thoughts & words, .. I am nothing in the account—living near me wd be pitiful pleasure, & living far away from me, a questionable disadvantage. So I keep my own pain & pleasure at arm’s length—and even so .., I sigh, for better reasons than selfish ones, to observe you inclined towards this terrible expatriation. [2] Now you see how we mortals do!– First we preach virtue, & then we enact sin! You will cry out that I overstep my own creed upon ‘fancies’ .. by all this writing! Well!—I am generous! I grant that you can even resolve on a residence, more wisely than I can do it for you. In the meanwhile, when do you go to Bath? Do you think it will be during this month of March? or shall you wait for more sunshine?–
My hopes had advanced the subscription beyond the £500. But I suppose that after just the first gathering from persons more immediately on the spot, there wd probably be an intermediate pause before persons at a distance could “come up to pole”. [3] Do, whenever you can write to me my dearest friend, let me know what number you have reached. No breathing being feels more anxiety than I do on the subject altogether—nor has felt more.
My dearest friend, it is not absolute obstinacy which drives me to America. [4] I am not tempted to overstate the amount of talent in America .. far less to prefer the companionship of the poets there to those in my own country. But if you cd see the letters, the kindnesses I have received from thence, you wd not advise me to say ‘no’– I confess I have not the heart for saying ‘no’—the kindness has overcome me– You, to whom everybody is kind,—who move worthily in an atmosphere of applause,— can scarcely guess how near the tears are to the edge of the eyes, when kinder words than are said to you at home, come from a strange country. Not that I complain, even to myself, of unkindness at home– On the contrary, I have always confessed that for the most part both critics & readers have been as kind to me here, as I had any reason for expecting. Still I cd not say ‘no’ to those kind Americans. To prove the reality of the kindness, the editor of Graham’s miscellany offers to me just four times over the remuneration I shd receive here—two guineas for the briefest fragment .. three guineas & a half for anything longer: the London magazines giving half a guinea for a closely printed page full– You will acquit me of being influenced by the pecuniary consideration of this arrangement—& indeed to Mr Lowell of Boston who said he was poor & wanted my mss for nothing, I sent them on his own terms. I love the Americans (altho’ I never saw one of them in my life) [5] I love them for kin’s sake & freedom’s sake—& I am, besides, grateful to them for being kind to me–
You do not mention Ben. He will not cease I trust to be of your establishment. [6] Ah my dearest friend, I hope I hope, that the success of the great measure, will remove far from you all necessity for further economies, & place you in a situation of greater freedom & competency than has been possible to you for many years.
My poor Flush. He was sitting on my sofa wagging his tail into the very ecstasies of a tail (if you understand the metaphysics & physics of that) while he watched Arabel lacing on her boots. She said to him “Flush, I cant take you out with me. I am going to the bazaar.” The tail stopped. Poor Flushie! He turned round & looked at me,—significantly, as he always does in trouble,—and then began to cry!– What do we mean by understanding?
May God bless you, my dearest friend.
Ever your attached
EBB–
‘Montague, Eleanora Louisa,
Was there ever such name between Paris & Pisa’ ..
do you remember Leigh Hunt in the ‘Feast of the violets’? Is she Mrs or Miss Montagu?—and do you know her personally? [7]
Mr Kenyon calls Christopher North a ‘glorious brute’—I [8] call him a “brute-angel”. Both of us like him far better than you do. Oh surely, surely, he is a great poet .. in prose! I am reading the Recreations—3d volume. [9]
Did you see, .. what I am reading just too late (but we must be benighted sometimes) in the number before the last of the Edinburgh Review, a notice of Madme d’Arblay, very admirable in all ways, but chiefly interesting to you for the sake of the high estimate of your Miss Austen, who is called second to Shakespeare in the nice delineation of character? [10]
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 181–184.
Manuscript: Folger Shakespeare Library.
1. This letter must precede 1167, in which EBB tells Kenyon that contributions to the appeal for Miss Mitford total some £1,200.
2. In a quest for cheaper living quarters, Miss Mitford was considering, among other places, the Channel Islands.
3. Synonymous with “come up to scratch.”
4. i.e., for publication of her poems.
5. This refutes Ticknor’s claim to have met her (see letter 1022, note 15).
6. Miss Mitford had apparently been troubled over the propriety of Kirby’s remaining with her after her father’s death (see letter 1095, note 2).
7. “The Feast of the Violets,” in The Monthly Repository, July 1837 (pp. 33–57), dealt with numerous poetesses, including EBB and Miss Mitford. (See SD825.1 and letter 732 respectively for Hunt’s lines on them.) EBB slightly misquotes the reference to Miss Montagu; Hunt wrote: “Then Montagu,—Eleanora Louisa! / Was ever name finer, ’twixt Naples and Pisa?” Miss Montagu became Mrs. Thomas Kibble Hervey in October 1843; apparently she was not personally known to Miss Mitford.
8. Underscored twice.
9. John Wilson (1785–1854), whose pseudonym was Christopher North, was a prolific contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. He published The Recreations of Christopher North in 1842.
10. A slight misrepresentation. The reviewer’s actual remark was: “Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who … have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud” (The Edinburgh Review, January 1843, p. 561).
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