1341. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 261–263.
[London]
July 30th [sic, for 29] 1843. [1]
Ah my dearest friend, you & Mr Reade are very hard upon Mr Borrow! According to you, either he has no physical courage or no moral courage—because you see if he only wants ‘spirit to join the Turks,’ [2] he must lie to the quick, by his profession of interest in the work of the Christians. Now, what particularly struck me in that book, [3] was the integrity & simplicity of the man’s soul, .. his reverence for facts through the very mist of his prejudices .. the straight, uncalculating devotedness for the truth as he sees it, which is obvious in every page! Why if he wanted only physical courage to join the Turks, what a twice pitiable creature must he be!– No true man, as well as no brave man!– And where is the evidence that he is liar & coward? It is invisible to me at least.
And as to the exaggeration & want of verity in description, I understand that the Bible society committee-men have doubts as well as Mr Reade has; and I may understand that other readers have doubts besides. But Mr Bigge .. of the Northumberland family, [4] .. who dined here a few days ago, and is just returned from Spain, loudly praises Mr Borrow’s book “for its accuracy and talent.” No book he told them down stairs, is so true to the characteristics of Spain, as Mr Borrow’s is. He praised it heartily, & for truth.
I am reading William Howitt’s Germany [5] with a good deal of interest. I love the Germans, & would go amongst them tomorrow, if I had the two necessities, strength & liberty. They are a people of Souls– I love & reverence them; & would willingly, (oh, gladly, .. triumphantly––) spend some two years in the midst of their holy tobacco-clouds. Minus: the tobacco, .. do you not love the Germans?—and perhaps I should add, minus: the mysticism? For my part I would embrace them altogether. They are the people of the world I am most drawn towards—: and “better,” you know, “is pickled cabbage where love is” [6] than any other dainty.
My dearest friend, how good of you to care so much for my tinkling rhymes as to read them to your Flush!– And then to go to Reading for the Journal! [7] But I hope you did not buy it!– I had understood that it was regularly sent to you; & I mentioned my rhymes, only to provide for the casualty you referred to also, of sometimes leaving the pages uncut in the sublime of indifference.
Ask Mr Horne about Spain & Mr Borrow. He has been in Spain as everywhere else,—& I should like to know how he is struck both in respect to the physical courage & the general verity … those two points–
The Athenæum of today praises ‘The Smiths’ a new novel .. anonymous, but suspected to be by a woman. [8] Being omniverous as Mr Kenyon says, I mean to read it as soon as I can. Did you ever “hear sain” [9] anything about it– By the author of the ‘Maid’s Husband’—which explains nothing to me. [10]
I was out in the chair yesterday for some ten minutes, & bore it bravely,—the worst of the result being that I could not sleep last night. But I shall persevere– The external air & the degree of change may be the means of my gaining strength—and really I am in need of it. In the meantime my ivy is covering my window with blinding leaves– I am delighted with the ivy, & “bless its useful” darkness. [11]
I wish you could tell me that you are well again!– Do not let yourself be over-tired—and lie on the sofa—& take care of yourself faithfully my dearest Miss Mitford!——do!
Ever your own
EBB–
Your Flush is a paragon.
Oh Miss Brabazon, Miss Brabazon!—— She stands complete by this silence—there is nothing wanting in her.
My Flush would insist upon squeezing into the chair with me; & when I came home & was laid upon the sofa, they were obliged to carry him away, he came tumbling over me in such a fury of affectionate impatience. The only fault in Flush, is, that he is too large for the extent of his familiarities. I listen sometimes to hear my bones break. One might as well have a tame elephant!–
Oh! I forgot about the “hedge rows”! I have seen such things, to be sure, when I was a child,—but never with any sympathy. I dont like field sports, & (.. defended from the charge of affectation by my confession about cigar-smoking—) I could call them names. I wont though: because you like them!–
Yes! of course your Flush is happy in them.
But my Flush is happy without them. “Be innocent o’ the knowledge dearest chuck” [12] I say to him; & he agrees with me entirely: & the more especially, as he has an especial dislike of the noise of a gun. He had quite enough of “villainous saltpetre,” [13] thank you, in Hyde Park the other day; [14] & he prefers a pheasant cooked.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 274–276.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Day provided by reference to The Athenæum; the issue in which The Smiths was mentioned appeared on 29 July.
2. The implication is not clear; we infer that Miss Mitford and Reade were suggesting that Borrow had leanings towards the Moslem faith.
3. Borrow’s The Bible in Spain (1843).
4. Thought to be Thomas Charles Bigge of the Inner Temple, son of Thomas Hanway Bigge, banker, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and nephew of Charles William Bigge, High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1802.
5. William Howitt (1792–1879), the husband of Mary Howitt, was the author of Rural Life in England (1838) and Visits to Remarkable Places (1840). In 1840, he took up residence in Heidelberg, where he wrote Rural and Domestic Life of Germany (1842).
6. Cf. Proverbs, 15:17.
7. To buy the issue of The Athenæum containing “To Flush, My Dog.”
8. The Athenæum of 29 July (no. 822, pp. 694–695) called The Smiths “one of the best novels we have had since the publication of Frederika Bremer’s ‘Home’ … ‘The Smiths’ does credit, we suspect, to ‘the sex.’ … If we are mistaken, it is the most lady-like writing we recollect from a masculine hand.”
9. Cf. Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose, line 2969.
10. Miss Aylmer, or The Maid’s Husband (1840) was written by Henrietta Camilla Jenkin (née Jackson, 1807?–85), who also published Wedlock: or, Yesterday and To-day (1841) as well as The Smiths.
11. Cf. Pope’s Iliad, VIII, 698.
12. Macbeth, III, 2, 45.
13. I Henry IV, I, 3, 60.
14. EBB describes his behaviour at the review in letter 1297.
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