3285. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 331–333.
Swallowfield,
Nov. 10, 1853.
My very dear Friend,
I cannot enough thank you for your most affectionate letter. I am still just as I was; but I have no sort of faith either in homœopathy or mesmerism. Indeed my friend, Dr. Spencer Hall, [1] the great mesmerist, gave up the one, which had nearly killed him, and has taken to the other, which, I suppose, does less harm to the physician if not to the patient; so that I have got to believe them grown-up toys, the skipping-ropes and battledores of elderly people; and I now cling obstinately enough to the quiet rational ways of established practitioners. My present ailment is rheumatism, which has long been coming on—“a highly rheumatic condition,” to use the medical phrase, upon which that terrible overturn, just at the beginning of a wet winter, fell like a spark among gunpowder. I don’t think there is the slightest chance of any improvement, and must be content with what remains to me—the use of my intellect, and to a certain extent of my right hand, a comfortable cottage, excellent servants, kind neighbours, and most dear friends. And this is much. We must not forget, in thinking of my case, that for above thirty years I had perpetual anxieties to encounter—my parents to support and for a long time to nurse—and generally an amount of labour and of worry and of care of every sort, such as has seldom fallen to the lot of woman. I had not time to take care of myself, or of my health; and that, beyond a doubt, laid the foundation of my complaints. When I see you in the summer, my own beloved friend, if it please God to spare me so long, you will perhaps find me sitting under my acacia tree; and I hope to get a garden chair and be wheeled about in the open air. It is a great thing to have a man like Sam, at once so strong and so gentle, who can bear me along by putting his hands under my arms, and even lift me down stairs step by step—only that that is so painful a process that I avoid it whenever I can, and see as few strangers or mere acquaintances as possible.
I have had a most interesting account of Miss Bronté and a charming letter from her. [2] She is a little, quiet, gentle person; the upper part of the face good, but something amiss in the formation of the mouth; her conversation full of power and charm. She lives with her father—the only child remaining out of six—in a most secluded Yorkshire village amongst the moors. He is a gentlemanly and amiable man. I suppose the living is very small, for Miss Bronté went to France for two years; and the debût of Lucy Stowe (vide ‘Villette’), in Brussels, was literally her own. [3] She also speaks to me of coming to London without necessity, as a thing hardly warrantable; and seems to me exceedingly unaffected and unspoilt. I like both ‘Shirley’ and ‘Villette.’
Remember me to your dear Robert and Mrs. Trollope.
Ever most affectionately yours,
M. R. Mitford.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 277–278.
1. Spencer Timothy Hall (1812–85), author of Mesmeric Experiences (1845) in which he recounts his participation in the mesmeric cure of Harriet Martineau, had turned to homœopathy “about 1852” and “published Homœopathy: A Testimony (1852)” (ODNB).
2. According to Margaret Smith, this letter has not been located (see The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, 1995–2004, 3, 205).
3. Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) was the third daughter and child of the Reverend Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) and his wife Maria (née Branwell, 1783–1821). In 1820 the Brontës settled permanently at the parsonage in Haworth, West Riding, Yorkshire. Charlotte spent nearly two years in Brussels, first as a student then as a teacher at the Pensionnat Heger. Lucy Stowe is the heroine in Villette (1853), which is set in Brussels (the Villette of the novel).
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