SD1627. Mary Russell Mitford to William Harness

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 378 (in part).

Swallowfield

Jan. 1853.

My dear Friend,

I can quite conceive your tribulation amongst Christmas trees and enthusiastic Tennysonians. Even in my youth I always detested the noise and nonsense of Christmas parties … As to the adorers of Alfred Tennyson, they unluckily haunt one at all seasons. I am well used to such speeches. Mrs. Browning used to say things very like it about her own poetry. I like some of Alfred Tennyson’s earlier poems; but I confess that I like them much less since all these pretended enthusiasts have made such a cry of him.

Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 256–258.

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