767. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 288–290.
Torquay.
June 24th ’40
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,
Really you want me? [1] Then I am ready. I have been writing again for the last week or two & without detriment. Surely I may, for you. Only be sure of the prudence of it on your own account—& dont be beguiled, ‘all for love of me’ [2] into monotonizing the work, if you shd have any sudden access to contributive novelty. That is my ‘advice’– Moreover .. the more prose the better. Do remember that.
As to Mr Horne, oh I wish you had him safely harnessed—he is a courser of the sun!—but to the catching, I dont know what ‘advice’ to give. You must ask him yourself dearest Miss Mitford this time—& feel certain that he wont say ‘no’ if the other word is sayable– I do know that his time is occupied in a manner which renders his unceasing kindnesses to me the more moving to my grateful sense of them. Literary engagements, to be counted (perhaps) upon the fingers,—besides the present campaign against the theatrical monopolists [3] —which by the way, you will care for,––and towards which he says that he has Ld Lyndhurst’s support, in promise. [4]
Still these night-&-day energetically laborious people, stretch ‘their times’ to almost any extent—particularly when they mean to be kind. Do ask him. If the ‘no’ comes, the reason will be evident. And any proposition of the sort from you, will imply a compliment to balance this requested grace–
He did not send me the Gregory—and has not sent it even to the critics, in the usual way. So he told me. Certainly he does put ‘a spirit into leaves’, [5] which lifts them up by breathing between, in a fashion so contrary to annual pneumatics in general, as to be desirable for any.
I am very glad (per Mr Kenyon) to hear of Mr Harness’s prosperity. [6] Dear Mr Kenyon has changed his intention about purchasing a house here—but he means to come.
Thank God for the happy account, comparatively speaking, of dear Dr Mitford & yr anxieties. I have borne raising in my bed to a half sitting posture, half an hour at a time, for several day<s now> & am pretty well–
Ever your affecte
EBB
My sisters will be so glad to see Mrs & Miss Anderdon– I fear I shall not be fit for it—if they come very soon. Think of the geraniums! & thank you for our next year’s prospect, dear dear Miss Mitford.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 200–201.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. As a contributor to the 1841 Findens’ Tableaux.
2. Tennyson, “The Mermaid” (last line of verses two and three).
3. By an Act of 1737, the performance of legitimate drama was restricted to nominated “patent theatres,” of which there were only three in London: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Haymarket. Horne was organizing a petition, urging amended legislation, but it was not until the Theatre Act of 1843 that dramatic “free trade” was established.
4. John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst (1772–1863), had held a number of ministerial posts from 1819, when he was appointed Solicitor-General. He was raised to the peerage in 1826, and appointed Lord Chancellor in Canning’s administration; he was currently High Steward of the University of Cambridge, but again became Lord Chancellor when Peel returned to office in 1841. He had undertaken to sponsor Horne’s petition in the House of Lords.
5. EBB apparently refers to Christopher North’s Recreations, which substitutes “leaves” for “woods” in Wordsworth’s line “Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods” (“Nutting,” 1799, line 56).
6. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne (1780–1863), was Lord President of the Council in Melbourne’s administration. He had just appointed Harness as Registrar to the Privy Council, at a salary of £420 per annum. Kenyon wrote to Mary Harness that “the news has made me quite buoyant, and it will make scores of others buoyant too” (Miss Mitford and Mr Harness: Records of a Friendship, Caroline M. Duncan-Jones, 1955, pp. 42–43).
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