1815. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 23–24.
[London]
Tuesday. [14 January 1845] [1]
Ever dearest friend,
Did I say anything to you of ‘Fernande’—Dumases—? [2] I fancy I did, during the reading of the first seven pages. Beware of it, I tell you now– If Mr Lovejoy ordered it for his library, he will be taken to be disorderly by “prude Angleterre.” [3] As Schlegel said of the ‘Sad shepherdess,’ that it was ‘unchaste praise of chastity’, [4] so we might reverse the saying for ‘Fernande.’ At least—the heroine is a courtezan by profession,—but you wd not guess it, except by her talking too much of modesty & everything “virginal”—&, for the rest, she is a Grace, a muse, a saint & martyr. No virtuous woman could have half her fascinations—(& that’s the moral of the whole!)—& between the numerous dynasties which pass before the reader’s eye with the utmost frankness & unreserve, .. she lives like any mortal angel, in white muslin & ideal virginity. M. Dumas’s ‘Fernande’ will make some of your country gentlemen open their eyes, be certain, if Mr Lovejoy introduces her into Berkshire– I advise you to advise against it.
Dumas has talent—but his extravagance is transcendant; & I think him inferior even to Soulié in sustaining & consistent power. He seems to me quite third class—though I can read him as you see. Is your thought like mine? or ‘what is your thought like’?–
Do I like Moliere? I? What have I ever done that you shd ask such a question? My opinion always used to be .. before the rising up of this generation of fire, .. that Moliere was the genius ‘par excellence’ of the French—that genius, in its full grand sense, was to be found among them (as far as letters go) in Moliere supremely. I never could feel even Corneille to be a great genius, & Racine I could, still less. But Moliere was large enough to stand in front & fill up the interstices of defect. Moliere’s is the name of a true genius—a national name—& yet a name for universal literature. [5]
I forgot to answer this question of yours (why what a question!) in my last letter,—& you are to please to understand that here are two letters sent to you without an answer. I am furiously jealous of your too agreeable neighbours & friends, who take my place with you, & the time which belongs to writing letters to me. If I could see them I wd revenge myself, & ask them “if they like … Miss Mitford” .. or some insulting question of the class.
Talking of letters I have had two this week from Mr Browning, & am delighted.
And did you see Miss Martineau’s in the Morning Chronicle to Mr Greenhough, which everybody says is so much too mild a reproof of the abominable act he was guilty of in publishing her case. [6] By the way, have you seen that publication. I have not. Mr Kenyon advised me not to read it—& I thought it might be pleasanter to be able to feel that I had not, when the subject was touched upon in conversation. For, he says, .. it is an inexcusable statement—most disgusting & abominable—no detail spared—so bad, that (to use his expression) “it shd have been published in latin, if at all.” Now, by the soul of Paul de Kock, [7] do I believe that you will read it notwithstanding!—and if you should, by accident or absolute will, do let me know whether it is really as bad as this? Tell me too what Mr Greenhough deserves if it is—he, the husband of her sister,—to say nothing of professional honour! She speaks of having avoided reading it. Do you think she will, or can, to the end?–
Now, write! The post goes—& I must fly.
Ever your EBB.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 54–56.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by postmark of 15 January 1845, a Monday.
4. EBB refers to Schlegel’s comment on Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess: “we might rather call it an immodest eulogy of chastity,” in Lecture XIII (2, 314), from A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature by Augustus William Schlegel, translated by John Black, with an “Introduction” by R.H. Horne, 2nd ed., 1840. (See Reconstruction, D1415).
5. In letter 612, Miss Mitford refers to Molière as the French’s “greatest man.”
6. In The Morning Chronicle for 13 January 1845, Miss Martineau made a statement refuting her brother-in-law’s claim that she had given him permission to publish the details of her “case” (i.e., her cure by mesmerism), which he had done in a shilling pamphlet entitled Medical report of the Case of Miss H______ M______ (1845); see letter 1794.
7. i.e., by all that is coarse or vulgar, as Charles Paul de Kock often was in his writings about Paris and France.
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