Correspondence

691.  EBB to Mary Russell Mitford

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 143–146.

Torquay.

Tuesday. [30 April 1839] [1]

Ever dearest Miss Mitford,

I have been a little anxious about your muteness as well as about the ‘mute fishes’ [2] —wondering whether I had any right to imagine you & Dr Mitford tolerably well. Do, when it does not too much cross your convenience, let me hear! It seems so long since I heard last, & there are so many disagreeable & painful things in the world notwithstanding all these spring flowers, & I have such a knack of imagining them, that I wd gladly be sure of none of them having touched you. Dont fancy me forgetful of the fishbasket. But our servant seems to be a nervous person as to the qualifications of travelling fish—and I told you before that fish in this market, when worth anything, is not very often fish directly from the sea.

Did you look into Blackwood this month—& (à propos to fish) perceive how Christopher’s [‘]‘Oystereater” congenially with Tait’s Opium Eater, apostrophizes the “charming & adorable Mary Russell Mitford”—?– [3] You see no sort of diet will expel the admirations due to you—& the imaginative with their opium, & the literal with their oysters come to the same point at last. Nay—the very oysters are infected, if it be true that “the world[’]s mine oyster.”. [4]

I am sorry, very sorry to hear of poor Mr Kenyon’s being laid up again with rheumatism—quite unable to move—& do trust that these attacks are not precursive of any such painful life as is led by his brother. That rheumatism is so fond of repeating itself!——

How right you are not to give away your time to languages. So is everybody who can do anything better–

 

“And Hebrew roots grow best on barren ground”. [5]

The grammar & dictionary drudgery are past bearing, as soon as we have learnt to think– Faust’s incantations threw me upon German a year or two ago, but could not keep me in a very exemplary humour notwithstanding. Yet there is a use for all things—for thistles & Babel too: and at painful times, when composition is impossible & reading not enough, grammars & dictionaries are excellent for distraction. Just at such a time .. when we were leaving Herefordshire .. I pinned myself down to Hebrew, took Parkhurst & Professor Lee for my familiars, & went through the Hebrew Bible from Genesis to Malachi, Syriac & all, as if I were studying for a professorship, [6] —& never once halting for breath. But I do hope & trust to learn no more new languages. There is no mental exertion, per se so little beneficial to the mind–

I covet your familiarity with all sorts of French literature .. a little: but not painfully. French poetry, so called by courtesy, always comes to me cold as prose—& this indisposition of mine has conveyed itself to the prose perhaps scarcely consciously. I believe Pascal stirs me more than any other French writer—at least strikes me as less French––& as endued with a sort of intellect that reaches deeper down to the feelings .. as deep intellectuality will always do .. than that of the national multitude. I am very backward as to the Memoirs—& a hundred miles behind everybody as to French literature of the present day—knowing scarcely anything except of Lamartine & Victor Hugo—& Edgar Quinet, by grace of the Athenæum, [7] —& the Athenæum’s own Rhapsodist in criticism (Jules Janin) who in his proper particular practice you know, adopted the Siamese twins idealized, as heroines of romance– Peace to the souls of the heroines! They had two pairs of eyes .. black & blue .. had’nt they?—& only one heart—which was scarcely fair, & turned out to be very unfortunate. [8]

Do you know George Sand—& Paul De Kock?– [9] I am curious respecting the former–

What exquisite weather. They have carried me down to the drawing room—twice in the light of it—and I am very tolerably comfortable & well—longing to get back to London, longing to be with them all once more, in Wimpole Street. But moving is out of the question for me just now .. & must be, before quite the end of May or the first days of June—& even then, there is no plan fixed for me. I must [10] be with them this summer—I must indeed. I keep saying that day after day.

God bless you my beloved friend! Give my very kind regards—will you? to Dr Mitford—& do tell me as much as I may hear of your plans loco-motive & literary. When do you go upon the tour?– [11] My love to the flowers! How beautiful they must look from your summer room! Have you ventured yet to begin its occupation?–

I hear good news of your seeds which are giving green promise in Wimpole Street. [12] But how disappointed the poor flowers will be when they come & see nothing but bricks!——& nothing of you!

Is Mr Chorley in better health?—Tell me.

Again disappointed about the fish! But there is hope for tomorrow.

