SD1761. Mary Russell Mitford to Emily E. Jephson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 373 (in part).
[Swallowfield]
June 23, 1854
I am delighted to hear again from you, my beloved Emily, above all to receive a letter so cheerful and so full of health, mental and bodily. …
For the rest people are exceedingly good, for even the troublesome mean, I believe, to be kind, and little Miss Mary is a great comfort and delight. Your charming description of Miss Emily would almost serve for her—she is the brightest, merriest, happiest creature that ever existed—knowing fewer words, I think, than six months ago. You know she was a year old the second of last January, but everybody takes her for a twelvemonth older, she is so tall, so large, and so active, understanding everybody, and making herself understood in spite of her want of language. Such a mimic never was seen. She comes to my door knocking with her little clenched fist every time she can escape from her father and mother and the maid, and in imitation, we suppose, of her brother, folds her little hands every night and says, “Bless papa and mamma and poor Ba,” the hideous name (nobody can guess why) she will call me. … Mr. Fields was to have been here in England this month, but his visit is deferred till the next, and I have some notion will not take place this year. This is only my feeling, for he says he is coming. So say the Brownings from Italy, and Mr. Boner from Germany. The little Browning boy suffered from malaria at Rome, but is, I think, recovering. …
Text: L’Estrange (1), II, 268–274.
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