1505. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 161–166.
[London]
Tuesday. [16 January 1844] [1]
My dearest friend, I am concerned more than I can tell you & with a deeper sympathy!– Ben is as unworthy of your kindness as a man can be,—and as for K, .. I will not give you pain by expressing or trying to express the measure I cannot help taking of her conduct. My dearest friend, one thing I must say—the want of chastity is the least sin. The overwhelming sin, in my eyes, lies in the fact of the systematic lying with which formerly she imposed upon you,—(for I can only hope that the first child was Ben’s also) & in the renewal (in the face of your great and too credulous kindness) of the very circumstances which gave former occasion to the successful hypocrisy. [2] There is & can be no excuse. Considering all the circumstances there can be none,—ought to be none attempted. And at the same time, so far from blaming you for not suffering her to go to the Union, [3] &c, I admire warmly the consistency of your great goodness. If anything can strike deeply into the heart of the offender, it must be that goodness—and yet in looking back & recognizing all you did before, .. there does not appear to me much hope from even that. Oh—that she shd so reward you! That your faith in her under appearances, .. to say the least, .. questionable & suspicious, shd not have wrung her into at least future gratitude & faith towards you. “Pious—grateful—faithful”! No, my dearest friend!—none of these qualities can she have! It is impossible. Believe me, the want of chastity appears to me of secondary importance in this miserable account—I scarcely think of it at all, .. except as the evidence it presents of the worse collateral corruption. And you will be prepared to hear me say at last that I certainly cannot advise you, or think you quite right in your inclination, to receive her back into your house. All she has been to you I can understand feelingly, although you seem to doubt it. I am attached to my own maid by quite as continual a moment-by-moment series of attentions from her to me, as you can be to yours,—& from my illness, which at one time made attention all day & all night a necessity of my existence, she has been as closely drawn to me personally as yours can be to you. I know what it wd be to me to lose my faith in her,—& also to lose her. I feel keenly what I shd feel if either suffering were before me,—and my conviction is, that if I once lost my faith in her, I wd rather part with her altogether, providing as far as I cd for her personal prosperity,—that notwithstanding every inconvenience to which I shd be exposed, I shd suffer less pain by that alternative. [4] Now admit, my dearest friend, that I can understand the grief perfectly well. It is true, what you say of my not being alone,—& of the comforting affection of my family—that is thrice true, thank God!– But the personal attendance of a female servant is none the less necessary for me!—and then I have precisely your “fine madness” [5] for turning servants into friends—I never cd “keep a servant in her place” for instance in my life– I like to trust & be trusted. More than that, the idea, even the abstract idea, of a stranger, is worse to me than to you,—& especially of a stranger brought into close personal intercourse with me. Altogether you will admit that I can feel keenly for you—& indeed indeed I do, .. however I may differ from you as to the line of conduct to be pursued! For we do differ on that one point. I wd, if I were you, assist her as far as I could,—& after the birth of the child, procure her a situation at a distance, where she might begin with a fair reputation & have some hope of winning the respect of those to whom the past events of her life were unknown. You, on the other hand, bearing up as bravely as you can under this stroke, might hope, if not to supply her place fully, (which appears to me less impossible than you imagine) to replace her with a person whom you can trust & against whom your generous nature wd not be continually fretted, notwithstanding your will, by a compelled disbelief. For if you receive her back, my beloved friend,—what will be the result?– Shall you, .. however you may persuade your mind by your heart,—believe in her truth? Shall you find it possible to repose your faith in her,—so as to receive that comfort which to you who live alone, is more necessary than to others? And moreover, .. when you consider her position—is it desirable for her to remain in a neighbourhood where her reputation is blighted for ever, .. seeing how absolutely impossible it is that this double infamy can be kept hidden, even if you were to throw yourself, by a sacrifice, between the gossips & their victim?–
And upon these two grounds I rest my opinion, against the plan of receiving her as a servant again. [6] For the talk of the moralists,—with every respect for it, I consider it of far less importance than the rest,—& that you stand upon a sufficient elevation to have the right of acting as you please, without waiting for the sanction of disciplinarians. People will talk of course—& perhaps they will say that because you stand on an elevation, you shd be rigid for an example: but there are plenty of rigid examples, & a little more leniency wd do the world no harm. I think this all secondary, .. this “talk of the countryside,” & have no fear of the story being in the newspapers. But for your sake, supremely,—& also for K’s,—I shd be glad to see you courageous as well as pitiful, and determined (when you have done this poor wretched K. all the good you can) to make an effort & fill her place by some other person whom you may respect & have faith in,—giving, so, an expression both to justice & mercy,—& probably securing, at the price of some increase of present pain, your ultimate repose & satisfaction.
