1401. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 368–371.
[London]
Oct. 13. 1843
Yes, I quite forgot– No, we shall not quarrel, “ding dong” as you say, this time my beloved friend– I quite forgot, & not misprized the lyrics of Campbell. But then he is of the elder generation, & not, scarcely, of the present prevailing “spirits”. I forgot besides, those who are of the present, Mr Taylor & Mr Darley, both of whom have power in their way, & neither, much power over me .. although indeed I have felt & feel still in vibration, Mr Darley’s lyrics, which are worth to my mind all the tragedies he ever wrote or is likely to write. Then I also forgot, as you tell me properly, Mr Knowles,—over whose plays I have dropped tear upon tear——ungrateful to forget him! A true poet, a great dramatist he unquestionably is; & we shall be unhappy enough dearest Miss Mitford, never to quarrel again, if the quarrelling is restricted to the point of my non-admiration of Sheridan Knowles!– [1]
For Mr Horne it is different. I cannot agree with you in the first place that he has “no constructive faculty.” What! can you say so of the author of the Death of Marlowe .. and of Gregory the Seventh? Can you say so with a conscious justice? Softness, sweetness, & the more touching kinds of pathos he does not certainly display—of ‘beauty’ as you observe, there may be also some deficiency, .. of beauty proper & the grace which is beauty in movement: but of the constructive adjustment of a unity in a whole, of the power of evoking grand character in sufficient situation, & of speaking nobly to the heights of the soul, and of throwing a passion into words without losing the heat of it, .. of all this he has the secret, I think, & should wear the honor in our eyes. And even of beauty, is there not much in the first book of Orion? That first book, .. the first division of the first book, I mean, .. the hunt,—the meeting with the huntress-goddess,—the turning aside of the bow as she beholds him, .. appears to me beautiful writing .. & surely not of ordinary beauty. [2]
I am very much surprised that your head will not smile out of his book—if it will not—but of course you will be there. [3] He could not intend a bare corollary to Mr Chorley’s work, & give it the name of Hazlitt’s,—although he may think it wise & necessary to restrict his notices to such men & women as are actually living. Perhaps it is the ‘portraits’ which for the most part are to be new. Mr Horne is a Lacademonian [4] in his letters, & one has to guess over the bounds. Oh,—certainly you must be there—but you are, you see, from your celebrity, no longer a novelty as an engraved head, [5] .. & so he comes to me for a head!—that is plain enough! what puzzles me is the non application for the “Biographical Sketch”. But you must be there at last.
My dearest friend how grieved, how grieved I am that you should continue so unwell. Ah—you will see Mr May .. do, do see him! He will not prevent you from walking, I feel almost certain, .. & he may recommend something which may end the suffering & do you general good. As to your coming here, I will not teaze .. I am heroic & do not teaze you—you shall do precisely as you please, without a word from me. You know my wishes—but you also know my anxious affection for you; & that to risk a single pain to you, is too high a price according to my counting, for the greatest of my pleasures. So let it be. Do not risk anything. I have your letters, & your thoughts sometimes; & the consciousness at the bottom of my own heart, that if it is better for you, my dearest kindest friend, not to come here, it must (without an incomprehensible paradox) be better for also me. And so, … I sigh a furlong. [6]
Ah Mr Merry, Mr Merry. I shall thank him earnestly for his book, but he really wont have the pleasure of a controversy with me upon predestination [7] .. —he must do without that particular luxury. In the first place I do not call myself a member of the Church of England & am not consequently obliged to attach any infallibility to the articles: [8] in the second, I do not understand (as you say of yourself) what is the revealed doctrine upon predestination, neither do I believe (& there’s the worst of me!) that anybody else understands it. The word certainly is in Scripture
‘And what the word doth make it
I wd believe & take it—’ [9]
but as the Christian Church universal (which consists, in my belief, of all who receive, not by baptism or ecclesiastical idioism, but in the heart earnestly, Christ & Christ’s sacrifice, as their Saviour & means of salvation—) as this Christian Church universal differs widely with regard to the signification & bearing of the word, my belief is that the full meaning of it is not revealed or intended to be understood by us.
Here I am interrupted—& how sorry you will be!–
Ever & ever
your EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 327–329.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB is apparently defending omissions in her 1842 papers on The Book of the Poets.
2. Orion, Bk. I, canto 1, lines 91–99.
3. As previously noted, Miss Mitford was not one of the subjects of A New Spirit of the Age.
4. The inhabitants of the Spartan capital were known for their austerity and self-denial; hence laconic.
5. An engraving of Miss Mitford by Achille Collas was included in Chorley’s The Authors of England (1838).
6. EBB used the expression “A furlong’s sigh” in “Discontent” (line 8) in Poems (1844).
7. Miss Mitford’s friend William Merry had just published Predestination and Election, Considered Scripturally, with Reference to the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, and Contrasted with Calvinistic Interpretation. EBB tells Miss Mitford in a letter of [21] October 1843 that she has received the book.
8. i.e., the Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith all Church of England ordinands swore to uphold.
9. “On the Sacrament,” lines 3–4. Originally attributed to Donne, this poem is now tentatively ascribed to Francis Davison, author of A Poetical Rapsody (1602).
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