_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 17, 1846.]
_Méchant comme quatre!_ you are, and not deserving to be let see the
famous letter--is there any grammar in _that_ concatenation, can you
tell me, now that you are in an arch-critical humour? And remember
(turning back to the subject) that personally she and I are strangers
and that therefore what she writes for me is naturally scene-painting
to be looked at from a distance, done with a masterly hand and most
amiable intention, but quite a different thing of course from the
intimate revelations of heart and mind which make a living thing of a
letter. If she had sent such to me, I should not have sent it to Mr.
Kenyon, but then, she would not have sent it to me in any case. What
she _has_ sent me might be a chapter in a book and has the life proper
to itself, and I shall not let you try it by another standard, even if
you wished, but you don't--for I am not so _bête_ as not to understand
how the jest crosses the serious all the way you write. Well--and Mr.
Kenyon wants the letter the second time, not for himself, but for Mr.
Crabb Robinson who promises to let me have a new sonnet of
Wordsworth's in exchange for the loan, and whom I cannot refuse
because he is an intimate friend of Miss Martineau's and once allowed
me to read a whole packet of letters from her to him. She does not
object (as I have read under her hand) to her letters being shown
about in MS., notwithstanding the anathema against all printers of the
same (which completes the extravagance of the unreason, I think) and
people are more anxious to see them from their presumed nearness to
annihilation. I, for my part, value letters (to talk literature) as
the most vital part of biography, and for any rational human being to
put his foot on the traditions of his kind in this particular class,
does seem to me as wonderful as possible. Who would put away one of
those multitudinous volumes, even, which stereotype Voltaire's
wrinkles of wit--even Voltaire? I can read book after book of such
reading--or could! And if her principle were carried out, there would
be an end! Death would be deader from henceforth. Also it is a wrong
selfish principle and unworthy of her whole life and profession,
because we should all be ready to say that if the secrets of our daily
lives and inner souls may instruct other surviving souls, let them be
open to men hereafter, even as they are to God now. Dust to dust, and
soul-secrets to humanity--there are natural heirs to all these things.
Not that I do not intimately understand the shrinking back from the
idea of publicity on any terms--not that I would not myself destroy
papers of mine which were sacred to _me_ for personal reasons--but
then I never would call this natural weakness, virtue--nor would I, as
a teacher of the public, announce it and attempt to justify it as an
example to other minds and acts, I hope.
How hard you are on the mending of stockings and the rest of it! Why
not agree with me and like that sort of homeliness and simplicity in
combination with such large faculty as we must admit _there_? Lord
Bacon did a great deal of trifling besides the stuffing of the fowl
you mention--which I did not remember: and in fact, all the great work
done in the world, is done just by the people who know how to
trifle--do you not think so? When a man makes a principle of 'never
losing a moment,' he is a lost man. Great men are eager to find an
hour, and not to avoid losing a moment. 'What are you doing' said
somebody once (as I heard the tradition) to the beautiful Lady Oxford
as she sate in her open carriage on the race-ground--'Only a little
algebra,' said she. People who do a little algebra on the race-ground
are not likely to do much of anything with ever so many hours for
meditation. Why, you must agree with me in all this, so I shall not be
sententious any longer. Mending stockings is not exactly the sort of
pastime _I_ should choose--who do things quite as trifling without the
utility--and even your Seigneurie peradventure.... I stop there for
fear of growing impertinent. The _argumentum ad hominem_ is apt to
bring down the _argumentum ad baculum_, it is as well to remember in
time.
For Wordsworth ... you are right in a measure and by a standard--but I
have heard such really desecrating things of him, of his selfishness,
his love of money, his worldly _cunning_ (rather than prudence) that I
felt a relief and gladness in the new chronicle;--and you can
understand how _that_ was. Miss Mitford's doctrine is that everything
put into the poetry, is taken out of the man and lost utterly by him.
Her general doctrine about poets, quite amounts to that--I do not say
it too strongly. And knowing that such opinions are held by minds not
feeble, it is very painful (as it would be indeed in any case) to see
them apparently justified by royal poets like Wordsworth. Ah, but I
know an answer--I see one in my mind!
So again for the letters. Now ought I not to know about letters, I who
have had so many ... from chief minds too, as society goes in England
and America? And _your_ letters began by being first to my intellect,
before they were first to my heart. All the letters in the world are
not like yours ... and I would trust them for that verdict with any
jury in Europe, if they were not so far too dear! Mr. Kenyon wanted to
make me show him your letters--I did show him the first, and resisted
gallantly afterwards, which made him say what vexed me at the moment,
... 'oh--you let me see only _women's_ letters,'--till I observed that
it was a breach of confidence, except in some cases, ... and that _I_
should complain very much, if anyone, man or woman, acted so by
myself. But nobody in the world writes like you--not so _vitally_--and
I have a right, if you please, to praise my letters, besides the
reason of it which is as good.
Ah--you made me laugh about Mr. Chorley's free speaking--and, without
the personal knowledge, I can comprehend how it could be nothing very
ferocious ... some 'pardonnez moi, vous êtes un ange.' The amusing
part is that by the same post which brought me the Ambleside document,
I heard from Miss Mitford 'that it was an admirable thing of Chorley
to have persisted in not allowing Harriet Martineau to quarrel with
him' ... so that there are laurels on both sides, it appears.
And I am delighted to hear from you to-day just _so_, though I
reproach you in turn just _so_ ... because you were not 'depressed' in
writing all this and this and this which has made me laugh--you were
not, dearest--and you call yourself better, 'much better,' which means
a very little perhaps, but is a golden word, let me take it as I may.
May God bless you. Wednesday seems too near (now that this is Monday
and you are better) to be _our_ day ... perhaps it does,--and Thursday
_is_ close beside it at the worst.