I give you my view of the question honestly, my beloved friend,—I tell you what I shd do myself under your circumstances. At the same time be sure that I will not teaze you, if you resolve on acting differently– Not by another word, will I teaze you! I pity & feel for you too much. My poor dearest friend! Oh, this bitter grief of being deceived by the trusted! I am very very very sorry! Would that I cd do anything but be sorry! May God bless you & comfort you. The world strikes up [sic] cold sometimes.
Then we agree about the letters after all?– For it was of the publication of the letters after death & by executors, that Miss Martineau spoke, & not of any breach of confidence during the life of the parties. And then you know, her own ‘America,’ a work full of personal detail & most interesting to me on that account, was attacked on that very ground of treason towards private life, which she justified (oh inconsistency!) upon principle. [7] But you and I are of one mind about the letter-question—it is only on the retail private-life point, that we fall away on different sides—and after all, I doubt much whether we are not, after all, more agreed upon the principle than we appear to be sometimes. I doubt for instance, whether you wd go as far as Charles Dickens in his principle (even if you had gone to America with him) & refrain, at the hazard of knocking the yolk out of your book, from naming the names & giving a single personal touch on the characteristics of all the celebrated men of the country,—looking with fixed eyes at the rivers & the New York pigs, in order that the personalities shd be kept holy. See what a book he has made of it! [8] —and think what a book it might have been!– It is the carrying out of the private-life principle, ad adsurdum [sic] .. & as much farther as where dulness lies.
For delicacy, I wd contend, just as you do. And it wd be quite as possible certainly to wound me through a printed statement, as to wound you—although in the Sedgewick matter, I shd not have been wounded, as I told you & Mr Kenyon frankly. [9] But I do not pretend to a seven-folded shield like Ajax Telamon [10] —& I might be wounded & grievously, by these very means—and if I were wounded, I shd say just as I do now,— at least I hope I shd,—that delicacy is a good thing, but that the anti-private-life principle is a bad thing, a very bad thing. The inconvenience of celebrity, my dearest friend, .. which is the interest taken in you by the whole world, .. is a noble tax to pay after all,—& it is hard for me to understand how you can have the heart to complain of it. When we are beloved in private life, our very headaches, our very smiles & the choosing of our ribbons are matters of interest to the persons who love us. Do we complain of the tax of this attention to minute things?– Then enlarge the circle of interests, & see if we shd complain any more. Let the writer who has endeared himself to numberless persons, & has thus created an interest in them for his person, his habits, his manner of life,—complain of “the tax,” when they demand from others, a description of his person, habits, & manner of life,—& does he not object to the very love & its essential conditions, which he himself has created?– Can you look at the question in another light? Is not this tax a love-tax? If it is an over-tax sometimes, shd the objection strike against the existence of it? Consider, my dearest friend!– Take the vulgar sovereignty of Victoria, has she a right to complain, because the newspapers say that she “walked on the slopes”?– [11] And is not the true royalty, after all, (ask Carlyle) that ruling by grace of Genius? [12] And if we prefer private life & the peaceful obscurity, is it not in the power of every individual to withhold his writings or his name? There is the choice—until the man or woman of genius, having been crowned as such, shall with his own hand give away the conditions of obscurity, & choose love with light.
I forget where Carlyle has written upon these points,—but I remember that I go with him absolutely & to the full length.
