1736. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 180–184.
[London]
Oct. 9th 1844.
I observe that in your great ‘Six,’ my dearest friend, you do not name Paul de Kock—that Paul who is not an apostle. I am wondering what the reason can be. It appears to me that the great admiration with which you used to envelop him, has decidedly gone to rags (to all appearance) & that if you dont mean to drink his health in solemn silence, you eschew him altogether. Tell me how this is. Are you tired of the “unextinguishable laughter” [1] which, for the rest, has nothing of the divine in it? If you had courage to send for the “Trois Culottes,” [2] you would find it wonderfully decent, not merely for him, but for any frenchman. Tell me if you know that work–
In the matter of the six, I agree with you very much,—although scarcely inclined to lift Bernard quite to the level of the others. I agree very much too about English literature—although attributing more than simple talent to both Bulwer & DIsraeli. The latter’s masterpiece is not ‘Coningsby’ while ‘Contarini Fleming’ is extant. [3] He has a fine imagination. So has Bulwer surely! Look at Ernest Maltravers & Alice!– Even Eugene Aram, [4] with the faults you place your finger on, & unquestionably inferior as a finished work, to Balzac’s,—has the blood of genius in it, .. if I know how the pulse of genius goes! But it is unquestionably inferior to Balzac’s. Oh—Balzac will assuredly grow on you, more & more, in greatness. He is so creative—his creatures are so human & warm & perfect in individuality! And what is an unspeakable charm to me, is his sense of this, .. his faith in his own creations—and his custom of introducing the names of his old persons in his new books,—until we take root in his social neighbourhoods & find ourselves saying, “This is particularly interesting to me, because I know all these people”. The Vandenesses & the Duchesses de Langeais’s & Maufrigneases we find in one volume after another. [5] It has been done by other writers,—& by yourself my beloved friend, among them,—but by none, I think, so systematically, & therefore with so complete & lifelike an effect, as by this Balzac. Agree with me,—do! I am delighted beyond what I can express, by all you say of the new literature. I see your sympathies expanding in it, as sea-weed in water. And I respond to all you say. The morality is monstrous & hideous,—but that thrown aside, .. as such experienced readers as you & I, have power to throw it,—the vitality & spontaneousness of thought & feeling throughout the books, must act upon us nobly, & to our delight. Just what you say, I feel. I do not read them long together,— but by snatches of sure solitude, & when I have nothing particular to do,—and so, they produce the effect on me which a run out into the wind wd do, without making me cough or tired. It is a plunge into social life, done in the imagination.
Yes—Lamartine’s poems are certainly worth reading. They have some monotony, but are full of beauty .. & high in spiritual elevation. Read the “Meditations Poétiques.” [6] “Jocelyn” is the longest poem which has appeared of his,—& it does, in fact, consist of an episode to an unpublished poem still longer [7] —as Wordsworth’s “Excursion” is related to his unpublished “Recluse”. [8] Jocelyn is however complete in its own story, & very interesting—although I like the poet’s shorter compositions very much better. Read his “Meditations”. Then Victor Hugo has written verses sweeter than French,––see some in his “Feuilles d’Automne”—& some, finer than sweet: & I delight in several of his ballads. Read the “Odes et Ballades”—& moreover, the “Chants du Crepuscule”. [9] Andrè Chenier I have looked into only by snatches. He died during the Terror. [10] No—I do not know the ‘Chatterton’ drama by Alfred De Vigny,—but I know ‘Stello’ (which by the way, I begged you to read) & in ‘Stello’ is the history of Chatterton,—& also of Chenier,—& also of Gilbert the poet. [11] You must read ‘Stello,’ & especially now, .. because it will be interesting to you to compare the same writer’s treatment of the same subject in romance & drama. I am rather shy (as you are) of French poetry, .. & yet shyer of French tragedy—but really I do begin to believe in the language. If a great poet, an actual rhythmetic poet, rose up to them, he wd not, I begin to believe, be stopped by the language. Look at George Sand’s & Balzac’s romances, and see what the language can do!—& what it can be! I believe in it. It can colour to a shade. As to Chateaubriand, I agree with you altogether. I do not like him. He deals with “the rosy fingered Aurora in prose” [12] far too much,—& he deals with her wordily. He puffs & blows through his imaginative utterances. [13] An eloquent writer, as eloquence goes,—but scarcely a writer of high genius, as genius goes … in France.
Nevertheless & after all, they have not in France such a genius in the way of the genus poet, as Alfred Tennyson—so we may stay at home & look at him.
Have you read Merimée’s “Chronique de Charles IX.”? [14] I have not. Oh—I think that “Le dernier Chouan” was a work of St Aubin’s before he grew to be De Balzac. [15] What you say of the catalogue, is true of others besides Rolandi’s. Indeed Saunders & Otley have nobody in their “company” who can spell French to the humblest degree of accuracy,—& nothing but the expression “a mess” can describe the result. I believe they think Balzac the name of a book. It is abominable, in a great metropolitan library,—& must help to disgrace us with foreigners. You know I began my French phrenzy with a long enchantment under the memoir writers,—& I must have gone through some hundreds of volumes of all sorts in that department. Then I had a natural curiosity about the literature which might come after. Madame Roland is exquisite. ‘Louvet’ I did not read, [16] —but will, some day.
