1720. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 149–152.
[London]
Sept. 20. 1844.
My ever dearest Miss Mitford, you will think harm either of your own letter or of me for being so slow in having the fire struck out of me by it to illustrate your theory. But neither of us is to blame. The letter was faultless; & I would have responded to it in a moment, (I felt all the impulse) only that there were previous claims which forced me to write till I was tired. Now at last I come to you,—sighing for pleasure as Flush does. How kind of you to feel as you do about my letters. It is just so with me & yours. My bell rings whenever you pull the string. There is a singular sympathy in dyspathy between you & me which brings together closer than a simple sympathy would. And then I who care for ‘pen & ink’, do not value your letters only for their influence on myself, but because my creed is that they will be hereafter a part of our literature,—that your letters will be as popularly known as your Villages!– It’s a doxy of mine!
Dearest friend, I am going to tell you my news. Miss Martineau is better, & likely to be better,—and the means .. can you guess the means? .. why you are to look for the means, to mesmerism. Is this not great & wonderful news?—yes, & joyous news? She says that until June, she was believed to be insensible to the influence, (which you know many persons are) but, then, she became sensible to it. The bad symptoms receded—she recovered appetite, sleep, & so much strength, that, after a seclusion of four years & a half from the external air, she is now able to go downstairs every day & lie on the grass flat beneath the sky, without any fatigue. Her own maid magnetizes her twice a day—and the learned say that she will recover. This, she says, she can scarcely believe possible, but she is better already than she used to think possible,—and, in brief, she evidently hopes. At first, when the improvement was not yet a certain thing, she desired to keep the whole secret, lest she shd injure the cause of Mesmerism. But now her expression is “Everybody may know it.” [1] Well,—it is wonderful news certainly,—& to me, who heard it without any sort of preparation, (for she had never breathed a syllable about Mesmerism to me), it came with such emotion, that I could but think of it the night after instead of sleeping over it. That the agency shd be found available in cases of epilepsy & nervous affection, we may all understand,—but how in such a case as her’s, where disease had produced (as I suppose it had) change of structure, there shd be a change back again under that influence, I wonder & am astonished at. Also, my impression had been always, that mesmeric patients were of the weaker class as to nerves & mind. But Harriet Martineau!—— It is wonderful! And if the restoration takes place, what a sensation in favour of the mysterious agency, will rationally be excited everywhere! Who will dare to doubt anymore the existence of the agency—as my own father has done hitherto? What will Mr May say,—he, who used to talk of hysteria? The phenomena of hysteria are morbid symptoms in themselves, & not correctives of morbidity.
You will be very glad, I am certain. I was so glad, that I thought as a secondary thing of what wd otherwise have gladdened me much, .. & which did gladden me much, .. her opinion of my poetry. I told you, I think, that she was “sworn” to tell me the whole truth of the new volumes,—& the silence struck me as so very ominous a sign, .. a whole month’s silence!, .. that when the letter came I was half afraid to open it. But there was no need for fear,—except for my head’s turning round. She speaks far beyond the utmost edge of my uttermost hope!—talks of the “immense advance’[’] on the other volume,—& says (best of all) that the “predominant impression with her is the originality.” I am very much pleased of course—very much! It is fair to add that she agrees with you in a preference of the smaller poems,—& though with kind words for the Drama, that she observes upon a general impression of monotony as its effect on the mind. Altogether I am far more than satisfied,—more than pleased. I will let her find fault with the paces of my hobby of Rhyme, & not complain. It’s a letter as extravagant in generosity, as could have come to me from Three Mile Cross!
Then I have heard from Mrs Jameson,—a very kind letter! I hope she did not fancy that I wanted her to write me compliments. That was not my wish. I heard from Mr Kenyon that she thought of writing,—& then, she did not write—& then, I wished she might do it, .. hoping to have a critical discriminating opinion from her, which might benefit me. But she has written in very general kindness, such a letter as I am of course glad to receive, but should not choose to ask for. Do you understand?
