1643. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 37–40.
[London]
Saturday. [?29] [June 1844] [1]
What you have thought of me my beloved Miss Mitford, I cannot think!—thunders & lightenings of wrath perhaps, & not without some signs of deserving on my own part! But I have been distracted (in the analytical sense) in various ways, .. pulled apart by wild horses in the spirit—&, day after day passing away, I found no calm room for the sole of my foot [2] where I cd stand (on one foot even) & write to you. First, the book with its “long pull” & then the going out in the chair with its “strong pull”, & then Mary & Mr Hunter’s visits with pulls all together, [3] on me! Then I had one day of fatalities .. the day of going out in the chair. Being carried out of the room baby-wise, I began my series of adversities by a knock of the arm against the door which left it the colour of my printer’s ink—got into a wheeled chair without a head, which made me “a spectacle” not precisely “to men & to angels,” [4] but to men, apple-women & little boys, .. & upon my return home after an excursion by no means of the pleasantest, had to swallow a fair proportion of eau de cologne, which through too assiduous a kindness, was poured into my mouth instead of being held to my nose. The agony of suffocation, & sense of hot coals in the throat & chest & head, I cannot describe to you—but really for a few minutes I thought my own finis was likely to precede my book’s. The faintness went away in an explosion—but the struggle for breath, the pain .. can you fancy it? Perhaps through the peculiar excitability of my throat & chest it might have been worse with me than with others under the same circumstances,—still it wd have been bad with any one. It has not injured me essentially however—& the sore throat of some four & twenty hours was the only enduring consequence. Oh—there was no carelessness! nobody to be blamed. I was lying with my head low,—& the room was dark .. & it was not perceived that the eau de cologne was about to run the way of my mouth. And now, .. it is a very pretty torture to write about, & laugh over, & of no other use whatever. It was a day of disasters. It might have been friday—but it wasnt! [5] I have not been out since,—but I shall have been out, I dare say, by the time you read this,—& then I shall have had a head on my chair & everything as “decently & in order”, [6] as the “chair of Cassiopeia,” [7] the stars serving!
With this letter you will receive your lace—or if not, you shall, early next week—for Wilson has a pain in her face & I shall not like her to go out through the damp air, .. unless either the pain or the damp soon diminish. I took for granted (was it wrong to do so?) that you were in no hurry about the lace. You shall have it, if it is to be had in London,— if not today, in a few days.
Your letter was alive with you .. & delightful with you of course. I thank you for it from the lowest depth of my silence—also for Mr Chorley’s. Between you & me, if you had not sent me the latter, you wd scarcely have persuaded me from “nonsense thoughts”, [8] for really & indeed, my dearest friend, you are inclined to extravagances (in certain interpretations of circumstances & speculations of events in relation to me) which however dear to my heart as an evidence of the love in your’s, are quite out of reach of the highest leap of my vanity, even when that valuable faculty leaps as high as Flush. For instance .. oh, I need not go far for an instance … your prodigious fancy that Mrs Gore wrote ‘Agathonia’ on purpose to have it attributed to me! What a wonderful fancy, to be sure!! Be sure, that she was considerably more humiliated than flattered (on the contrary) if she ever heard it attributed to me,—& that such a scheme never entered her mind as the senseless one of using my colours. My degree of reputation is most certainly not worth scheming for .. even by heads more divested of laurel than Mrs Gore’s. There wd be no “quid pro quo” in it! [9] As for ‘Agathonia’ which she did me the favour of sending me “from the author,” [10] I dont see the shadow of the shade of myself in it—& Mr Kenyon told me that he had heard Mrs Coleridge (as well as me) named as the author of it. Peace be with it! It is as likely to live, I opine, as the “new comedy”, or the draft for the five hundred pounds.
Mr Chorley speaks very kindly! Thinking over what you said, I wonder to myself whether he may not have some mournful reason for particularly wanting change of scene this year! Did it strike you that it might perhaps be so? I hope not—but his note seems to have a grave keynote in it—& then your words recurred to me.
