1404. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 374–376.
[London]
Thursday [19] Oct. 1843. [1]
My dearest friend I was a little uneasy yesterday at not hearing from you, & had wisely made up my mind, if I did not hear from you today, to be very uneasy indeed. After all you are not unwell!—you are in meditation before some “great job” which is a mystery, & in anticipation of Miss James & Mr Benomi. I am so glad that the cause of the silence is not illness, after all—& notwithstanding that you do not yet appear to be as well as I wish you, & as by the grace of this clear cold weather (delightful weather, it appears, to almost everybody except me!) you might be!– Also, my dearest Miss Mitford, you do not write at large,—but at the briefest of the brief, now that you do write,—and I must delicately explain to you that upon opening your thick envelope & finding a bare abstract of yourself & all the rest Mrs Partridge, I fell like a falling angel. [2]
And yet the enclosure interested me as you thought it would when you had the kindness to enclose it,—and yet I do not receive from it the melancholy impression which you received. I do not, you see, know her usual manner of writing, in your familiar degree—and thus, although a husband who shoots & does magistrate’s business all day, would by no means please me myself, I cannot decide,—considering how the run of country husbands sets in towards those rural utilities,—whether she may be unhappy under the process. For instance I know of a bride at this moment, whose bridegroom fished right through the honeymoon, just as Isaac Walton might, [3] and who thinks him the divinest of fishermen & fondest of husbands, both at once. Certainly there is not much vivacity in the letter. Yet it is full of pursuit & interest in life & beauty—and then she may not be quite well—I should think she was not quite well—there is an expression to that end. There may be depression from a cause– Anyway my ever dearest friend, dont be haunted & depressed yourself, by a phantom of her unhappiness, until you have surer evidence of its reality. If indeed she shd be miserable, it is very very sad. Oh, what saddest of sadness is this marrying in a mistake—this breaking of the bubble of the heart’s ideality, with a stroke from the iron of life’s reality, ruder & more immediate than it wd otherwise fall! It is grieving with a bitterness, indeed!—the turning in a moment of the whole tapestry of life! And she, so young! I hope, I hope she may not be unhappy!– I hope you are wrong, & too misgiving!– Is her name Olivia? I thought it was Lucy. [4]
Did I tell you that I meant to honor with all honor Campbell’s Lyrics, even if I missed them in my account of the poets? By the way I missed so many names that I dont mean to try to count any more of these same poets. Desecrations & blasphemies on each side, it is as difficult to move, while one is taking such a count, as to walk gracefully on eggs—& I wont try it any more, even in the privatest private & tête à tête with you. “Blessings be on them & eternal praise, the poets” [5] wherever & howsoever many (& the more the better) they may be! In the meantime, what is the meaning of Mr Chorley’s complaint about a story being thrust on him? Does he mean that he has done more in the matter of this Opera, than given the words & the story? Is it the music which he has written? Do tell me. I shall be very glad if he has a complete success. [6]
Two days ago, after a silence which made me fear that I shd hear no more from dear admirable Miss Martineau, I had a delightful letter from her,—and I enclose the last sheet to you because I am certain that the account she gives of her health in it, will interest you in no cold degree. Send it back to me,—will you,—& tell me if there is not sweetness in its strength. Now I shall be able to give your message. Oh! I never thought to hear again from her, and had even begged her not to suffer me as a claimant on her kindness, when her bodily ability was not proportionate to it—but kindness, as I have often learnt by you & need not have forgotten,—is equal to anything. I was much & deeply touched by this letter.
May God bless you my beloved friend! Forgive my briefness. The cold weather is heavy on me just now, & affects my voice a little, & makes me up or rather down, to all manner of idleness—you shall hear at length before long. But you will write? Mr Benomi—Miss James—I have a mind to scatter .... what Kehama did. [7] As to seeing you … ah! you know you dont mean to come at all!
Ever your attached
EBB.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 332–334.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Day provided by EBB’s mention of receiving a letter from Miss Martineau (letter 1402) “two days ago.”
2. Cf. Keats, “Sleep and Poetry,” line 242 (Poems, 1817).
3. Izaak Walton (1593–1683) published his celebrated treatise, The Compleat Angler, in 1653.
4. For earlier misgivings about the felicity of Mrs. Partridge’s marriage, see letters 1013, 1016, 1030 and 1051.
5. Cf. Wordsworth, “Personal Talk” (1807), lines 51–53.
6. Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians credits Chorley with translations of the libretti of ten operas by various composers, but gives no dates for them; we are thus unable to identify the opera EBB mentions.
7. See Southey’s The Curse of Kehama (1810), XIX, 1, 1.
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