1783. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 270–273.
[London]
Dec. 11th 1844.
But what insinuation my dearest friend?
I do not quite see. Has Balzac left me too much of my original innocence to see? I do not quite know. Certainly I do not perceive the drift of the Lancet insinuation. [1]
I am grieved in any case for poor Miss Martineau, & I say to myself, .. Better to fall into the hands of God than of man—better the sickness unto death, than the recovery into cruelty!– But she is strongminded & perseveres. Another paper last saturday. [2]
In none of these papers except the first, where the ‘lights’ were so beautifully exhibited in her personal experience, .. is there anything new or peculiar, .. anything unfamiliar to the observation of ordinary Mesmerists. For instance the water’s change to wine, to the taste of the patient & at the will of the Mesmerizer, is in the very alphabet of the phenomena. [3] The London Clairvoyantes see finer sights & take higher ground—and Mr Kenyon was solicited the other day to “allow a young woman to travel with him”—meaning that he & she being tête á tête & she in the sleep, he might travel in silent thought in any direction on land or water he pleased, while she through her sealed eyelids, beheld the places & persons therewith connected, & described the vision in an audible voice. What do you say to this? He has half agreed to try it, and I am to hear all.
And my worst fears are justified in another direction,—a religious sect having arisen at Cheltenham, of persons who receive their theological system wholly from mesmerized subjects, & call the agency “the third revelation.” [4]
Which ludicrous abuse, you will reasonably declare to be no argument against the judicious use. Still my dearest friend, you must perceive how difficult it is to draw a line between the physical & spiritual, & how having received A or B as a true witness through the wall of a house, the next step is to receive said A or B as a true witness through the ‘veil of the flesh.’ [5] One percipiency is not more contrary to our ordinary experience, observe, than the other. Mesmerized persons profess to see both the spiritual & the natural. Now for me & for you to receive what we like & leave what we dislike, may prove more than we can do logically, however we may attempt it. Not, that I would if I could, dismiss mesmerism. We have no right to dismiss any truth or any power. Only I do think, that considerations like the above should command an unusual degree of gradual & cautious examination of facts—and a very precise induction of those facts, into a systematic form,—& shd prevent the incessant recurrence to mesmerism as a means (curative or otherwise,) until something specific is known of it as a power. Did I tell you that in Paris they are trying to raise the dead with it.? Is it possible that you feel no repulsion? no horror? no creeping of the blood? In respect to Miss Martineau’s last paper, is there not a contradiction where she remarks the somnambule’s use of the word ‘lucidity’ & other terms peculiar to Mesmerism, & at the same moment laments that so much shd be lost, from the narrowness of her vocabulary, the consequence of her imperfect education? [6] Tell me if Jane’s deafness is better.
Well—if you will let me distinguish between stage effect & dramatic effect, I will acknowledge any degree of obtuseness, my dearest friend, you please. But surely, & unless I am most blindly mistaken, I do feel the poetry of the drama. Dramatic character & dramatic situation, .. the passion of character & of situation, .. surely these things are something to me! Have I no delight in Shakespeare, & your Beaumont & Fletcher, & the old plays in general? Are these things bosh and dirt to me, as Miss Pardoe & her pashas wd say? [7] No, no, no—! I cannot admit it. But the practical ethics of the stage .. comprising that sort of knowledge which is said to be necessary for the writer of an “actable play,” [8] .. I do indeed know nothing of,—& you may look down on me there, from the heights of your own experience. I can understand too, dimly, how the want of this knowledge on my part, may be an obstacle to my appreciation of certain qualities in great tragedies & comedies—only I cannot understand how these said qualities can be high—or how, for lack of such knowledge, I could fail to appreciate any true & great dramatic work. Now this may be all wrong of me. Ignorance of any kind, multiplies wrongness of many kinds. And so, you see, that is all I have to say for my ignorance!
While I write, I receive a short note from Harriet Martineau. [9] I wrote just a few words to her (when I heard of the atrocities ventured against her) to express some sense of sympathy—& you shall see how she answers. I will send you the note,—but Mr Kenyon <must> [10] see it first as he is nearest. She says, she was prepared for the publicity,—& she thinks of Godiva. She is a noble creature indeed. I admire her more than ever. I always did admire the moral heroic beyond all things .. next to genius! You shall have the note.
