874. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 172–175.
[London]
Thursday. [25 November 1841] [1]
My beloved friend,
I was half uneasy about your silence & half remorseful at the idea of causing it myself––remembering how I sent you only the first canto of a letter in my last, & how you might besides, have expected the books I promised some seven days ago. Well—here are the books!– And if you find no ‘inspiration’ in Lady Blessington’s Annual, why there is plenty in Jung Stilling’s Pneumatology, to make up for it. Now pray do, I beseech you, read Stilling. His auto-biography (I wish it were here) struck sparks from me, each time I read it [2] —& the impulsion thence taken, of interest in the individual Stilling, wd have carried me clear through these reveries, without another. Faustic touches of the familiar & the sublime cross each other abundantly in the biography—& then the true, the credulous, the elevated, the extravagant .. all meet in the biographer. His first volume is quite a poem—a Hermann & Dorothea melted out into real life, [3] by the common sun & air—and to read it with dry eyes is as impossible, as to do the same with a grave mouth. So much for the autobiography which I cant send you. The pneumatology is at least as curious. Tell me your thoughts of it. I hesitate which to wonder at most, the ‘facts’ or the ‘philosophy’—and be sure, that altho’ I have smiled sometimes—just when I cd not help it—I have recognized again & again the charm of the mystical which is in fact the voice of our own souls calling to us thro’ the dark of our ignorance, yes, & stood still & awed in my dark, listening to those rustling sounds of what may be verities, beyond the shell of the body. And then the very commonplace everyday intonation of the writing adds something to the effect. There is no poetry, you see! Not so much odour of poetry in it all, as in five pages of the autobiography!– “I know of a spirit having appeared, on whom the little brass buckles were distinctly recognizable—and this is quite natural &c”. [4] Is not this simplicity quite .. new .. at least!—& this within hearing of steam-engines!– They have not utterly ruined us, after all.
Read in the Keepsake, Mr Milnes’s sonnet on the death of the Princess Borghese. I do think it exquisite. What a true poet he is! [5]
So you turn the light of your countenance [6] away from Joan of Arc [7] —& perhaps wisely—considering my infirmities. Nevertheless I do not think with you that an objection to a military-glory-subject reverberates necessarily against Joan. If I wrote of her, it wd not be of “a great general” but of a great enthusiast—admitting perhaps some actual impulses, according to Stilling, from the spiritual world—nay, admitting them certainly—& preserving faithfully & tenderly her womanly nature unrusted in the iron which sheathes it. Yet, however capable of love, in the sense of the passion, I wd not make her actually in love—because where the imagination is much pre-occupied, the heart is all the less liable to impressions of that particular character. I take Mr Serle’s part, you see, against you!– Not that I have seen his book! I have not, up to this moment.
After all, I shall disappoint, my beloved friend, every feeling of yours, except your love– That I meet—love to love—heart to heart .. nay, loving you better, in some wise, because more gratefully, than you can ever have reason to love me. For the rest, the dramatic action & real-life-interest, which you expect from me demand peculiar faculties, & such as have not always been possessed by writers more highly gifted than I. Well!– When you are disappointed, you wont love me less—will you?– When you praise me “over head & ears” as the phrase is, I always say to myself .. “She loves me”––& it is pleasanter to think that, than the consciousness of the praise being deserved, cd ever be!– You will never love me less,—my beloved friend!–
Mr Haydon came on Sunday. It was kind to come at all—it was kind to encourage & counsel Arabel upon her painting—he must be a kind person altogether.
Oh—and Mr Kenyon came, the day before yesterday, & spoke of having been too much occupied (qry distributing bridecake!) to do so before. I, despite my wrath, wd have gladly seen him,—but I was unwell that day & cdnt get up under any temptation. He was good enough to remind me of yr goodness, by bringing Margt Davidson’s memoir, & also Lucretia’s (written by Miss Sedgewick) & also an American version of LaFontaine which I have not looked at yet. [8] He said he was still wavering on the matter of the purchase at Torquay. It is’nt done yet–– Ah yes!—you are right. Mrs Niven is right!– [9] The ghastly gaiety of such places is revolting!—and altho’ Hastings takes rank among them, not one conjoins to the desecrating degree of Torquay, the hospital & the assembly—at not one, are the funeral baked meats [10] so hot for the ballroom supper tables! I wd not live there—apart from the perpetual pain of certain recollections—for any scenery in the world. And certainly nature is very lovely there!–
Does Mrs Niven live entirely at Reading[?]– She must be a remarkable woman indeed. And does Agnes (I know her as Agnes!) write verses still?
Tell me exactly your mind upon the Keepsake. You will find dear Mr Kenyon [11] — .. oh I can forgive him!
He said—he told them .. that all your friends were jealous of me because you were a spendthrift of your time upon me!! See what harm you did by that visit– Not exactly the ‘mille mecontents et un ingrat’, [12] but a great many jealous ones besides the vain one!!– But that one is very very grateful too!–
No—my dearest friend—dont send any more of the milk & cream just now .. I beg you not to do it. Let it be for the time when you come yourself .. I will consent to have it then!– But not before—not before, my dearest friend!–
God bless you! How I wish I cd see you by a glance, as in a dream!– Say how you are & how Dr Mitford is & make my affectionate wishes & remembrance acceptable to him!
It is warmer, but I am not comfortably well even today– It is an effort to drive on my words—& they run uniformly with my metaphor, like a flock of geese. I need not tell you. May it be as clear that I am
ever your attached
EBB–
The Roman Brother—& thank you!—— There are fine things in it—very—but it wants continuity, interest altogether—& leaves you cold as a stone. [13]
I am interested, not par connoissance but reconnoissance, [14] in the author, who was, as I have lately heard, the editor of that ‘Sunbeam’ Gazette which shone so benignantly upon my Seraphim. [15] You remember?
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 309–313.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the books promised “some seven days ago” (in letter 873).
2. See letter 516 for EBB’s earlier comments on the book.
3. Hermann und Dorothea (1797) was a romantic epic by Goethe, set during the post-Revolution invasions of Germany by France. Goethe intended it to show “as in a mirror, the great movements and changes of the world’s stage.”
4. Chapter IV of Jackson’s English translation (1834) of Jung-Stilling’s Theory of Pneumatology discusses apparitions, stating that the spirits of the departed appear in the form most vividly remembered, and recalls one “spirit having appeared, on whom the little brass shoe-buckles were perfectly cognizable.”
5. “On the Death of the Princess Borghese, at Rome; November, 1840.”
6. Cf. Psalms, 4:6.
7. In the previous letter, EBB had mentioned Joan of Arc as a possible subject, in preference to Miss Mitford’s suggestion.
8. Probably the 1841 edition published by F. Sales of Boston. For details of the memoirs of the Davidson sisters, see letter 862, notes 6 and 7.
9. Mrs. Niven was Miss Mitford’s friend and frequent visitor. She had recently emerged the victor in a protracted lawsuit over her inheritance (see letter 900).
10. Hamlet, I, 2, 180–181.
11. i.e., his poem, “Upper Austria.”
12. “A thousand discontented and one ungrateful” (Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV, ch. XXVI; he says “a hundred,” not “a thousand”).
13. The Roman Brother; a Tragedy, by John A. Heraud, was published in 1840, but was not performed.
14. “Not for the sake of knowing, but from gratitude.”
15. Heraud edited The Sunbeam in 1838–39 and was the author of The Seraphim review (see vol. 4, pp. 387–400), identified by Mrs. Orme as a Mr. “Eraud” (see SD945).
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