SD1162. Mary Russell Mitford to Henrietta Harrison
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 379 (in part).
Three Mile Cross
Nov. 30th, 1841.
I am alarmed at your long silence, my dear young friend, and am but too much inclined to attribute it to illness, either of yourself or some one of your nearest and dearest relations. Your sister was ill when you wrote last. Tell me how she is now. I have seen nothing and heard nothing, but there are such things as presentiments, and I am half afraid to ask. Under all circumstances, be assured of my—I may freely say, of our sweet sympathy. It is long since we met, but every communication that has passed between us has been of a nature to increase the strong interest that an early intercourse inspired, so that next to Miss Barrett, the most remarkable woman probably that ever lived, I know no one of whom I entertain such sanguine expectations, and whose esteem and affection I more entirely prize. Let me hear from you, my dear young friend, and unless illness, or some sadder cause intervene, let me see the poems you promised to confide to me. Have you seen any of Miss Garrow’s writings? [1] Mr. Kenyon, Mr. Landor, and several other of my friends, think very highly of her poetical talent—genius I believe they call it; but I confess (quite between ourselves) that I cannot join in their admiration. One of her most elaborate productions is in this year’s “Keepsake,” along with a beautiful poem of Mr. Kenyon’s, and a noble sonnet by Mr. Milman, the gem of the book.
I have never seen Miss Garrow, they have; and I cannot but think but personal partiality must have something to do with the lavish praise bestowed upon her productions by judges so competent and generally so fastidious. My beloved Miss Barrett writes more and more exquisitely. “The House of Clouds,” printed a few months back in the “Athenæum,” seems to me one of the most beautiful poems in the language. I told you, I believe, of the death of her favourite brother, who, giving up every other object to reside with her at Torquay, went out in a sailing boat which sank in sight of the house, the body not being recovered. Of course this terrible catastrophe not merely threw her back in point of health—for some months she was on the very verge of the grave—but gave her a horror of the place, so that reviving a little this summer she insisted upon returning home to Wimpole Street, and accomplished the journey by stages of twenty-five miles a-day in one of the invalide carriages, where the bed is drawn out like a drawer from a table;—one of her reasons for wishing to get to town being the desire to be within reach of me. I left my father for two nights, and took the railroad, not having spent even an evening from him since last November. I found her better than I had dared to hope. While in town I saw Haydon’s fresco—a very interesting specimen of a restored art, the first ever executed by an English painter. My father is very feeble, and requires more attention than I can express. He remembers you all well, and begs his kind respects to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison and yourself.
Text: Chorley, I, 281–283.
1. This accomplished woman, here somewhat severely judged, has been too soon forgotten. By birth she inherited rare musical talents—her mother being one of the three sisters—the Miss Abrams’, all whom sang in public with great success at the latter part of the last century—one at the commemoration of Handel in Westminster Abbey. A ballad now forgotten, “Crazy Jane,” by Mrs. Opie, was in its day most popular, mainly owing to the manner in which it was given by this artist. She married early, and to a gentleman who was accomplished as a musical amateur;—and their daughter, Theodosia, early made herself remarkable as a writer of poetry, which for awhile divided the attention of those who professed to judge, with the contemporary writings of Miss Barrett. She was a great executive musician, and in her day (before Mrs. Tom Taylor and Miss Gabriel began to write) was noticeable as an amateur composer. She had a ready and a brilliant pen, and her sketches of modern life in Italy—to which country she removed on her marriage with Mr. T. A. Trollope—published in the “Athenæum,” were full of observation, colour, and point, though dashed off with that enthusiastic carelessness of manner, which, oddly enough, seem to characterize the writings of most women who have treated the country—Lady Morgan, Mrs. Jameson, and even the more elaborate and matter-of-fact authoress of “Rome in the Nineteenth Century” (Miss Waldie)—not forgotten.—C.
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