Well—& here is Mr Kenyon—& so, also here, may Miss Martineau’s note be!–
My dearest friend .. of many interruptions, comes a brief letter on my part,—not to speak of the cold, which has interrupted my voice & turned it into a ghost of itself, & made me uncompanionable. All the conversation at Mr Kenyon’s visit, was his—because he cant hear such a whisper as I have made of it these three days. So we have had unanimity to the highest degree, throughout the interview. In great spirits he is, & so agreeable .. both to me & Flush … as to bring the latter a spunge cake. Mr Milnes, he says, has gone to Prussia. And Mr Dickens has been reading his ‘Chimes’ (having come to London from Genoa for a few days on account of circumstances connected with the publication) to a group of Intelligences, such as Carlyle, Mr Harness, Mr Forster, & various men of letters & law, [11] & has drawn iron tears down their cheeks. [12] Mr Harness confesses to sobbing like a child—but even the Plutos were melted. Dickens has a mind, it is believed, to give up the periodical form of issuing his romances,—which will be well for his ultimate fame, all must agree. Mr Rogers bears his pecuniary adversity like a hero of eighty three,—losing not a jot of his vivacity & youth for it. [13]
Indeed my dearest Miss Mitford, I cant answer your question about the names of my critics. I know the name of not one of them, except of Mr Chorley, in the instance of the notice in the Athenæum .. I do not know, & have no means of guessing. Oh no!—not Mr Horne certainly—not Mr Horne, either in the Westminster or elsewhere. He has had no opportunity, in the first place—and in the second, I should recognize his style in a moment. Think of the newspaper called “the League”, the anti-cornlaw organ, taking up the poems & praising them to extravagance!—and I understand that Mr Cobden is most probably the writer of the article, himself, as he writes for the journal & is an enthusiast about poetry. [14] Being on this subject, I must tell you that when Mr Kenyon asked Moxon the other day what he meant by the poems ‘selling very well,’ the answer was, ‘why about half the edition is sold.’ Is not that very well? What do youthink? You know that scarcely more than three monthshave elapsed since the publication. Indeed it appears to me wonderfully well. I calculated on their hardly beginning to sell (except in a small circle) before the end of three months.
The blots on my scutcheon, you are to be pleased to lay to the charge of Duke Flush,—in all their blackness & multiplicity. [15] Having taken it into his head that I had a cake to which he had not access, he has been persecuting me unto death about it.
Oh—this weather! what weather. Forgive me if I have been supernaturally dull between the blots today,—& I do feel some shame in sending you such a blotted letter with nothing worth reading in it.
May God bless you.
You have not forgotten to think of coming,—have you? Only I must have my voice first—which means, that the east wind must go first.
Your ever attached
EBB.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 32–35.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
2. This article, one in a series by Miss Martineau about her experiences with mesmerism, was published in The Athenæum for 7 December (no. 893, pp. 1117–1118).
3. EBB is referring to an incident described in The Athenæum article cited in the previous note.
4. We have been unable to find evidence that such a sect existed in Cheltenham.
5. Cf. Hebrews 10:20.
6. In The Athenæum article (no. 893), referring to her somnambule, Miss Martineau said “I have often longed that she had a more copious vocabulary,” and further explained that, in a mesmeric state, her somnambule gave the definition of “lucidity” as “brightness.” However, when asked to define the word when not in a mesmeric state, the girl answered that she did not know.
7. Cf. “An equally beautiful feature in the character of the Turks is their reverence and respect for the author of their being. Their wives reprimand unheeded—their words are bosh—nothing—but the mother is an oracle” (Julia Pardoe, 1806–62, The City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1836, 1837, I, p. 98).
10. This word is partially obscured by an ink blot evidently caused by Flush (see note 15 below).
11. Dickens left Genoa on 6 November 1844, arriving in London by 1 December (Dickens, IV, 210, n. 2). On 2 December, he wrote to his wife that “the reading comes off tomorrow night” (Dickens, IV, 234). A footnote to that letter explains that those present included Forster, Carlyle, Harness, Maclise, Jerrold, and others. The official date of publication of The Chimes was 1845.
12. Cf. Milton, “Il Penseroso” (1673), line 107.
13. Rogers’s bank had been robbed of forty thousand pounds in notes and a thousand pounds in gold; however, he “manifested admirable fortitude throughout this trying business. ‘I should be ashamed of myself,’ he said, ‘if I were unable to bear a shock like this at my age.’ He was also consoled by universal testimonies of sympathy: ‘It is the only part of your fortune,’ wrote Edward Everett, ‘which has gone for any other objects than those of benevolence, hospitality, and taste’” (DNB).
14. See the previous letter.
15. Two large ink blots occur earlier in this letter (see note 10 above).
___________________
