862. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 148–151.
[London]
18th Decr [sic, for October] 1841 [1]
Thank you my dearest friend beyond what the expression can convey, for catching my hopes just as they fell, and leaving to our prospect a green “perhaps” on which our eyes may rest. Thank you, thank you!– It is almost too much good to happen really—but the very possibility lets in sunlight. Thank you, dear Dr Mitford,—for coming over to the “faction”– [2] Oh I hope you may be better & better. I hoped so before indeed, and now I have another reason for hoping it. I do hope you may be better. And for yourself my dearest friend, I hope you may resolve on doing as much & going to see as many delightful people as possible, so as to save me the remorse of drawing you into dulness. Otherwise I shant be able to help being ashamed. The room is of no awful size, but will admit of another bed on a sofa, if you will. Shall you mind having K. to sleep in the same room?– Of course she must come. No inconvenience indeed!–
Oh what a “vision of delight” [3] this visit will be to me!– And, do you know, I am recovering my voice so as to be able to talk to you!– It has threatened to come back again & again through the summer—audible sounds breaking hazily through the whisper—but now, they are repeated thickly & the tone is clearer—is recognized in fact as my own voice—although when I say so, Papa laughs & tells me I am proud of it & meditate a performance at the Opera whereas I am actually farther than ever from being a daughter of harmony. And that’s true—I mean the lack of harmony is true!– My poor voice is, in this state of transition hoarser than the whisper was. Only it is something to be sensible of a transition.
So that story of the Duke of Devonshire is a verity after all. Of course I had heard the gossip of it,—but never believed a word. And he then is vowed to celibacy. [4] Well—the motives were strong—and yet I do not think I could act out my life player-like, even as a Duke of Devonshire,—& especially not, in the face of the world. If my motive compelled me, I wd have thrown down all I could throw down silently, & have “recoiled into a wilderness”. [5]
I had heard of Lucretia Davidson, but in a passing way, & I never read her memoir. [6] Therefore notwithstanding the obviousness of the influence of her memory, the book you sent me suggested something better & brighter than an “imitation”. [7] Yes!—& there is, I think (in the midst of the muck which is mere warbling) indication of something capable of growth & survival beyond the hour of excitement & desease—deeper tones than those caused by the pricking of the thorn. It is a natural question to ask—“Was it genius—or a show?”—and in the multitude of rhymings I stopped to ask it. There are verses—those for instance in answer to her mother’s foolish almost cruel question as to her desire of posthumous renown [8] —which seemed to answer the question in the right way. Still, I scarcely know—!– Was Lucretia older than her sister at the time of death—& was her poetry more promising? Any way, it is an interesting memoir—interesting to pain. [9] I thought it very painful. I would willingly hope that she was something more than a precocious prodigy– Surely she was something more than an imitation. But any way, her story is painful,—and her music the very singing within her of the angel of death.
Your’s is the poetical view of the Lady Burlington portrait, & is, I surmise, the right one. A painting so associated, which the most loving sigh to look at, should not smile wholly. [10] For my own part, I should eschew a little even “white satin” & “the ornaments”. They are an anachronism .. and the sentiment must look ghastly by them.
