1883. Harriet Martineau to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 155–157.
Birmingham.
Saturday. [12 April 1845] [1]
My dear Miss Barrett
I am going to send you as much as I can write in ½ an hour. These violets that I have been getting for you out of the garden shall go today, though I have been detained from writing to you by reading the Athenæum of today. I think your confidence in Mr Dilke’s honour must be a good deal shaken by this time. There seems but one opinion of his conduct in this transaction among all honest folk, though they may think no better of Mesmm than he. If I were to tell it all to you you wd say it was iniquitous beyond your power of anticipating. And today, you see, after having assaulted our characters & begin the subject thus, he refuses to admit a main part of our defence, while promising further assaults. [2] This, & the delaying of the assault till we were absent from T, [3] & parted from each other, & the facts hardly proveable from lapse of time;—& Mr H. Greenhow’s telling the women that Mrs W[ynyard]. & I had given up the whole matter—these & a few more such obvious things will be enough for attentive readers to judge by; & this is all we want. To unwind all the intricacies of the falsehoods & unfairness, & to expose the downright lies of Mr H. G. (pray don’t take him for my brother-in-law) wd be work too low for us,—disgusting to the public, & moreover profitless; for today’s paper shows how the unscrupulous may get the advantage for a moment over the honest, & make a show of a case,—when emboldened by knowing that there can be no reply. I am going presently to tea at Mr Ryland’s, to see whether he chooses to publish an exposure of Mr H. G, wh he meant for the next Athenum, & wh the Editor was bound by every honourable consideration to admit. [4] Mr Ryland is all alive about it since he went to Tynemouth;—his legal mind satisfied by his investigations there, & his generous heart & just conscience all engaged on behalf of the honest women.– My maid is here,—& has been for many weeks. Mrs W’s maid is a naughty baggage, & has never been heard of by us since she was dismissed.
I have plenty of “personal narrative” to give you, if I had another hour. I longed to give you a full histy this morng, when I was walking in lanes, chewing sorrel leaves, picking violets & periwinkle, & looking down a pretty avenue towards Harborne Church. [5] I longed to pour into your lap all our flowers, & into your ear all our jokes & discoursings. I was walking with 3 dear nieces,—& coming home to dinner with 5 good & clever nephews (2 of them Greenhows) add to these my kind & dear elder brother & his wife, & you have our party,—in wh I have passed my blissful weeks since the middle of Febry We are happy. I now feel as if I never had been fully & truly so before,—for want of nerve. Now, I have not only the keen relish of things, but a calm, imperturbable serenity,—a soundness of understanding & healthiness of feelings such as I never was aware of before. My health is quite perfect. Every body is convinced who sees me. —But there are better things than these. The ones wh are taking place through mine are more & more. Mesmm is in full play wherever I have been; & every where is it successful,—I don’t mean in every case, but in the large majority in every place. In this town, there are 3 clairvoyants within our own knowledge. Even cancer yields. Opium-eaters are retrieved, “hopeless” tumours disappear, just as mine did. The whole matter is safe now,—it is so widely known & proved. My heart sings for joy at the gladsome letters I receive from strangers—lately wretched sufferers,—now well & free. —I must stop.
In a few posts, I will send you some words wh ought to & will give you pleasure,—from a letter I have just had from America. The violets, as less sweet, shall go first. —I am here till May day. Then, during May, at “Lenton near Nottingham.” [6] Then “Ambleside.” But I shall answer yours soon. I never expect to hear from you,—much as I enjoy it. —I shall think of you as reviving, as the genial weather comes on. I now believe you are better, as such a winter has not damaged you more. God bless you!
Yours affecly
H. Martineau.
Address: Miss Barrett / 50. Wimpole St / London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Date provided by London receiving stamp of 14 April 1845, a Monday.
2. Dilke’s response to the last of Miss Martineau’s statements appeared in The Athenæum of 12 April 1845 (no. 911, pp. 362–363); it contained the following statement: “Space enough, in all conscience, has been given to Miss Martineau; and we cannot, now that she has retired, make room for a stranger, and a discussion on matters irrelevant to the question which has occupied our attention. We still, however, reserve to ourselves the right of adding further evidence, and of even publishing, in a summary form, the whole of Miss Martineau’s fictions relating to this memorable séance, with the facts, by way of annotation.”
3. i.e., Tynemouth.
4. Arthur Ryland, a Birmingham solicitor, had been requested by Miss Martineau to investigate the statements of the three principals involved in the case of her maid, Jane, who had predicted the outcome of a shipwreck while she was in a mesmeric state. Ryland’s findings appeared in The Athenæum of 12 April 1845 (no. 911, pp. 361–362). Having ended his comments on the statements, Ryland added: “Of my interview with Mr. Headlam Greenhow I here say nothing, thinking it will be better to make that the subject of communication from myself to the Editor of the Athenæum.” Statements by Headlam Greenhow (1814–88) had appeared in The Athenæum of 15 March and 5 April 1845 (no. 907, pp. 268–269, and no. 910, pp. 334–335, respectively).
5. The parish church of St. Peter, Harborne, 3 miles S.W. of the centre of Birmingham.
6. Lenton is a small ecclesiastical district in S.W. Nottingham.
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