As for Mrs Sigourney, it appears from multiplied evidence, certain, that while Mrs Southey talked of her treason in England, she (Mrs Southey) wrote to thank her (Mrs Sigourney) for her book & the too much honor she had done by the transcription!!– If Mrs Sigourney was faithless, Mrs Southey was twice faithless. [13]
Do I dislike physicians? have I no respect for them? Indeed & indeed I think you are wrong, my dearest friend. There are cases in which the necessity of medical help wd occur to me instantly,—only, as a general principle, it seems to me that we take too much medecine, & shd do well to keep ourselves from the habit of drug-taking,—while in my own particular case, I have been instructed by physicians how to manage myself, & am using their experience to this very day so accurately, as not to require any prompting of theirs. For Dr Chambers I have a high respect; & my view of his practice is not at all what you suggest. After giving me one or two too strong medecines (which every physician who ever attended me has begun by doing, because I have a very peculiar constitution) he “changed his hand & checked” his druggery, [14] & I never had the slightest occasion to surmise that he was playing high with me– On the contrary, when it was proposed at Torquay to place a seaton in my chest, & the proposition was mentioned to him, he cried aloud against the pain & uneasiness it wd be the means of bringing on me,—and his great “nay” turned the scale. No—I do not think it of Dr Chambers. I think he is full of sympathy for the patient,—& that so far from hazarding life, he wd not hazard even comfort. An abrupt manner is interpreted into hardness,—& in extreme cases the measures must be enforced to meet it,—which tender nurses do not always perceive. Does not the fact of salivation not being produced yet, prove that he has not overworked the patient? Poor Miss Walters– I am very sorry!—& yet very hopeful that she will get past the evil ultimately, from the long lingering. I think she will recover—my hope is strong. [15]
Dearest dearest Miss Mitford,—how I am writing today! It is an octavo volume certes.
Let me hear from you, do– If Ben is engaged to another person, you see, he is obliged to wrong somebody. Perhaps after all he may marry K. Is there a chance of it? May God bless you! Keep up your spirits—do.
Ever your EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 372–377.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. This letter precedes no. 1506, which continues the discussion of the liaison between Miss Mitford’s maid and gardener.
2. Apparently Miss Mitford has just discovered that K. is again pregnant, and that Ben Kirby is the father. For comments on K.’s prevarications at the time of her first confinement, see letters 1198 and 1207.
3. i.e., the workhouse or poorhouse.
4. EBB was not yet aware that Crow had secretly married William Treherne, the butler, and would have to leave her service in April because of pregnancy (see letter 1577).
5. Michael Drayton, “To My Dearly Loved Friend Henry Reynolds,” line 109.
6. Miss Mitford dismissed both K. and Kirby, but in a letter of 19 December [1846], EBB wrote: “so you have K with you again, & her child .. now that I am too far away to scold you!–”
7. See the earlier discussion of this question in letter 1502.
8. Dickens, in American Notes for General Circulation (1842), gave much offence by his depiction of sights and scenes, even though he scrupulously avoided commenting on personalities.
9. For comments on the offence given by Miss Sedgwick’s book, see letter 834. Ironically, Miss Mitford did wound EBB by her discussion of Bro’s death, and EBB’s reaction, in Recollections of a Literary Life (1852).
10. Next to Achilles, Ajax Telamon was the bravest of the Greek warriors engaged in the Trojan war. His shield comprised seven bull’s hides covered with a layer of bronze (Iliad, VII, 219–220).
11. The daily Court Circular gave details of the minutiæ of royal life, recording even the walks and rides taken by Victoria and Albert.
12. “The Hero as King,” the sixth lecture in Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841), contained this general sentiment, but not this specific phrase.
13. Mrs. Sigourney’s offence in publishing—with her own interpolations—a private letter from Mrs. Southey was previously discussed in letters 1152 and 1198.
14. Cf. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast (1697), line 72.
15. EBB is not yet aware of Miss Walter’s death on this day.
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