2377. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 350–351.
[London]
Saturday [23 May 1846] [1]
My dearest friend, it was indeed a terrible trial for your poor Mr Buckingham, to suffer that shock in his first step away from you! [2] Enough it was, to discourage him for ever, & sadden all. Still the change will act .. the continual change. In the meanwhile, I am by no means a convert to the desirableness of the tropical passage during the summer—though I can perfectly understand how the crowded oriental steamers (where they are really crowded) would be injurious & stifling. One evil is to be set against another. For me, I should have been inclined to wait till the close of the hot season, & then tried the Mediterranean at all risks,—but he had wiser than I to take counsel of .. & that is not saying much, by the way, for Mr May’s wisdom & yours. Do tell me if you have accounts of him.
As for Dumas, I do not remember having ever heard of the book you mentioned .. “Chasse à” [3] … I have not your letter by me. One gets confused & confounded among those books, reading one on another, & I have not preserved a distinct impression of what you call ‘a fine thing’ in Amaury—but, generally speaking, that work did appear to me as heavy as lead, though inoffensive, .. as far as our social system goes:—I mean .. the love goes on innocently, among the unmarried. Do you include a late work ‘Le chevalier de maison rouge’ .. on the revolution .. the chevalier being a lover of Marie Antoinette. Four volumes I have read, .. & it goes on .. on … Probably it would be objected to at Eton ‘et pour cause’. [4]
And shall you really come dearest Miss Mitford, for a day? shall you be so good & kind? I am gathering strength at the sun, & walked a little in the street today, & am looking, as my friends & lookingglasses say, considerably better day by day. You know I do not see Mrs Jameson to the intimate point, but she comes to see me always when she is in town, & all authoress as she is, I do consider that she is not unworthy of being liked by you & liked much. She has a fine enthusiasm for the beautiful & great, for Art in the highest sense, which draws me; & then I agree with many of her views morally, & am properly affected, besides, by her very winning kindness towards myself. Then I do not set my face against the genus author,—as how should I, when nearly all I love in the world, on the outside of my immediate family, is thereof compounded? That is a doctrine, (the good for nothingness of authors) which you are the last person to preach successfully– So remember!
Did I tell you that Capt. Jones is in a quite hopeless state at Portsmouth? [5] Mr Kenyon came up to town for two days & I saw him on wednesday, & then he read me a medical letter to the effect that nothing could be done—he is dying. I thought our dear friend depressed a little, .. but he revives always under the influence of society—& other people found him gay. He has gone back to Portsmouth & will remain to the last, & a great loss it will be, of a valued friend.
I trust that Mr Lovejoy’s child [6] is better—& that this sunshine will make you take heart about him again. And how do you like your new maid? And how is the garden flourishing? Are you as miraculously forward as we are, who have all sorts of roses as in the height of June?
Did I tell you that I have heard from Mrs Osgood, with other kind letters from America. [7] I am sure I owe them every sort of gratitude, those Americans.
Dearest Miss Mitford, love & think of me! And remember the day you promise us!
May God bless you–
I am your
very affectionate EBB–
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 170–172.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the reference to the impending death of Captain Jones (see letter 2353, note 3).
2. As previously explained (see letter 2206, note 2), Miss Mitford’s friend, Mr. Buckingham, had sailed for Cadiz on 7 May; however, we are unable to clarify EBB’s reference here.
3. La Chasse au chastre (Brussels, 1841), the story of a cellist, whose hunting of a thrush leads him on a chase from Marseilles to Italy, filled out the third volume of Le Midi de la France (1841) and the sixth and final volume of Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge (1846). Published in serial form in 1845 and 1846, the plot of Le Chevalier turns on the Chevalier de Rougeville’s attempt to rescue Marie Antoinette.
4. “And with good reason” (see letter 2358, note 3).
5. He died the following day (see letter 2353, note 3).
6. EBB is referring to Patty Lovejoy (1836–56), daughter of George Lovejoy, the Reading bookseller, and his first wife, who had died of consumption. Lovejoy’s daughter died of the same disease shortly after her twentieth birthday. Miss Mitford gave her two of EBB’s letters for her autograph collection on her birthday in June 1847 (Chorley, I, 232).
7. See 2347, note 3.
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