SD1104. Mary Howitt to Mary Russell Mitford
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 364 (in part).
Esher
January 8, 1840.
My dear Miss Mitford,
I was quite in hopes that before I wrote to you I should have had the pleasure of making acquaintance with your warm-hearted friend, Mrs. Price, to whom, through you, we are indebted for a charming letter and most opportune present of German books. I do not know when anything gave me more pleasure than the coming in of those books. It really was like a little bit of enchantment, for they came at the very moment when we were saying, “We have read all our books; what shall we do for something new and easy to read?” We have to thank you also for putting us in the way of another acquaintance, which to my feeling promises very agreeably—I mean Mr. Martin. We have a perfect vision of what he is like, for his letters are very characteristic. He is, besides one of those fortunate mortals—we all know a few such—who, place them where you will under the most unpromising circumstances, and among people who seem made of the commonest clay, yet will they make an Eden for themselves, and bring out by a sort of alchemy of their own, the pure gold of human nature. How else could Mr. Martin have found what he did in the out-of-the-world regions about Heanor, old Acre Lane, and Langley Mill, high-minded men and accomplished women? I am sure we shall like Mr. Martin, although the immediate object of his mission, the editing the life of his ancient friend, Mr. Frost, we cannot undertake in our person, for this simple reason, that we are so full of literary engagements for the next two or three years as to render it impossible. Nevertheless, William will do his best to put Mr. Martin in a way of having it done, by endeavors to suggest some other person. It is rather curious that William has been solicited by a publisher to write “The History of Reform,”—a noble work—and he has already about a hundred volumes in the house sent to him for that purpose; but it must stand over, at least till our return from Germany, although it is a work greatly to his taste. I expect, however, before we leave England, he will have to spend about two months in Nothumberland and Durham, which is to form the subject of the second volume of the “Remarkable Places.”
I have just got your Finden’s “Tableaux.” I have not yet had time to read your articles, nor even Miss Barrett’s, but I have looked it through. Is it not a glorious book? We are so delighted with poor Mr. Brown’s designs. We know something of him, and feel much interested for him. Poor man! he is doomed, we fear, to die of consumption, but his imagination is so pure, so poetical—is it not? We want to employ him to illustrate my ballad poetry, but I fear his health. I think, however, if he were able to undertake it, he would produce something very good and striking, for his genius has a bent that way.
God bless you, dear Miss Mitford, and send you health and all prosperity. We all send our love.
Yours affectionately,
Mary Howitt.
Text: L’Estrange (1), II, 58–60.
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