SD1261.1. Mary Russell Mitford to Emma M. Anderdon
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 13.
[Three Mile Cross]
[14 July 1846]
Dearest Miss Anderdon–
I promised dear Mrs Anderdon yesterday a copy of a letter from Miss Barrett which I thought would interest her & which I annex: She says after some expressions of kindness “Long before & much more in detail I should have written to you but the shock of poor Mr Haydon’s death overcame me for several days. Our correspondence had ceased a full year & a half, but the week preceding the event he wrote several notes to me, & by his desire I have under my care boxes & pictures of his which he brought himself to the door. Never did I anticipate this! Never did I imagine that it was other than one of the passing embar[r]assments unhappily frequent with him. Once before he had <asked> [1] me to give shelter to things belonging to him, which when the storm had blown over, he had taken back again. I did not suppose that in this storm he was to sink—poor noble fool!
“And be sure that the pecuniary embarrassment was not what took him– It was a wind still more East– It was the despair of the ambition by which he lived, & without which he could not live. In the self assertion which he had struggled to hold up through life he went down into death. He could not bear the neglect the disdain the slur cast on him by the age, & so he perished. The cartoon disappointment, the grotesque bitterness of the antagonism of Tom Thumb, which he recurred so to me at the last—these things were too much. The dwarf slew the giant. His love of reputation you know was a disease with him & for my part I believe that he died of it. That is my belief.
“In the last week he sent me his portrait of you among the other things. When he proposed sending it, he desired me to keep it for his sake—but when it came a note also came to say that he “could not make up his mind to part with it—he would lend it to me for awhile.” A proof, among the rest, that this act was not premeditated—a moment of madness or a few moments of madness—who knows!
“I could not read the Inquest nor any of the details in the newspapers.
“Oh, I knew that you would be shocked beyond all power of words.”
So for our great poetess. If you can make out my hand, worse than usual today from heat & hurry, you will perhaps when you have done with it let Mrs Partridge see this copy of Miss Barrett’s note– I am writing to her today but as I have 10 other letters to answer I have no time to transcribe it again. I send also the Working man’s letter which I mentioned yesterday to dear Mrs Anderdon.
Perhaps when Mr Anderdon or you go into Reading you may take the trouble of calling at [illegible word] or [illegible word] to see some pictures by Mr Field Talfourd. Better judges than I am praise his colour—but Mr Anderdon’s opinion would be definitive.– He was enchanted with the collection & most grateful for all the kindness shown at Farley Hall– I have no words to express my deep sense of obligation–
Ever dear Miss Anderdon
most faithfully yours
MRM
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Obscured by ink blot.
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