877. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 178–180.
Three Mile Cross,
Dec. 3, 1841. [1]
—Mr. Hughes, too, told me the other day of a dream of a friend of his father’s, a country gentleman of fortune and character. He thought that his gardener was digging a pit in a certain part of his garden; he watched him, wondering what it could be, until it assumed the form of a grave. Then the gardener went away and fetched the body of a young woman, in whom he recognized his own dairymaid, and deposited the corpse in the ground, and shovelled the earth over it. Then he awoke. He awakened his wife and told her his dream. “Nonsense,” said she; “go to sleep again; it is the nightmare.” Again he went to sleep, and the dream returned. He again awakened his wife, and she, although a little startled, persuaded him that it had arisen from some talk which they had had respecting the dairymaid’s appearance; and at last he composed himself to sleep once more. For the third time the dream returned, and then, arming himself with his pistols, he walked down into the garden. At the very spot indicated he saw the gardener just finishing the operation of digging the grave, and rushing upon him suddenly, the man in his panic confessed that the dairymaid was pregnant by him; that she had threatened to appeal to her mistress; that he had appointed to meet her in a retired part of the grounds at that very hour; and that, in short, if not prevented by his master, before the sun rose the poor young woman would have lain murdered in the pit before them. This is a certain fact.
K______, a young woman of remarkable intelligence and presence of mind, has told me frequently of an appearance that she saw, about five years back, when living with a respectable grocer in Buckinghamshire—not as servant but as shopwoman. Her bedroom opened into an anteroom common to two or three chambers belonging to the family. In this room a rushlight was burnt, and she had the habit of leaving her door open, and, after laying her head down upon the pillow, of half rising to look if the rushlight were safe. Two of her brothers and a favourite cousin were at sea in different merchant vessels, and she had that evening expressed to the grocer’s daughter her strong impression that she should never see her cousin again. On raising herself up, as usual, to look at the light, she saw just before her, standing in the doorway, the figure of a young sailor. She felt that it was no living man: the head drooped on the bosom, and the straw hat fell over the face, which she could not discern. The dress was the usual jacket and trousers, the open shirt, and loosely-tied neckerchief of a seaman. It might have been, from height and appearance, either her elder brother or her cousin. She believed it to be the latter, and spoke to it by his name. It made no answer—but remained during two or three minutes, and then slowly and gradually melted into air. She was as strongly convinced of the reality of the appearance as of her own existence, and is so still.
Both her cousin and her brother returned to London, but the former had had a fall from some part of the rigging of the vessel on that very day (the day of his apparition), and died on shore without her seeing him. Nor has she again seen her elder brother, who, shortly after his return, sailed on another voyage and must have been lost at sea, since, although four years have elapsed since he was expected, neither he nor the vessel has ever been heard of; indeed the underwriters have paid the insurance-money. K______ was not alarmed, she said; the only painful sensation was the immediate fear that something had occurred to one or other of these dear relatives, and she shall always, she says, be sure that it was her cousin who appeared to her. I believe that these are her very words, and I have no doubt whatever that she did see what she describes; nor would you if you could hear the truthful simplicity, the graphic minuteness, and the invariable consistency with which she relates both the apparition and her own feelings on the occasion. The story, as she tells it, is exceedingly impressive, from the absence of exaggeration and of those circumstances which are usually thrown in for the sake of effect. The door opening upon the staircase was fastened, bolted within; no man slept in the house except the master of the shop, a grave elderly man who officiated as a Wesleyan minister, and whom no money would have bribed into attempting a trick upon such a subject; and the females, besides a general coincidence of character with their husband and father, were all considerably shorter, and in every respect different from the figure in question. K______ has never used the word ghost or spirit or apparition, in speaking to me; she generally says “it,” and certainly thinks of the appearance with great awe.
I agree partly with you that there are glimpses of another world. It seems impossible to refer all these well-attested stories to imposition or credulity.
Another story I remember well. Old Mr. Knyvett, the king’s organist [2] (George the Third’s—one of whose favourite pleasures it was to hear this splendid musician play and sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” upon a grand pianoforte thrown open—I have heard it often; a wonderful feat it was, accomplished by a perfect knowledge of the score, wonderful dexterity of hand, and a matchless power and compass of voice)—this old man, a wit and a jester, one whose sin was levity—lightness not of conduct but of speech—the very reverse of superstition—this wag lived at a pretty village near Reading, called Sonning, a river-side village reached by a deep winding lane, now shaded by tall close hedgerows, now by the high irregular paling of Holme Park. Over the latter at one particular point, regularly as the clock struck twelve (and it was within hearing both of the church clock and of that belonging to the park) a woman was seen to emerge from the shady lane and disappear over the paling—rising gradually and sinking slowly—always the same figure, dressed in the costume of the middle of the last century, and with the self-same disposition and fluctuation of drapery—not a hair’s breadth more or less. There was no background to form a phantasmagoria deception, since the part plainest to be seen was the figure as it rose and sank above the paling. When the moonlight was strong the apparition appeared semi-transparent. I have heard Mr. Knyvett speak in answer to a skeptical friend of his and mine, upon this subject—in answer only, for voluntarily he never approached the topic; and the manner in which this thorough man of the world trembled and quivered—cheek and lip blanching as the topic was approached—the doubtful half-glance around and behind him, and the low tremulous voice I shall never forget. It would have been a study for a tragedian in “Hamlet,” for it was real. I do not disbelieve in the possibility of such appearances, though I heartily agree with Stilling in the sinfulness and danger of seeking them. By danger, I mean the peril lest such presumption should be punished by madness, or such tremor as is one form of that awful infliction; or by fits or other physical infirmities brought on by mortal fear.
I wonder, my sweetest, how you will get through this sadly tedious scrawl. My father has a grievous cough: it is while in and out of his room that I have written, partly on a low stool at the foot of the bed, using a chair as my table.
Once, again, Heaven be with you!
Ever yours,
M. R. Mitford.
Address: Miss Barrett, Wimpole Street.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 127–131 (as 30 December 1841).
1. L’Estrange dates this letter 30 December; this must be in error, as EBB comments on K.’s story in her letter of 6 December.
2. Charles Knyvett (1752–1822) was organist of the Chapel Royal from 1796 until his death.
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