1087. RB to Alfred Domett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 221–222.
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey,
Dec. 13. 1842.
My dear Domett,
C. Dowson, with whom I dined yesterday, tells me that a ship sails for your country to-morrow—so I write a word or two. I could easily fancy you were no farther off than Brighton—not to say Exeter—all this while—so much of you is here, & there, & wherever I have been used to see, or think about you. We all talk of you, wish you well, and wonder all manner of ways. Arnould & his wife came here last week, and we spoke irreverently of your ploughing, hopefully of your harvest, & so on, just as if you were not in the thick of it, and victorious over it, too, by this time. I have wished myself with you less often than I expected—and no doubt the reason is, that you are not so surely away, after all.
Are you well, comfortable, hopeful, speculative, wiser thro’ the new strange life? I shall hear & know when the letters [1] begin to come with March or April: and I do long to hear & know this, remember.
I suppose Dowson writes by this ship,—the good news of his new son, and Mrs Dowson’s well-doing,—will come to you from other quarters: but Arnould does not write this time, I think—he and his wife are quite well and duly mindful of you—they bade me say much more than this—but you know them both– We are all well here.
With this you get some more verses of mine [2] —I shall have more ready ere long, I hope,—and better– Macready is getting on poorly enough—he pledges himself to keep his Theatre open till he has played my Tragedy [3] —I don’t know what will be the end of it. The only novelty we have had in books as yet, has been Macaulay’s Lays of Rome—a kind of revenge on that literature which so long plagued ours with Muses, and Apollo, and Luna and all that,—by taking the stalest subjects in it, and as plentifully bestowing on them the commonplaces of our indigenous ballad-verse—“Then out spake brave Sir Cocles”—“Go, hark ye, stout Sir Consul”—and a deal more: I have only seen extracts, certainly, but they gave me this notion. [4] Dickens’ Notes have sold vastly [5] —in a fortnight we have his new “Martin Chuzzlewit” affair—the name seduces one little. [6] I don’t well know what Carlyle is doing—I spent an evening with him last week– He talked nobly—seemed to love Göthe more than ever. Do you prosecute German-study? I read pretty well now.
If you write and resolve on any scheme,—to publish,—to get acted—here am I, you know– I can do a little more now than I could before—it will be the true pleasurable thing of things for me, to do what may be done. Think of this—how you ought to write! And will. By the way, Arnould wrote the cleverest gratefullest verse-thanks to me, the other day, for these Lyrics of mine,—and brought you in so happily! [7]
Give my kindest regards to Young– I have seldom been so annoyed as by the sad tale that reached me of his fire, and loss of books—give him the accompanying “Lyrics”,—what gifts! Such as they are, I shall expect your criticism and counsel, at a fabulous length, on them.
Who, do you suppose, wrote that article in the C of E. Quarterly? Horne! Judge of my astonishment– But, was it not generous of an unappreciated man, so to write? [8]
God bless you, my dear Domett, and so shall he bless me too—take care of your soul and body for the sake of their brave selves,—then of your troop of lovers [9] —and then of your own for ever,
R Browning.
Address, on integral page: Alfred Domett Esq / Port Nelson, / New Zealand.
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 46–50.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. RB struck out “if you think” and substituted “when the letters.”
2. i.e., Dramatic Lyrics.
3. As previously noted (letter 850, note 2), RB had given Macready the manuscript of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon at the end of 1841 and Macready had asked Dickens for his opinion of it, which was not delivered until November 1842. His favourable verdict persuaded Macready to stage the play, and it was put into rehearsal in January 1843 for its première on 11 February.
4. Extracts of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome were printed in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, December 1842, pp. 802–824.
5. Dickens published his American Notes for General Circulation after his visit to the United States in 1842. As previously stated (letter 1059, note 8), some of his remarks had caused considerable offence in America.
6. Martin Chuzzlewit was published in twenty monthly numbers, commencing January 1843.
8. See letter 1017 and pp. 381–388.
9. Cf. Macbeth, V, 3, 25.
___________________
