3499. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 27–31.
Florence.
Decr 11– [1854] [1]
I should have written long ago my dearest Miss Mitford to try to say half the pleasure & gratitude your letter made for me, but I have been worried & anxious about other illnesses—not exactly in my family but nearly as touching to me,—& hanging upon posts from England in the painful way inevitable to these great distances. Miss Tripsack whom you may remember, has been very ill—& her advanced age makes the subject full of alarm to me, in spite of the hopes expressed in the last account—sent to me too long since by my sister Arabel. Well—I need not wrap that shadow round you, at least. I was very, very happy to get your letter. And I have heard since pleasantly of you through dear Mr Kenyon who heard from Mr Harness. May God be thanked for every breath of hope! Oh—of course when you bid me not be sanguine, I answer that I will not. It shall be enough for me that you are relieved for the present .. a little easier—and, for the future, however that shall be, it shall be well left in God’s hands– I am never curious about my own future—I never was given to peeping into the next pages of story-books. And though of course my dear friend, I cant be quite so well-behaved about your illness, still, while you keep a little better, I can keep tolerably quiet—saying to myself perhaps (in an undervoice which shant disturb you) how illnesses last long & make way for miraculous recoveries,—& how Mr Rogers who is old enough to be your father, has held out under circumstances fatal to many young persons. [2] Mr Harness’s picture of you as Mr Kenyon sent it to me, was beautiful, & we may all sit down to learn of your patience & a high-minded serenity .. may we not? will you not let us? I wish for one thing. I wish you were able to lie more comfortably at nights, because that sitting posture seems to me so horribly trying where the strength is much diminished. [3] Now I have seen chair-sofas—chairs which let down in the back with a spring, .. so that by degrees you might change the position—vary it gradually, so as to adapt it to the state of body. Have you ever tried such a chair– Then you draw out something under the seat & it is turned to a chaise longue at once & literally. The worst you tell me of yourself is the thinness. Now .. bear with me .. if you were to take the cod-liver oil! The effects are sometimes miraculous– But the real miracle will be if you are not vexed with me for tormenting you so. Are you, dearest friend?
Perhaps you dont read French books just now, but, if you are inclined to them, there are twenty three [4] volumes of Dumas’ memoirs which (‘par çi par la’) [5] are very amusing. It is right to warn you that the first volume is the dullest,—because it repulsed me fairly & drove me away from the whole work for a year—a piece of cowardice on my part. The literary life in Paris is very vividly given,—and if he makes the twenty three volumes a hundred & thirty, I shant complain on the whole. George Sand’s memories [6] I have not seen yet. Atherton too has not reached us—alas! Do you know the exquisite ‘Maîtres Sonneurs’, one of her very best pastorals, if not the best? I understand that literature is going on flaggingly in England just now, on account of nobody caring to read anything but telegraphic messages– [7] So Thackeray told somebody—only he might refer chiefly to the fortunes of the ‘Newcomes’ who are not strong enough to resist the Czar. The book is said to be defective in story. [8]
Certainly the subject of the war is very absorbing—we are all here in a state of tremblement about it. Dr Harding has a son at Sebastopol, [9] who has had, already, three horses killed under him. What hideous carnage! The allies are plainly numerically too weak, & the two governments are much blamed for not reinforcing long ago. I am discontented about Austria—I dont like handshaking with Austria– [10] I would rather be picking her pocket of her Italian provinces .. & while upon such civil terms, how can we? Yet somebody who professes to know everything, told somebody at Paris who professes to tell everything, [11] that Louis Napoleon & Lord Palmerston talked much the other day about what is to be done for Italy; [12] and here in Italy we have long been all opening our mouths like so many young thrushes in a nest, expecting some “wormë small” [13] from your emperor. Now, if there’s an Austrian alliance instead!
Yes—of course I have heard a little of the Ruskin business. I am sorry that any woman should have acted so, and really I can hardly call her a woman afterwards: the beast is too much uppermost in the personal confession. At the same time how unwise of him .. to select for a position of the kind a merely pretty woman .. furniture-woman, like that! It’s a mystery to me how he could do it. One never should be surprised at any ordinary marriage—because love, the passion, follows after many various devices. But if he wanted simply a friend & companion, one may rationally ask, why her? If it was’nt a matter of the senses, it should have been of the reason—dont you think so? I liked much what I saw of him, & in my recollection of his exquisite gentleness & delicacy of manner, I cannot for a moment admit the probability of those imputations you refer to, being motives .. I mean with regard to the ill-conduct towards her. Deeply sorry I am for him indeed. [14]
Do you hear from Mr Kingsley? and, if so, how is his wife? I am reading now Mrs Stowe’s ‘Sunny Memories,’ [15] & like the naturalness & simplicity of the book much, in spite of the provincialism of the tone of mind & education, & the really wretched writing. It’s quite wonderful that a woman who has written a book to make the world ring, should write so abominably.
