SD1310. Mary Russell Mitford to Charles Boner
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 369–370 (in part).
[Three Mile Cross]
[Postmark: 22 February 1847]
I sit down with malice prepense my dear Mr Boner to pay in quantity though not in quality your most amiable letter—prompted thereto not merely by my strong desire to chat with a friend whom I very greatly value & admire but by my anxiety to hear that he is quite recovered. We have had a most trying winter– I never have lost so many old friends– Indeed the aged & the infirm have almost universally dropped from the tree—I at Miss Barrett’s wedding! Ah dearest Mr Boner it was a runaway match—she at 38 & in her state of health—never was I so much astounded. He prevailed on her to meet him at Church with only the two—necessary witnesses—they went by railway to Southampton—crossed to Havre—up the Seine to Rouen—to Paris by railway—there they were a week—happening to meet with Mrs Jameson she joined them in their journey to Pisa—& accordingly they travelled by Diligence by railway by Rhone boat—anyhow to Marseilles—thence took shipping to Leghorn & then settled themselves at Pisa for six months– She says that she is very happy– God grant it continue! But think of the shock & the shake, & his never getting her a carriage to travel in—she accustomed to the luxuries of a Princess & she has £350 per annum left her by an uncle– There is no chance I fear of the father being reconciled– I felt just exactly as if I had heard that Dr Chambers had given her over when I got her letter announcing her marriage & found that she was about to cross France– I never had an idea of her reaching Pisa alive. She took her own maid & her Flush– I saw Mr Browning once & remember thinking how exactly he resembled a girl drest in boy’s clothes—& as to his poetry I have just your opinion of it– It is one heap of obscurity confusion & weakness. Let me add to this that many of his friends & mine—William Harness, John Kenyon, Henry Chorley speak very highly of him– I suppose he is an accomplished man & if he makes his angelic wife happy I shall of course learn to like him. But he ought not to have persuaded her to take such a step. This of course is quite between ourselves. Do you know him personally? Did you ever see him? I met him once as I told you when he had long ringlets & no neckcloth—& when he seemed to me about the height & size of a boy of twelve years old– Femmelette—is a word made for him. A strange sort of person to carry such a woman as Elizabeth Barrett off her feet. He is a great musician & so forth– But I come back to the conceit of writing book upon book all bad—& being at this point engaged in preparing a new edition of his works—the first edition of each having gone off in the form of waste paper.– …
Address, on integral page: Via France / Charles Boner Esqre / St Emeron / Ratisbon / Bavaria.
Publication: Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle (London, 1871), I, 104–108 (in part).
Manuscript: Yale University.
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