1198. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 41–44.
[London]
1 April. 1843.
My beloved friend how you must have suffered! Believe me that I read your letter with the deepest interest & sympathy, to say nothing of my respect for your active charity & kindness towards that unfortunate girl who, without you, must have been so much more miserable still! [1] No wonder indeed that she shd love you, & cling to you for ever & ever! Even I .. only hearing of your kindness instead of being the object of it, .. feel that I cannot choose but love you better for the generous goodness of it. May God bless you!—& return into your own bosom, every consolation of which it has been the source!–
It was only like you, only a part of the beneficent whole, that you shd spare &, as you express it, ‘humour’ the very caprices & causeless desires of poor K. in order to make her as easy & calm of spirit as possible: and yet I must suggest to you my dearest friend, yes, I must seriously press upon your attention, the fact that the concealment of her marriage will be the precise means of ruining her reputation. Can you suppose for a moment that the birth of this child is an unknown thing in your village .. that it could remain so under almost any circumstances in a country neighbourhood .. & that it cd possibly remain so in yours under the actual ones?– What is the inference of your silence about it?—and of K’s retaining her maiden name?.. What but one inference can be drawn by the least suspicious & given to gossipping?– Nay, is not this the probable inference of her own family & the justification of their harshness to their own hard hearts?– The marriage shd be declared everywhere instead of concealed anywhere, & she shd take her husband’s name & own her baby—and if she refuses to do this, not even your goodness to her my dearest Miss Mitford, will save her character from that cruel World-Logic which “roareth about seeking whom it may devour.” [2]
For my own part I hope I am not inclined to infer evil from the absence of a proof of good,—& indeed people who know me well, often & often reproach me for my defective shrewdness in the reverse extreme. Nevertheless to prove to you the effect of this strange eagerness of a mother to conceal her wifehood … for from the first moment that she became likely to be a mother it must be considered strange, … I will not put back the question which rises to my lips … “Are you yourself sure that she is a wife?” Have you such proof of it, as satisfies .. I do not say your heart, but your understanding?–
Ah—you shrink back from me. You think me hard. Do not think me hard, my dearest dearest Miss Mitford! Even if the deeper error were a proven thing upon your poor K .. one of the strongest of my feelings for her wd be a deep compassion. Any way, she is probably a victim. But for your sake as well as for hers, .. & for her sake as well as for yours, .. it appears to me of imperious necessity that you shd hold in your hands the proof of her marriage & be enabled otherwise than by your mere personal impression & trust in her, to testify to the fact of it,—& that she, poor thing, for the love of her own purity & her child’s in a sense .. shd throw off all mystery, & assume her husband’s name. The proof of the marriage, my dearest friend, you can have at any time—for if it took place in London, at whatever church, anybody here can investigate the point for you. If you proposed it to her, .. what wd she say? I shd not like, I confess, the appearance of any hesitation on her part in acceding to such an investigation. It is because she is deserted, that the proof of the marriage becomes necessary. Do you not agree with me in the obviousness of this? Her feelings should be as sacred to both of us as those of any Duchess in the land—but I can see nothing wounding to her feelings, nothing which would wound my own feelings, in a complete openness being pressed upon her with regard to the circumstances of this miserable marriage. Has any woman any right, if she cd naturally have the wish, to deprive her child of its mother’s reputation & of its father’s name? And yet this is what this silence is accomplishing. If I were married to ten times a villain & had his child in my lap, I wd declare to all the world who cd hear me, though the sound of his name broke my heart, that I was that villain’s wife. Every woman, married & a mother, must feel so, I shd think: that she ought to feel so, I am certain. Forgive me, my dearest friend, for the intemperance of my impertinence, .. which perhaps you will think an improper return for the dear gift of your confidence to me. Forgive me—do! I cannot help speaking my mind .. because it lies near my heart .. & the Heart pushes it. And then the Genius of the Ring [3] wont leave me alone until I torment you. Believe that what you have at different times told me of your poor K.––of her affection & attention to you, .. has inclined me to regard her much, & that I now add pity to the other feeling– It is with deep pity & interest, that I think of her, poor thing, in her dejection .. & of the lovely baby. I have a taste for babies—if a baby happens to be brought into this house, Crow always brings it up stairs for me & Flush to play with & admire. They are beautiful & touching objects I think .. lying so serenely in the storm of life. And your generous goodness my dear friend, will bind to you, not merely one human being, but two, as that child gathers up its humanity!—& God will bless you by your own deed.