I dont know how you feel, .. but I who am perverse, am all the more anxious to do homage to George Sand, for the difficulties in the road. Not that I wd for the world, for the whole world, vex my dearest Papa,—but I dont see how he cd be vexed, if the English papers said nothing. They might—to be sure! They are fond of your name. Well—it is a temptation. And nobody cd say we were “as bad as she was.” You are too high, .. & I am too out of the way .. illness keeping me respectable. Altogether I have certainly a sort of feeling, as if I shd like to do it——oh, perverse woman! But we will wait. We wont ask dear Mr Kenyon’s “advice” in any case,—because when people give advice they are obliged (observe!) to be wise twice over—once for themselves & once for their client. Which is a supererogatoriness of wisdom in a world like this of ours, & apt to be inconvenient.
By the way Mr Kenyon has gone to France,—& I heard from him when he was at Dover.
Your remark on Magnetism involves my own personal objection to it. To submit myself soul & body to another will, is something particularly revolting to my apprehension; & few considerations in the world wd induce me to such a thing.
Think of Mr Forster of the Examiner praising me warmly last saturday, & at length!– I was the more glad from having expected some harshness instead of kindness. It will do good, says my publisher, to the book. By the way Mr Kenyon asked him some days ago how it sold, .. & the answer was, “Very well.” Now if the book sells, that miracle may class with Miss Martineau’s recovery.
May God bless you, my beloved friend! Tell me something to dream of .. (about seeing you this winter I mean) .. & let me dream of it.
I am most affectely your
EBB.
Say how you are!–
Smythe’s is a curious book, [17] —but though clever, with less indication of power in it, than I had imagined beforehand. The vagueness of Coningsby is just as you state it–
“They wd do such things ..
What they are yet, they know not,” [18]
these young Englanders!——
And talking of youth, .. when DIsraeli’s theory claims the efficiency of genius for that period, he enlarges its bounderies [sic] to forty five & beyond,—with a reference haply to those “middle aged gentlemen who call themselves the young poets”. [19] D’Israeli himself must be not far from fifty I trow.
The French mistakes with regard to English manners & names &c are most amusing. And by the way, Masson wrote a romance on Chatterton, called “La couronne des épines”. [20] How delightful to be able to write so heart to heart to you!– There is no one in the world whom I wd or cd write so to, except yourself!– Delightful it is!
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 1–5.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Cf. The Iliad, I, 599.
2. L’Homme aux trois culottes (1842) by Charles Paul de Kock.
3. As previously mentioned, Disraeli’s Coningsby: or, The New Generation (1844) and Contarini Fleming: A Psychological Auto-Biography (1832).
4. Eugene Aram: A Tale (1832).
5. These characters appear in Balzac’s Béatrix; the Vandenesses and the Duchesse de Langeais also appear in Le Père Goriot and Le Lys dans la Vallée. (In this note, and some others relating to characters in Balzac’s novels, we have drawn on Anthony R. Pugh’s Balzac’s Recurring Characters, Toronto, 1974. We here record our debt to his scholarship.)
6. Published in 1820.
7. Lamartine’s Jocelyn (1836) and La Chute d’un ange (1838) were intended to be part of an epic which he never completed.
8. The Recluse, which was to have been the title of a poem in three parts, including The Excursion (1814) and The Prelude (1850), was never completed; it was published as a fragment in 1888.
9. Hugo’s Les Chants du Crépuscule appeared in 1835, Feuilles d’automne in 1831, and Odes et Ballades in 1826.
10. André Marie de Chénier (1762–94) was guillotined two days before the fall of Robespierre.
11. Nicolas Joseph Laurent Gilbert (1751–80), Thomas Chatterton (1752–70), and Chenier are all commemorated as ill-fated victims in Stello, ou les diables bleus (1832) by Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863). Vigny’s Chatterton appeared in 1835.
12. Cf. The Iliad, I, 447.
13. See letter 1105 where EBB describes Chateaubriand’s style as having a “tendency to undue floridness.”
14. Chronique du règne Charles IX (1829) by Prosper Mérimée (1803–70).
15. Le dernier Chouan (1829) was the first of Balzac’s works to be published under his own name.
16. Mémoires de Louvet de Couvray, député a la Convention Nationale (Paris, 1823) by Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray (1760–97). EBB mentions Mme. Roland’s Mémoires (1820) in letter 925.
17. Historic Fancies (1844) by George Augustus Frederick Smythe (1818–57).
18. Cf. Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” (1842) lines 117–118.
19. We have been unable to identify the source of this quotation.
20. Une couronne d’épines (1836) by Michel Masson (1800–83).
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