Oh yes! I am delighted to hear everything of George Sand, & I did not know all you tell me, .. not the legal process, for instance. For the rest, I have read somewhere not long ago of a visit paid to her by a gentleman who apprized her of the fact of her works having been translated in Germany. “Without the immoral parts”? she asked him scornfully, .. whereat her daughter looked aside & blushed. [2] Also I have the impression that this said daughter is married, & older than represented by Mrs Jameson. Does not Mr Chorley in his ‘Manners & music’ speak of having seen George Sand in man’s clothes at the Paris opera,—& of another vision of her in a steamer in a like costume, where she was smoking herself into an atmosphere of cloud, & reading the bible? [3] Oh—& there is an account of her certainly in “Les Catacombs,” by Jules Janin, [4] a collection of vivid papers which were full of interest to me & will be to you. Do send for them. Those supplements are tiresome—and, I think, they occur everywhere. It is extraordinary how little sense of order the circulating booksellers are endowed with. Everywhere, their catalogues are a compilation of supplements. I have just read Coningsby. It is very able, & yet scarcely efficient, .. if I do not write contradictions. It has no story, & not a great deal of character; and is powerful as an exponent of the Young England political views, without being specific. Still a master-mind lives in the book, & the reader feels it everywhere. But I sigh for the Contarini Flemings, [5] —& the atmosphere of pure imagination which he, D’Israeli, has left above him. A man of assured genius he must be confessed.
I confess besides that Balzac is a painful writer. And what you observe about nature & art, is, to be sure, so very true! We have all seen skies which no painter wd venture to paint,—could paint without the imputation of extravagance,—have we not?
Your Flush is worthy of the god Bacchus,—so leave them in high converse! As for mine, his principle is to eat & drink everything he sees me touch,—& a good deal besides. I have fancied lately that the “least touch” [6] as your Irish hero wd say, of toasted cheese, hot with mustard & cayenne, assisted my digestion. Think of the heroic effort it must have cost Flush, to approach this high argument. He coughs & sneezes, & then resumes the charge. He considers it a personal affront if he is not allowed to eat everything left on the plate. But what he really & after all cant do, is to persuade me that he likes it. In that, he fails utterly, like Mr O’Connell on the balcony. [7]
Because, you see, you are forced to admit his failure, .. his being unequal to the circumstance. They have him in the Pictorial Times, with an umbrella over his head instead of a halo; [8] & this is very much as, according to my doxy, he will appear to posterity. A great man, nevertheless—! a great man of the steam engine age! of this “wondrous Mother-Age,” [9] as Tennyson calls it, that has such a wonderfully ignoble looking family.
Napoleon!—ah yes—Napoleon! Do you know it struck me before, how differently it wd have been with Napoleon! No man, better than Napoleon, understood the heroic poetry of situation. He was always equal to his position, whatever that might be, .. Austerlitz, Moscow, Fontainbleau. [10] Napoleon was cast in the heroic mould, & fell naturally into the heroic gesture. His very grey surtout does not dress him out of the heroic! He is as statuesque as Hercules, though in boots!
I have had the most delightful letter from Mr Kenyon, who is coming home directly after having seen half England by flashes, & after spending (which he is now going to do) two days with Mr Eagles at Clifton, & one with Landor at Bath. Then he comes home for some two or three days, preparatory to setting off for Paris where he will spend a fortnight.
May God bless you, my dearest friend!
Do write—& do love me!
I am ever your affectionate
EBB–
Yes—I shd like to know Miss James—& much like to know Mr Chorley.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 452–455.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
2. We have been unable to verify this anecdote.
3. See Chorley, Music and Manners (1841), III, pp. 7–13.
4. Jules Gabriel Janin (1804–74) published Les Catacombes in 1839. The first chapter in the fourth volume is entitled “Georges Sand.”
5. Benjamin Disraeli’s novels, Coningsby: or, The New Generation (1844) and Contarini Fleming: A Psychological Auto-Biography (1832).
6. We have not been able to identify this quotation, presumably by O’Connell.
8. We have been unable to locate a picture of O’Connell to fit this description in any 1844 issue of Pictorial Times.
9. Tennyson, “Locksley Hall” (1842), line 108.
10. Sites associated with different stages in Napoleon’s career: Austerlitz, his victory over the Austro-Russian army in 1805; Moscow, his retreat in 1812; and Fontainebleau, his first abdication in 1814.
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