Once more God bless you.

Most affectionately your

Elizabeth B B.

Cheveley or the man of honor–

Lady Cheveley or the woman of honor.

Have you observed the latter advertisement? [13] I have seen neither book, but am arrived at two conclusions– The first is, that however infamous Sir Lytton’s conduct as a husband may have been—heaping it with every imaginable infamy—Lady Lytton deserves the whole of it– The second—that when a husband lives in London & his wife at Bath, there is no excuse for either, upon any disturbance of their domestic harmony. A hundred miles between, really ought to secure some degree of connubial felicity as the world wags—but unfortunately it wages– Seriously, how could a woman if ever so unwomanly achieve such an unwomanlyness?– The flippancy too of some of the extracts which is irreconciliable with the only excuse for her .. a good earnest downright fury of a passion .. is inexpressibly disgusting to me.

Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 122–125.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Dated by reference to the advertisement in The Athenæum.

2. William Congreve (1670–1729), The Way of the World (1700), IV, 9, 4.

3. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, in an article entitled “Some Account of Himself. By the Irish Oyster Eater” (April 1839, pp. 463–475), included this passage: “‘And where is your home, my dear little maid?’ enquired I. ‘Not far,’ replied the little girl—‘not very far—at our village.’ Our village!—I thought of the charming—the adorable Mary Russel [sic] Mitford. Our village!—there was nature, kindliness, and simple-hearted tenderness in the very sound.”

Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, under the heading “Lake Reminiscences, from 1807 to 1830. By the English Opium-Eater” (April 1839, pp. 246–254), spoke of Dorothy Wordsworth as being “thoroughly deficient (some would say painfully deficient—I say charmingly deficient) in ordinary female accomplishments, as ‘Cousin Mary’ in Miss Mitford’s delightful sketch.” Later in the article, the writer [Thomas De Quincey] says “We all know with how womanly and serene a temper literature has been pursued by Joanna Baillie, by Miss Mitford, and other women of admirable genius—with how absolutely no sacrifice or loss of feminine dignity they have cultivated the profession of authorship” and surmises that “the little cares of correcting proofs … must inevitably have done much to solace the troubles, which, as human beings, they cannot but have experienced; and even to scatter flowers upon their path.”

4. The Merry Wives of Windsor, II, 2, 3. The second word is underscored three times.

5. Cf. Butler’s Hudibras, I, 1, 59–60.

6. EBB’s copy of An Hebrew and English Lexicon (2nd edition, 1778), by John Parkhurst (1728–97), formed lot 967 of Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1813). Samuel Lee (1783–1852), Professor of Arabic at Cambridge and later Regius Professor of Hebrew, was said to have been master of 18 languages. He was the editor of scholarly editions of various parts of the Bible in Syriac, Malay, Arabic, Coptic, Persian and Hindustani. In 1827, he published A Grammar of the Hebrew Language, which reached a sixth edition in 1844. EBB’s annotated Hebrew Bible is now at Union Theological Seminary (see letter 468, note 5).

7. See letter 653, note 6.

8. Jules Janin (1804–74) was a French journalist and critic, particularly of drama, who contributed reviews to The Athenæum. EBB’s reference may have been to his Une Femme à Deux Têtes (1829), or to Un Cœur Pour Deux Amours (1833), which was based on the earlier work.

9. Charles Paul de Kock (1793–1871) wrote novels depicting middle- and lower-class life, including André le Savoyard (1825) and Le Barbier de Paris (1826).

10. Underscored four times.

11. See letter 687.

12. The two seeds sent to EBB (see letter 683) from those received by Miss Mitford from Africa.

13. Rosina, Lady Bulwer-Lytton (née Wheeler, 1802–82) had been separated from her husband, the well-known novelist and M.P., since 1836. Angered by what she believed to be his lack of generosity in the financial provisions he made for her, she attempted to obtain redress by legal and other means. She had recently published a novel, Cheveley, or the Man of Honour, in which the villain was a thinly-disguised depiction of her husband. The Athenæum of 27 April 1839, in its “List of New Books” (p. 314), included an anonymous rhyming brochure, Lady Cheveley, or the Woman of Honour. Lady Bulwer believed it to be her husband’s work, but this he denied.

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