705. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 179–184.
Torquay–
August 3d 1839
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,
Have you been thinking very hardly of me, “cudgelling me with your hard thoughts” [1] dearest Miss Mitford, for this dead silent way of receiving your letter? I fear it the more, on account of having heard from London that you must suppose me to be in possession of a parcel containing I dare say Miss Anderdon’s book, [2] sent to Wimpole Street through Mr Kenyon, and which has not reached me up to this moment. Dont be angry with anybody in Wimpole Street. They did not even wait for an opportunity!—they forwarded it to me immediately, inclosing your parcel in one of theirs, & sending the whole by the steamer—or rather, intending to do so. For the poor steamer broke its boiler in the river & exploded: [3] without further injury to anybody I am glad to say than to the patiences of different people situated as I am, who must wait for the cargo by a sailing vessel & try to look placid everyday when they hear of the wind being right for Petersburgh. [4] Day after day I have waited for this poor parcel—and besides, for Mr Horne’s reply to the enquiry I directed his way, via Mrs Orme, as to whether he wd write a scene or poem of some sort, quickly & instantly for Miss Mitford’s annual. I wrote to her by the post next to the one by which your letter reached me. It appears that Mr Horne has been out of town—as far as I could understand what she wrote to me two days ago,—& this very day, I have received a most obliging letter directly from himself, from which here are extracts.– “I beg of you not to imagine that I am affecting to be, or really being, impertinent, when I say I never yet wrote a word in an annual,—and as I never could afford to buy one, nor ever lived in a house with one, so I never read one. It would give me great pleasure if I thought I cd do anything that would be agreeable to Miss Mitford and yourself, in the work in question—but I really dont know what is wished. Anything I can do, pray command me, & to save time, allow me to tell you what I cannot. I know very well that the majority of the annuals entertain certain views of Art, to the bettering of Nature beyond all measure. The hands & feet of all the females excite pity,—their figures frighten one,—& perplex no less with scepticism as to how they are to continue. Nor are these hourglasses redeemed from the disbelief they excite as to all organic humanity, by the features & expressions of the faces—for ‘each seems either’! [5] I cd not write of such without being guilty of offence to their arbitrary perfection.” –––– “If you please, let me have some landscape with the least possible refinement or elegance in it, & the most old ruins. Amidst these, something might be built in descriptive or dramatic poetry,—but I can do nothing at all with the ladies & gentlemen–– You will perceive, no doubt, from all this, that I have derived my impressions from probably the worst annuals—to wh Finden’s Tableaux may be quite an exception. If this be the case and I can look at several of the subjects, I may be induced or compelled to alter my opinion—”.
There are the extracts! I am personally quite unacquainted with Mr Horne—but you will see through all this playfulness & oddity of satire upon the annuals, that he is at your disposal, & a willing victim besides!—— It will be right for me to send my own expression of thanks to him for his letter to me—& this I shall do on Monday, & I hope I shall not be wrong in telling him that you will write directly your instructions to himself. His address is 75 Gloucester Place, Portman Square. Of course he wd like to select a subject, shd you have more than one drawing unappropriated [6] —but otherwise a few words from you wd win him into contentment, even without the old ruins. Have you not heard of his Cosmo de’ Medici? [7] He is a man of indubitable genius. I feel that quite distinctly, although I have read only a little of his poetry—and then his heart turns to the old poets as well as to the old ruins—& that I like, very much!——
After all, Barry Cornwall’s heart may have turned to you! [8] I am an impetuous sort of person—my Italian master used to say that I was to be characterized by one English word which he dared not pronounce, but which, put into literal Italian, was “testa lunga”. [9] Do you perceive the English word—& admit its application to me?—for I read your letter only once, & wrote just in time for the post, my few words of enquiry to Mrs Orme. Had I waited to read it twice, I believe I shd have paused for more precise directions from you.