Indeed I have a preference—or I have an aversion rather, to full dresses, hats & feathers & ball costumes, in the portraits of those who have any to love them. The everyday look, not the preparation for a crowd, is what we want to keep by us—the everyday look with not even a smile in it—or if a smile, a gentle musing one expressive rather of love than gaiety. Otherwise, there may be moments as I sometimes think, yes, hours & days & weeks, when the too bright countenance & array may cut us like a knife– It is foolish to think of such things—but I do!–
Your hat & feathers struck me as objectionable for other reasons. It was out of costume altogether. It gave you a ‘dowager-aspect’. [11]
Will you really get the cast for me? Oh if you will, if you can conveniently, I must say “yes yes” in my impudent part of acceptance. To have the cast from your own self wd increase the value of course—and—I do indeed my beloved friend, think it like you, I really do. There is a harshness which you have not—I am aware of that: but the intellectual character is fully caught & conveyed—the thinking mouth—the Coleridgean brows. [12] It is worth fifty “dowagers”—only dont tell Mr Lucas–
And now I must finish. Tell me always how you both are. I fear from one expression that you yourself continue far from quite well. Oh may God bless you– All our love!——
Nay—but I must not forget. A friend of mine, Miss Bordman the daughter, now the orphan daughter of a clergyman in Kent, orphaned of father & mother & thrown upon the kindness & protection of one ready to extend both to her, the excellent Mr Jago of Hammersmith with whom she lives entirely, is as well as her friend a true & understanding admirer of yours my dearest Miss Mitford. Well– That is not wonderful at all—much less so wonderful as to justify a long story & sentence– But I am to go on & tell you how she has supplicated me to supplicate you to vouchsafe to her some little cutting or plant out of the garden—Miss Mitford’s garden! She is helping Mr Jago to construct one at Hammersmith as an appendage to his new cottage & upon the model of a garden described in your books. And now if she could but attain to one plant from Miss Mitford’s very own garden, by way of link between the ideal & the real!– You see how it is! I promised to be ambassador—to “stretch my sacred hands”, [13] fillets & all!– Will you be so gracious? Say ‘no’ freely. She is a gentle meek creature besides her intelligence, and will take the ‘no’ as the most natural thing. For “yes” I wd thank you as well as herself–
God bless you—
Ever your own
EBB.
Disappointed about the Athenæum—tomorrow.
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 290–292.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum and Wellesley College.
1. Confirmation of EBB’s erroneous dating is provided by the continuing discussion of topics contained in the previous letter, and by the envelope with a Reading Receiving Office stamp of 19 October 1841.
2. In letters 860 and 861, EBB had urged Miss Mitford to stay at least one night in London; EBB is now thanking Dr. Mitford for agreeing to this.
3. Wordsworth, “The Sparrow’s Nest” (1815), line 4.
4. The 5th Duke of Devonshire, during the life of his wife, Georgiana, daughter of Earl Spencer, had had children by Lady Elizabeth Foster, daughter of the 4th Earl of Bristol. Because of this liaison, speculation arose regarding the legitimacy of his heir, William George Spencer Cavendish (1790–1858), fuelled in part because the birth took place in Paris rather than at Chatsworth or Devonshire House. The Duchess died in 1806, and the Duke married Lady Elizabeth in 1809. He died in 1811 and his son became the 6th Duke; he never married. (See Dearest Bess: The Life and Times of Lady Elizabeth Foster, by Dorothy M. Stuart, [1955], pp. 51–52.)
5. Wordsworth, “Effusion in the Pleasure-Ground on the Banks of the Bran, near Dunkeld” (1814), line 128.
6. Lucretia Maria Davidson (b. 1808) started writing poetry at the age of four; she died a month before her 17th birthday. A reference in letter 874 suggests that the memoir was Poetical Remains of the late Lucretia Maria Davidson … With a Biography by Miss Sedgwick (1841).
7. References later in this paragraph indicate that Miss Mitford had sent EBB the Biography and Poetical Remains of the late Margaret Miller Davidson, by Washington Irving (1841). Lucretia’s sister (b. 1823) also wrote poetry, from the age of six. She died of consumption in 1838, eight months after her 15th birthday.
8. “On one occasion … her mother ventured to sound her feelings upon the subject of literary fame, and asked her whether she had no ambition to have her name go down to posterity.... retiring to the other room, in less than an hour [she] returned with the following lines [‘To Die and Be Forgotten’]” (p. 93 of Irving’s Biography).
9. EBB would have been particularly affected because the details of Margaret’s illness mirrored EBB’s own experience.
10. In the previous letter Arabel had expressed surprise that a portrait “taken after death” should look “so youthful & smiling & full of life”.
11. i.e., in Lucas’s portrait (see letter 861, note 11).
13. We have not located the source of this quotation.
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