3940. Dinah Mulock to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 158–160.
Lynover Cottage, Kilburn. London. N.W.
(Initials commended by General Post Office)
Dec. 18th—/56.
My dear friend
I may call you so? Knowing what you have been to me these many years.
I wanted to write the day after I saw you [1] —but did not– It was only to say that I had not said half I wished to say—that morning—feeling weak & nervous with being confined to the house for months;—that was the first day of my quitting it—almost. Also to tell the honest truth—means confession for a woman of thirty!– I care for you so much that when I see you I feel frightened & shy like a girl of sixteen– Don’t let Mr Browning laugh at this, for sentimentalism—you two are the last of my enthusiasms—you specially being a woman– Honestly, that morning, I felt like a fool– But I will not be ashamed of my folly.– It’s something for any human being to owe as much to other human beings as I to both of you—and to love you in this sort of way—that it makes one feel foolish.– So—no more of that. I have said it out & am easy in my mind.–
Last night I finished Aurora Leigh.– It seems to me the completest Poem, if not one of the grandest books, that any woman ever wrote—but many will have told you this, or the like.– I feel I have no right even to praise– I don’t praise—I love you. I love in you the womanhood that speaks out what we women are & want & feel—that is not afraid of, nor shrinks from, saying anything—right to be said—that walks with clean feet thro’ uncleanest ways & helps publicans & sinners [2] —as Christ did.– I can’t tell you how thoroughly the book seems a gospel—a message sent & needed– Putting aside all the Poet in it—(you know what you are)—it is apostolic—striking through darkness & foulness & confusion with a clear ray of daylight—of the Light Himself.– Especially to us women.– Oh it’s worth any living, any suffering to have written for women a book like that– You may go out of life content—leaving that behind you.– Do I make clear—I’m afraid not—what I mean? that it is not the fame, nor the glory of it, that I feel about this book—it’s the truth in it—the loss & love in it—the hope in it—hope that one almost loses, (in everything but the Sermon on the Mount) [3] —concerning this our humanity that God seems so far away from, sometimes. In many a little half-line here & there you have put more of Him & His truth than one finds in 50 books or 100 sermons. Dear & good & true!– I shall get foolish again if I think of you– Do you understand? it isn’t the fame—it’s you. There’s something in me which runs after & holds to & seems to understand you– Personally, it never may—in fact it is hardly possible—with lives so wide apart– Nevertheless I have you—quite close:—& always shall.– If you would now & then—or seldom as you like—let me have a word or two about yourself, your husband, & boy—it would be very pleasant.– My life is almost as quiet as your own– I hardly ever know what it is to feel strong & well—& rarely or never visit—this winter not at all—so that the news I catch of you is meagre & seldom.– I hope you are well—at least as well as you are in winter-time usually.– Where you are I have no idea– This comes thro’ Mr Chapman.–
Dear friend, God bless you—& give you a happy life—it must be happy, it is so good.– And it makes goodness– Forgive this wandering sort of letter—which utterly in vain tries to express what it meant—I feel that—possibly because it is inexpressible——
Your affectionate
Dinah Mulock–
Remember me to your husband—he is greater than you—even you could not have made some of the “Men & Women”—I stand in great “hor” (as Thackeray spells it) [4] even of the shadow of his shoe-tie.– [5] I adore him after all!!—but then I love you.– Here shall be an end. Not one word more– [6]
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Princeton University.
1. Evidently, Dinah Mulock had called on EBB during the Brownings’ most recent stay in London. The two had first met there in the summer of 1852.
2. Paired several times in the New Testament; see for example Matthew 9:10–11.
3. See Matthew 5:1–12.
4. For “awe”; William Makepeace Thackeray, “Lines on a Late Hospicious Ewent” (Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, 1855), line 60; first published in Punch, 11 May 1850.
5. Cf. Mark 1:7 and John 1:27.
6. Miss Mulock alludes to the final poem in Men and Women (1855), “One Word More.”
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