826. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 71–73.
[Torquay]
July 2. [1841] [1]
I am so glad—so glad & thankful that you are really better, & that the effect of the accident is not likely to be lasting. [2] When knights hand ladies over ‘fair floors’, they shd do it more cautiously, lest too ‘trippingly’, if the boards be wanting. I have trodden castle floors (in the air) where there were neither boards nor beams—and to fall there, is peradventure a sadder thing.
The ascent of the “ladder” was very much in my way too .. my old way .. in my days of tree climbing & wall-climbing, which are hard to look back at now. I remember wondering why in the world Jacob did not set about climbing up his ladder [3] —and my sympathy grew intense in the matter of Jack’s beanstalk, just in proportion as it reached the sky– Well—I cannot climb now, nor ever shall again. Yet it is something compensative to have climbed high enough to touch your love. Is’nt it my beloved friend? I think so– It is little to think so now: but indeed I should have thought so years & years ago at the top of an appletree!——
What a history!—which was meant only to be a sympathy in regard to the ladder—to your ladder. How bright & beautiful the garden must have looked from it—& as if all the flowers of the country kept tryst just there—as they might well do, if only to live with you!–
And speaking of flowers, I must have walked in a poppy field with my thoughts, never to have thanked you for preparing or promising a geranium to crown ‘Psyche’ with. It was not gross ingratitude, however you may have thought of the silence. I forgot my gratitude while I was writing to you—(when so many kinds of gratitude are apt to rise up & try to thurst [sic] themselves in)—but not a minute after I had sealed my letter. May Psyche be worthy! In the meantime it seems to me questionable whether she will be at all.
Before I forget again .. have you looked into the ‘History of a flirt’? [4] The name may daunt you—but the writer ‘leans to Miss Austen’s side’,—as I remember dear Dr Mitford & yourself do—& there is some power & much truth to nature– If you have not seen it & can see it, will you?– There is nothing high toned or passionate—& supposing you safely over the monotony of the subject & the odiousness of the heroine, it may not prove heavy light reading for your evenings– Cold praise, after all! You wont catch at it from my praises. But I under-praise it purposely—for an obvious reason. It did indeed strike me as one of the very best domestic novels which have fallen upon these evil days. [5]
Have you read the new Memoir by Blanchard, of poor LEL. Do tell me (if you have) what your thought is—only extracts by the reviewers having reached me. [6] The ‘calumny’ refers to Mr Jerdan—does it not?– [7] But I grope in the mournful darkness for the signification of her own allusion to “the vanity of a man and the tongue of a vulgar woman”. [8] Poor, poor LEL!
Strange in Mr Blanchard & Miss Roberts [9] or any friend of hers, to dwell so emphatically upon the contrariety of her own nature to the thing called her nature & expressed in her poems. Why there, just there, was the plague spot—there, her poetic mortality. She was the actress, & not Juliet. Her genius was not strong enough to assert itself in truth. It suffered her to belie herself—& stood by, while she put on the mask. Where is the true deep poetry which was not felt deeply & truly by the poet? What is the poet, without the use of his own heart? And thus, the general character of Miss Landon[’]s most popular poems is .. melancholy without pathos. A conventional tone pierces through the sweetness.
Poor LEL! Just as she had outstretched her hand to touch nature, & to feel thrillingly there that poetry is more than fantasy .. to die so! I have dropped tears on tears over some of her later poems, which par-
<…> [10]
Oh Mr S Talfourd! How cd he desert you & why?! [11] I saw no letter. We are slaying ourselves in the elections, we free Britons!
Mr Chorley’s book—have you seen that? The extracts promise for a good book. They are very living. [12]
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 231–234.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This is a reply to letter 825, which provides the year.
2. Miss Mitford had suffered “a terrible jar upon the spine” as a result of a fall (see L’Estrange (2), III, 123).
3. See Genesis, 28:12.
4. The History of a Flirt: Related by Herself (1840) by Lady Charlotte Susan Maria Bury (née Campbell, 1775–1861), daughter of the 5th Duke of Argyll. She had previously published Flirtation (1828).
5. Paradise Lost, VII, 25.
6. The Life and Literary Remains of L.E.L., by Laman Blanchard, was reviewed, with extracts, in The Athenæum of 29 May 1841 (no. 709, pp. 421–423) and The Examiner of 13 June (no. 1741, p. 371). EBB has apparently forgotten that Miss Mitford mentioned reading the book in letter 820.
7. The writer in The Athenæum felt that either certain references should have been passed over or else have been fully explained, to prevent “the most assiduous of evil-speakers from ever again writing his epitaph of open calumny … upon her grave.” EBB questions whether this “calumny” refers to the rumours that had linked Miss Landon romantically with William Jerdan, her literary mentor and first editor. EBB had previously mentioned “the Jerdan murmurs” in letter 727.
8. Probably a reference to another speculation, tying Miss Landon to the Irish journalist William Maginn, whose wife claimed to have found compromising letters to her husband from Miss Landon. The gossip about her alleged affairs was the reason for her breaking off her engagement to John Forster. For a more detailed account, including comment from Miss Landon herself, see Bulwer: A Panorama (1931) by Michael Sadleir (I, 387–390).
9. Miss Landon’s friend had also written a memoir of her (see letter 687, note 25).
10. The conclusion of the letter is missing, except for the following sentences, written at the top of the first page.
11. Apparently a reference to another disagreement between Miss Mitford and Sergeant Talfourd; an earlier quarrel was mentioned in letter 716.
12. Chorley’s latest work, Music and Manners in France and Germany, was reviewed, with extracts, in The Athenæum of 26 June 1841 (no. 713, pp. 485–487) and 10 July (no. 715, pp. 518–520).
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