3461. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 292–294.
Swallowfield,
Aug. 28, 1854.
I am still spared, my beloved friend, still lingering here, wasted to skin and bone, and in such a state that a week ago my beloved friend, Hugh Pearson, [1] took leave of me for three weeks, hoping, but evidently not expecting, that we should meet again here below. I wish you knew Mr. Pearson. He is a man as beloved as any I have ever known—of exquisite taste and the keenest sympathy. I went to him for spiritual comfort, being persuaded that this visitation has been sent most mercifully by the Great Father to draw me to Himself and to the Divine Mediator. May He grant me His grace that the opportunity may not be lost! But I am troubled by wandering, fluttering thoughts—an impossibility of fixing the mind in prayer. I long for a quicker, livelier, more realizing faith. Pray for me, my beloved friend.
Well! this being my state, and intellect still granted, and actual writing less difficult (the pen being filled with ink and my paper fixed for me) than it often has been, I have often thought that I would write one more letter, such as I used to write. Sometimes persons in my state linger longer than might be expected; and I should like to hear that you, and especially that your sweet boy, has not suffered from the heats of Florence during this splendid harvest, which has been tryingly hot in England—although never, for crops or for weather, has been known such plenty so gathered in—a national mercy of the most blessed kind, for the poor suffered grievously last winter from high prices. Now, either bread must be cheaper or wages higher, perhaps both. Tell me that you are all well, and that your darling has regained his roundness and his roses.
I have had bad news about the poor Talfourds. About a month ago a Reading solicitor, who had been long living much above his income, ran away with between twenty thousand and thirty thousand pounds belonging to various persons—amongst the rest with four thousand pounds of Lady Talfourd’s, forming a considerable part of what the Judge had saved. [2] Is it not strange that since the poor Judge’s death not one copy of his works has been sold? But we all know how soon the world forgets.
Mr. Tom Taylor is reappointed Secretary to the Board of Health, [3] with a salary of one thousand pounds a year. I suppose there is not in English literature a young man so truly admirable in mind and in conduct. Dear Mr. John Ruskin was, when I last heard from him, at Geneva, with his parents, sending me everything that he could imagine to help or amuse me. His last gift was a French volume, “Scenes et Proverbes, par Octave Feuillet.” [4] Do you know it? “La Clef d’Or” is very pretty. Farewell, well-beloved friend, farewell! May Heaven bless you, and all whom you love!
M. R. Mitford.
My young neighbour Sir Charles Russell [5] is with his battalion of the Guards at Varna. His account of the mismanagement of our troops is fearful. In all matters of administration the French are generations before us. There is nothing but sickness, and neither medicines nor surgeons. [6]
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 287–289.
1. Hugh Pearson (1817–82), vicar of Sonning from 1841 until his death. According to W.R.W. Stephens, editor of Memorials of the Church and Parish of Sonning by Hugh Pearson, M.A. (Reading, 1890), the vicar “formed a really intimate friendship” with Miss Mitford. “He had a very high opinion of her literary productions, especially of her dramas, and maintained that there were few authors who wrote such invariably pure and vigorous English; while she in her turn was exceedingly captivated by the charms of his conversation” (p. xx). Pearson encouraged Miss Mitford “to read and to think more deeply upon religious subjects than she had ever done before, removed some of her doubts and calmed her fears, and in August, 1854, he administered the Holy Communion to her” (pp. xx–xxi).
2. We have been unable to confirm this information.
3. Tom Taylor (1817–80), playwright and contributor to Punch, of which he became the editor in 1874, was also a barrister and had been assistant secretary of the Board of Health since 1850. Taylor wrote Our American Cousin (1858), the play that President Lincoln was attending at the time of his assassination.
4. Scènes et proverbes (1851) by the French novelist and dramatist, Octave Feuillet (1821–90), contains seven short plays, the last being La Clef d’Or.
5. Charles Russell (1826–83), only surviving son of Henry Russell, 2nd Baronet, and his second wife Marie Clotilde (née Mottet de la Fontaine), had succeeded his father as third baronet in 1852. He was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Légion d’honneur (knight) for valor during the Crimean War. The Russells’ seat was Swallowfield Park.
6. In July 1854 an outbreak of cholera occurred in and around Varna in both the French and British camps. A report from an on-site correspondent describing the situation, dated Varna, 9 August, appeared in The Times of 22 August: “The cholera still continues its ravages, but I rejoice to say that the virulence of the cases is on the decline. Up to the present date the British army has lost about 260 men from this fatal disease. … Our troops are at present losing 30 men a day. … The French losses from cholera are frightful. The disease is not much on the wane among them, and there are divisions in which they die at the rate of 70 and 80 a-day” (p. 8).
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