Dearest Miss Mitford, you are aware that Mary Haydon went to Marseilles. A week or two afterwards I had a letter from her– She had nothing to complain of—but she found she could not live without her brother [16] —she should break her heart. Did I know of anybody who would take her back? or must she make him come for her? —I wrote of course, to entreat, reason, .. press upon her the propriety of having patience for at least a few months, & of her trying to reconcile herself to a position which, in the judgement of friends, had been considered desireable for her. She was not angry with me, poor thing .. she wrote me back a gentle but very decided letter– Go home she would, to Frank,—& never separated from Frank would she be again! I dare say she is almost in England by this time. How foolish, is’nt it!– How after the nature of Haydon, it all is!– Observe! by her own account, everybody at Marseilles was excessively kind, & the difference between the two countries was not offensive to her, she said. With the exception of the “want of green fields,” & the “smell in the streets,” I could not make out that there was the least thing to find fault with– (By the way, she has been used to green fields in London of course! One luxuriates in green fields, in London!) But Frank! That adorable Frank who could’nt be lived without! It was simply Frank’s existence elsewhere, that rendered Marseilles untenable.
Do you hear often from Mr Chorley? Mr Kenyon complains of never seeing him– He seems to have withdrawn a good deal—perhaps into closer occupations .. who knows? Aubrey de Vere told a friend of ours in Paris the other day that Mr Patmore was engaged on a poem which “was to be the love-poem of the age” .. parts of which he .. Aubrey de Vere .. had seen.– [17]
Last week I was vexed by the sight of Mrs Trollope’s card, brought in because we were at dinner. I should have liked to have seen her for the sake of the opportunity of talking of you.
Do you know the engravings in the “Story without an end”? [18] The picture of the ‘child’ is just my Penini!– Some one was observing it the other day, & I thought I wou<ld> tell you, that you might image him to yourself. Think of his sobbing & screa<ming> lately because of the Evangelist John being sent to Patmos!– [19] “Just like poor Robinson Crusoe” said he! I scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry I was so astonished at this crisis of emotion. May God bless you & keep you & love you better than we all.
Your ever affectionate
Ba.
Robert’s love will be put in.
Address: Angleterre viâ France / Miss Mitford / Swallowfield / near Reading / London.
Publication: EBB-MRM, III, 422–426.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. The poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) was 91 at the time of this letter. A severe leg injury that occurred when he was hit by a carriage in 1850 had left him an invalid.
3. In a letter dated 20 September 1854, Miss Mitford told Agnes Jennings: “I am obliged to sit on an easy-chair day and night, sitting on a wool cushion, sometimes propped by air cushions” (L’Estrange (2), III, 291).
4. Sic, for twenty two; see letter 3490, note 9.
5. “Here and there.”
6. Histoire de ma vie (20 vols., 1854–55) was currently appearing as feuilletons in La Presse. Volume one of the printed work, which had been issued at Paris in the autumn, dwelt primarily on George Sand’s family background. Miss Mitford had seen some of the newspaper installments provided by Henry Chorley (see L’Estrange (2), III, 300).
7. i.e., dispatches with the latest news of the Crimean War.
8. The Newcomes (see letter 3320, note 10) tells the story of the title family, particularly that of Clive Newcome, a young art student who is thwarted in love and left impoverished when his father, Colonel Newcome, loses his fortune.
9. Francis Pym Harding.
10. A treaty forming an alliance between England, France, and Austria was signed on 2 December 1854 at Vienna. Although long an ally of Russia, Austria had not only refrained from supporting the Czar against Turkey, it had signed a protocol with France, England, and Prussia in April (see letter 3428, note 12) and a treaty with the Ottoman Empire in June. After Russian troops had evacuated the Danubian Principalities in August, they were occupied by Austrian forces. The text of the 2 December treaty was reported in The Times of 16 December (p. 9). Article two stated that the Emperor of Austria would “defend the frontier of the … Principalities against any return of the Russian forces.”
13. Cf. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (VII, 997), “The Tale of Melibee.”
14. See letter 3428, note 16. One of the rumors then in circulation claimed that Ruskin encouraged his wife to be friendly with other men so that she would commit adultery, giving him grounds for divorce.
15. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Boston and London, 1854), an account of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s travels through Europe in 1853.
16. Frank Scott Haydon (1822–87), older brother of Mary Haydon who had taken a position with an English family in France.
18. The Story Without an End (1834), translated by Sarah Austin (née Taylor, 1793–1867) from the German Das Märchen ohne Ende by Friedrich Wilhelm Carové, was illustrated by William Harvey (1796–1866). The child of the story, depicted as a boy of Pen’s age with shoulder-length light-colored hair, appears in engravings at the beginning of each chapter.
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