Indeed I cannot be sorry that Mrs Niven is going, with all my respect for her—and I cannot help begging you not to wait to see Mrs Davidson or anybody in the world. [4] Here is April—& the sooner you are gone, the wiser & better & more desirable. I entreat you not to wait for anything or person—so much (as to your health & shattered spirits) being clearly derivable from a change of scene & people, & sensations altogether. Your letters wont be more delightful for your going to Devonshire, because they cant .. but you yourself will be better, & I shall be happier in becoming conscious of that happy certainty. Do you take Ben with you? No! Yes?– Which word is it? No—I fancy. But Flush will go as a matter of necessity—& then you must tell me if he likes travelling & takes as much general interest in the face of Nature as my Flush does. And there is one of the P’s waiting with expanded arms to embrace you at Bath, [5] —and to talk afterwards of excellent resolutions taken “by myself & Miss Mitford”!—— Think of that!
Tait is delightful as April, in this last number, when he reviews Mrs Sigourney & in à proposity to her piracy on your letter, praises you. [6] You see Tait, I know. Take care to see that. As to the feminine Chambers, I do trust you will eschew rashness, & not connect yourself with a frail speculation. The number of periodicals which live for a few weeks & perish is wonderful—& even popular names have failed to prolong their existence. And could you be capable of the necessary degree of continuous application? And wd it not be necessary for you to reside in London or Edinburgh, in the case of your accepting this office? [7] I am delighted to hear of Colburn’s wise decision,—& lean to wishing for you some gentle administration under the booksellers, rather than an editor’s weary work– [8]
But Mrs Sigourney! It appears that she is quite unacquainted with Mrs Southey, & that she positively interpolated expressions conveying intimacy & adding pathos, in that passage of the letter published by her, in order to render it more effective with her readers!!! [9]
But Mrs Southey! She must have one of her own grey tombstones for a heart [10] —& without moss or lichen. Perhaps you shd not repeat it, for I had it from Mr Kenyon in an aside from the world,—but she forbade her husband’s poor daughter to look upon her father’s face except during one hour in the week– Since the funeral, the daughter has said with passionate truth—“I feel as if I had got my father back again”–
You feel that– I do, very deeply.
You make me smile my dearest friend– Well!—we shall see– How much “better” ought I to be to see a doctor?– And am I to tell Mr Haydon that he is to come & see me, to begin my “disenchantment” generally?
Ever your own
EBB–
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 196–200.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Kerenhappuch, Miss Mitford’s maid, who had recently given birth to a son, claimed to have been secretly married. When it later transpired that this was false, and that the father, Ben Kirby the gardener, had refused to marry K., Miss Mitford dismissed them both. Eventually, however, she relented and took K. and Ben back into her service.
2. Cf. I Peter, 5:8.
4. EBB is urging Miss Mitford not to delay her planned trip to Bath on account of anticipated visitors.
5. Ellen Pickering (“Miss P. the second”) lived in Bath.
6. Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, April 1843, in a review of Mrs. Sigourney’s Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, speculates that she never met Miss Mitford, although she refers to Miss Mitford’s care for her father, and her financial straits after his death, and then quotes from a letter from Miss Mitford. (For an earlier reference to and quote from this, see letter 1152, note 5.)
7. It appears that Robert Chambers, publisher of Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, was contemplating a new periodical to be aimed at female readers, and had asked Miss Mitford to undertake the editorship.
8. The reference to “an editor’s weary work” suggests that Colburn had declined to publish the manuscript Miss Mitford had been pressed to edit (see letters 1177 and 1183).
9. This charge was contained in an article in The Athenæum of 8 April (no. 806, p. 340). Mrs. Sigourney quoted from Mrs. Southey’s letter on pp. 54–55 of her book.
10. Before her marriage, Mrs. Southey (Caroline Bowles) had published Chapters on Churchyards (1829), reprinted from essays contributed to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine between April 1824 and May 1829.
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