SD1536.1. Mary Russell Mitford to Agnes Jennings
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 17.
Swallowfield
Dec. 31, [1851]. [1]
How glad I am to see your dear handwriting again, dearest Mrs. Jennings, and how much more glad should I be to see yourself! It was a great temptation that which Mrs. Dupuy put in my way, to come to town and go with her to your house on Christmas day. I do quite understand your feelings. A father (and such a father) is a loss never to be replaced; but there is comfort and satisfaction in such a recollection; and even your children will be the better, ay! much the better, for having to look back to such a grandfather, linked to them by such parents. So out of grief springs hope.
Mr. Kingsley took me quite by surprise in his extraordinary fascination. I have never seen a man of letters the least like him, for, in general, the beau-idéal of a young poet remains a beau-idéal. They are mostly middle-aged (sometimes elderly), conceited, affected, foppish, vulgar. Mr. Kingsley is not only a high-bred gentleman, but has the most charming admixture of softness and gentleness, with spirit, manliness, and frankness—a frankness quite transparent—and a cordiality and courtesy that would win any heart. He did win his own sweet wife entirely by this charm of character. She was a girl of family, fortune, fashion, and beauty; he a young curate, without distinction of any sort—without even literary distinction, for he had not then published. He loved her—she loved him; and, without any unseemly elopement, they lived down and loved down a pretty strong family opposition, and were married. Since that, Sir John Cope gave him the living of Eversley; and he has won a very high fame, and the love of all his parish and all his neighbourhood. He is quite young; and though, I suppose, he does not generally intend to go fox-hunting, yet it sometimes happens that his horse carries him into the midst of the chase, when he is always in at the death, eager and delighted as a boy. I cannot tell you how much I like him. Miss Bremer was at his house, just before we became acquainted, and he was much pleased with her. She stayed too short a time, or we should have met. He is now engaged upon a work (in “Fraser”) treating of Alexandria in the fifth century—a sort of story like Lockhart’s “Valerius” or Mr. Ware’s “Palmyra”—but he is greatest as a poet. I know nothing more touching than that song in “Alton Locke.”
I am charmed with my new cottage. The scenery is delightful, and the neighbours most kind and pleasant. Perhaps, when the days get long and the weather fine you will come and see me—won’t you? I do hope to get to town in time to see you this year. You know that my last visit was regulated by the arrival of Mrs. Browning.
Yours, attached and affectionate,
M. R. Mitford.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 223–224, as 31 December 1850.
1. Year provided by return address and Miss Mitford’s reference to her “new cottage.” She had moved to Swallowfield from Three Mile Cross in the autumn of 1851.
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