How is your Flush? I take up one by one, & put carefully away as precious things, all your oaths to write to me always, though you were a Biffin! [11] Remember .. a perjured Biffin wd be a worse monster than any in the world!
Then, Miss James’s “report” about my “mystery & invisibility” … it did amuse me so! How freshly & actively she writes—with so much beat of heart in it! I am certain I shd like her. If I had time to write today (which I have not) I shd tell you of the magnetic party at Mrs Dupuy’s, wherein the clairvoyant Alexis, [12] a frenchman, flashed his præternatural revelations on the souls of everybody in the room. Common sense & logic were as weak before him as a woman’s nerves. Mr Crosse was there .. the insect-maker of the Mendip hills, [13] .. & believed. <& think> [14] of a friend of Mr Kenyon’s carrying something in a morocco case the size of a pocket book, & desiring a description of the contents … the answer being—“I see a white paper—within it, is something less white than the paper, yet white. It is sharp-pointed. It has lived. It is a bone. It is a bone from your leg. You have had three wounds—this, the third. Shot by a peculiar kind of musket.” [15]
The information, given thus, .. sentence by sentence .. without questioning.
Magnetism is the topic of the day– The enclosed card is the only sign of your past presence in Chapel Street. As you do not go to France with Mr Chorley, how shall you go? shall you go? Any hope for me? May God bless you always.
Your’s in truest affection
EBB.
The card is large for my envelope—so I will just tell you that it is
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 426–429 (as [?27] [July 1844].
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. It is apparent from the contents of this letter that it was written on a Saturday shortly after Miss Mitford’s visit; 29 June appears more probable than 22 June.
2. Cf. Genesis 8:9.
3. Cf. “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together” (Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful, 1834, ch. 12).
4. Cf. I Corinthians 4:9.
5. This sentence was inserted above the line. As Christ was crucified on a Friday, it became for Christians the unluckiest day of the week, sailors in particular holding that sailing on a Friday invited disaster.
6. I Corinthians 14:40.
7. The constellation Cassiopeia forms the outline of a seated woman with arms raised in supplication.
8. See the remark, “think no nonsense,” in letter 1648.
9. Quid Pro Quo; or, The Day of the Dupes was the title of a play by Catherine Grace Frances Gore (née Moody, 1798–1861). It was selected for the prize of £500 in a competition arranged by the lessee of the Haymarket Theatre, but its reception when staged on 18 June was less than enthusiastic (see letter 1648, note 6).
11. Sarah Biffin or Beffin (1784–1850), a dwarf born without hands, arms or legs, nevertheless excelled at painting miniatures, having mastered the use of pen, pencil and paint-brush by holding them in her mouth.
12. Little is known about Alexis. Dickens lauded the “wonders of this boy … producing such wonderful effects” (Fred Kaplan, Dickens and Mesmerism, 1975, p. 65). The Times for 25 June 1844 was impressed by “the strange, the wonderful phenomena … manifested.” However, The Lancet (3 August, p. 583) contended that his performance “bore the complexion of trickery, or, at all events, that it wanted entirely the precision requisite in scientific enquiries.”
13. For an explanation of the experiments that led to the appellation “insect-maker,” see letter 565, note 15.
14. EBB added the ampersand, and changed the initial letter of “think” from upper to lower case.
15. This incident was also described by Camilla Dufour Toulmin (1812–95), later (1848) Mrs. Newton Crosland; she identified Kenyon’s friend as a colonel, severely wounded at Waterloo (see her Landmarks of a Literary Life, 1820–1892, 1893, pp. 179–183).
16. A calling card, apparently left at Miss Mitford’s lodging in Chapel Street after she had returned home. “Miss Sullivan” is probably the eldest of Lady Dacre’s two grandaughters: Barbarina Charlotte Sullivan (1823–1902, later, 1846, Grey). She and her younger sister, Gertrude Arabella Sullivan (1826–1845), were the daughters of Frederick Sullivan (1805–78) and his wife Arabella Jane (née Wilmont, 1796–1843), only daughter of Lady Dacre.
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