But if your table is not filled, I do think you will like Mr Horne– And you will in any case, write to him—wont you?——
Ever dearest Miss Mitford, I feared that you might interpret my silence into a distaste to yr criticism! You were wrong—very wrong—if you did!—— And altho’ you recall your first impression, yet I am afraid more weight is due to it than to your merciful re-consideration. I had imagined that the penitence was implied, even were it not directly expressed by the words “Take pity on me––Let the sin be removëd” [10] —and to tell you the real truth, I have been taught to “walk softly” [11] upon all subjects connected with theologisms by the repeated intimations of my obstinate proclivity towards them. Let it be an obstinate proclivity!– I do hold, & do not slacken in holding, that all high thoughts look towards God, & that the deepest mysteries, not of fanaticism but of Christianity, yes, doctrinal mysteries, are,—as approachable by lofty human thoughts & melted human affections,—poetical in their nature. It wd be a great mistake if I were to defend my own poetry from any imputation of intruding religious subjects, & of calling “vasty spirits” [12] whether they will come or not. I do not defend it. I only maintain that all such appearances of intrusion, arise from my own incompatibility, from some want of skill in me, & not from any unfitness of the subject—the subject meaning religion generally, & not such questionable selections as the subject of the Seraphim.– [13]
Do you remember anything of my stanzas upon LEL. Well! I heard of Mr Kenyon’s speaking very kindly of them—& saying besides that it was a pity the last stanza was not cut away—that I wd bring in religion upon all possible opportunities. [14] And such things have made me, not afraid of my own opinions, but nervous sometimes about introducing wrongly or dwelling too much—and, in the ballad in question, I was satisfied with making as I thought one meaning clear & tried not to be too verbally theological—doing this very particularly in writing for an annual—not for you my beloved friend who never sent me any “advices” of the sort, but for your readers of whom you say such unflattering truths. Your “slightest of all readers” make an admirable pendant to Mr Horne’s ideal of the engraved “ladies & gentlemen”!– In regard to yourself—[(]yr own opinions)—I am sure they will agree with mine, against every experience of non-success or mal-success on the part of so many “religious poets”, that the fault is more likely to lie in their not being poets than in their being religious—& that one truth is self evident––wherever there is room for human feeling to act, there is room for poetical feeling to act. We cant separate our humanity from our poetry—nor, when they are together, can we say or at least prove, that humanity looking downward has a fairer aspect than humanity looking towards God. I am afraid that the matter with some of us, may be resolved into our not considering religion a subject of feeling, of real warm emotion & feeling—but of creed & form & necessity. If we feel, it is wrong to show that we feel!—& this, only in religion!– Because you are kind to me, I must love you—& nobody will call me wrong for doing that. It is only grateful & natural that I shd love you—& there is no want of decorum & picturesqueness in loving you. Because Christ died for me, I must love him—but it is very wrong of me to say it,—& very improper—& above all things very unpoetical! Oh! the pitiful inconsistencies of this mortal world! And the inconsistency would be nothing, if it were not for the cold—if it were not for the cold & the baseness!––
Well! but it is easy to make the penitence more evident, dearest Miss Mitford—& respecting the short lines, which of them are the worst? I will try, & do what I can–
The address is,
R. H. Horne Esqr
75 Gloucester Place
Portman Square
London.
I have heard that he piques himself upon being very like the pictures & busts of Shakespeare!– People feel differently on every sort of subject. If I were like Shakespeare I shd be quite distressed, & take to wearing a wig, & green spectacles immediately. I shd be ashamed of being like Shakespeare, & afraid of profaning the shrine—I really should!——
Love to dear Dr Mitford. I must send more cream, as he liked the last.
Your ever attached
EBB.
I am going on very comfortable—my brother George is with me—& my dear Arabel is coming—& Papa is coming—& all this makes me very glad & happy—— But I am likely to remain here until next year– I am afraid there is no escape from it!—— Do you ever talk or dream of coming this way? I wish I had the loadstone which lies under yr threshold——
I had a very kind note from dear Mr Kenyon just before he went to Three Mile Cross. “Miss Mitford’s lovely village” by the way, is praised in last month’s Blackwood, in the “Picture Gallery”– [15]
Address, on integral page: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.
Docket, near address, in Mary Russell Mitford’s hand: Miss Barrett / Mr Kenyon.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 139–143.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Cf. As You Like It, I, 2, 183–184.
2. The reference in the following letter indicates that this was Costanza of Mistra: a Tale of Modern Greece (1839), although Miss Anderdon’s authorship was not acknowledged on the title page.
3. The Eclipse was stated in The Morning Chronicle of 29 July to be departing on 4 August for Torquay and Dartmouth, but on 1 August the paper noted the cancellation of the sailing, owing to the need for repairs.
4. i.e., a wind favouring a vessel sailing for St. Petersburg would have been a contrary wind for a ship wanting to sail westward down the Channel.
5. Paradise Lost, II, 670.
6. Horne’s contribution, “The Fetches,” accompanied an engraving entitled “The Warning,” showing a betrothed couple. In his poem, their fetches (fetch: an apparition or double of a living person, OED) appeared before them on their wedding eve.
7. Horne’s tragedy, Cosmo de’ Medici, had been published in 1837.
8. He contributed a poem, “Venice,” to Findens’ Tableaux.
9. “Head long.” Her tutor would have had difficulty with the aspirate in English, as Italian does not have an equivalent.
10. A paraphrase of Psalms, 51:1–2. When reprinted in Poems (1844), EBB changed the line to “Now, O God, take pity — take pity on me!” (line 348).
11. Cf. Isaiah, 38:15.
12. Cf. I Henry IV, II, 1, 52–54.
13. In The Seraphim, Ador and Zerah have difficulty in comprehending the Divine Plan.
14. “L.E.L.’s Last Question” appeared in The Athenæum (26 January 1839, p. 69). The last stanza reads:
But, while on mortal lips I shape anew
A sigh to mortal issues, verily
Above th’ unshaken stars that see us die,
A vocal pathos rolls—and he who drew
All life from dust, and for all, tasted death,
By death, and life, and love appealing, saith,
Do you think of me as i think of you?
15. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (July 1839, p. 47), in an article lauding the scenic charms of England, said: “Landscapes superior to this are not, I am persuaded, to be found in any part of Europe … What, for instance, can be lovelier of its kind, than Miss Mitford’s village of Three-mile-cross, with its wild common, which should never be without a gipsy encampment, its clear gravelly springs, its one rustic mill … and its broad daisied meadows, through which winds the sleepy Loddon.”
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