670. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 103–106.
Torquay,
Friday, November 13 [sic, for 23], 1838. [1]
Whenever I forget to notice any kindness of yours, do believe, my beloved friend, that I have, notwithstanding, marked the date of it with a white stone, [2] and also with a heart not of stone…
You said “distribute the seeds as you please,” so, mindful of “those of my own household,” [3] I gave Sept and Occy leave to extract a few very carefully for their garden, composed of divers flower-pots and green boxes a-gasping for sun and air from the leads behind our house, and giving the gardeners fair excuse for an occasional coveted colloquy with a great chief gardener in the Regent’s Park. Yes, and out of a certain precious packet inscribed (as Arabel described it to me) from Mr. Wordsworth, I desired her to reserve some for my very own self, because, you see, if it should please God to permit my return to London, I mean (“pway don’t waugh,” as Ibbit says, when she has been saying something irresistibly ridiculous)—I mean to have a garden too—a whole flower-pot to myself—in the window of my particular sitting-room; and then it will be hard indeed if, while the flowers grow from those seeds, thoughts of you and the great poet may not grow from them besides.
Dearest, dearest Miss Mitford, pray never, never do tear up any old letter of yours for the sake of sending me a new one. Send old and new together. Postages upon your letters never can be thought of, and besides, my correspondents are not like yours, millions in the way of number. They in Wimpole Street knew my doxy upon such subjects too well to keep your letters back with the seeds. They did not dare to wait even a day for Papa’s coming, but sent it at once to me, double as it was, and in a letter of Arabel’s own, making a triple; and those “discerners of spirits” [4] at the post-office marked it (for all the thick paper) a single letter [5] —immortal essence not weighing anything.
I can tell you a very little of dear Mr. Kenyon. I have heard indirectly from my sister, who had only heard of his return to London. His poem in “Finden” has both power and sweetness, [6] and I have heard it preferred, though without an assent on my own part to such a preference, to his last more elaborate contribution. [7] It is, however, very stirring in some parts, and liking it in MS.—in which state he hardly allowed me to see it,—I like it still better now. Is not your “Baron’s Daughter” much admired? It ought to be. There is a half-playfulness and half-sentiment which touch my fancy just where it lies nearest to my heart, besides the practical good sense (perhaps my sin may be to care something less for that) which Mr. Kenyon says “is always to be found in Miss Mitford’s writings, in the very midst of their gracefulness.” Yes, I have seen some kind opinions of my “Romaunt” in the Chronicle [8] and elsewhere. You set the kind fashion by overpraising it; and indeed the stiff-necked critics must have caught fresh cold not to be able to bow their necks to receive a tunic from your hands.
May the “Pilgrim’s Rest” as constructed be worthy of the “Pilgrim’s Rest” as composed. There must be a “meeting of the waters” in their brightness for the accomplishment of that wish. [9]
My beloved father has gone away; he was obliged to go two days ago, and took away with him, I fear, almost as saddened spirits as he left with me. The degree of amendment does not, of course, keep up with the haste of his anxieties. It is not that I am not better, but that he loves me too well; there was the cause of his grief in going; and it is not that I do not think myself better, but that I feel how dearly he loves me; there was the cause of my grief in seeing him go. One misses so the presence of such as dearly love us. His tears fell almost as fast as mine did when we parted, but he is coming back soon—perhaps in a fortnight, so I will not think any more of them, but of that. I never told him of it, of course, but, when I was last so ill, I used to start out of fragments of dreams, broken from all parts of the universe, with the cry from my own lips, “Oh, Papa, Papa!” I could not trace it back to the dream behind, yet there it always was very curiously, and touchingly too, to my own heart, seeming scarcely of me, though it came from me, at once waking me with, and welcoming me to, the old straight humanities. Well! but I do trust I shall not be ill again in his absence, and that it may not last longer than a fortnight.
Have you seen the “Book of Beauty?” [10] There is in it a little poem very sweet and touching, the production of Miss Garrow, a young lady residing in this place. [11] I do not yet know her personally, but she is a friend of Mr. Landor and Mr. Kenyon, and I have heard from the latter high estimation of her genius—it was the word used,—and accomplishments both literary and musical. She has been very kind in sending me flowers and vegetables, but up to this day I have scarcely been fit for a stranger’s visit. May God bless you,
Ever dearest Miss Mitford’s
EBB.
Text: L’Estrange (1), II, 34–37.
1. In 1838, 13 November fell on a Tuesday, but the 23rd was a Friday. It seems probable that L’Estrange misread EBB’s writing.
2. Cf. Cervantes, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, part II, chapter 10.
3. Cf. Proverbs, 31:27.
4. Cf. I Corinthians, 12:10.
5. Postage was paid on the basis of the number of sheets, as well as weight. As there were enclosures in EBB’s letter from Wimpole Street, additional postage should have been assessed.
6. Kenyon’s contribution was “The Greek Wife.” He had just returned to England from his tour in France.
7. His contribution to the 1838 Findens’ Tableaux was “The Shrine of the Virgin.”
8. Reviewing Findens’ Tableaux, The Monthly Chronicle (November 1838, p. 465) said “Two poems, one by Miss Barrett, and the other by Mr. Hughes, are works distinguished by poetical qualities of the highest order. They are both dipped in the hues of ballad minstrelsy. The ‘Romaunt of the Page,’ by Miss Barrett, is full of the early spirit of English poetry—quaint, simple, and pathetic.” (For the full text of the review, see pp. 405–406.)
9. EBB’s allusion is unclear; it may refer to a musical setting of Thomas Moore’s ballad “The Pilgrim,” the first line of the last verse of which reads “Where rests the Pilgrim now?” “The Meeting of the Waters,” included in Moore’s Irish Melodies and Songs (1807), referred to the confluence of the rivers Avon and Avoca, in Co. Wicklow.
10. The annual edited by Lady Blessington.
11. Theodosia Garrow (1816–65) had contributed two poems, “The Gazelles” and “On Presenting a Young Invalid With a Bunch of Early Violets,” to Lady Blessington’s annual. EBB’s comment makes it probable that she was referring to the latter poem. Miss Garrow later (1848) married Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1810–92) and they lived in Florence while EBB and RB were there.
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