2261. RB to Alfred Domett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 161–163.
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.
March 19. ’46.
My dear Domett,
There is news about your world in to-day’s papers for everybody [1] —and I hope, in some letter or other for somebody here—news of yourself—still I cannot wait to be sure, as the “Madras” sails directly [2] —much as I long to hear that your own prospects brightened together with the Colony’s on the departure of Fitzroy and advent of Grey—your newspapers .. you feel how we all feel when they come to hand & heart—surely the new dynasty will avail itself of your services: those “leaders” are capital—anybody can see that– I commended my last-but-one batch to the notice of Forster, literally on the eve of the publishing that “Daily-News” in which he was concerned with Dickens &c (—you receive it, your Father told me the other day)—and he, Forster, said they would in all probability secure you for correspondent—but the whole concern went off impotently– Dickens got out of it after a headlong fashion, more politic than valiant, and tho’ the paper in itself has gone on, I think, improving steadily (Forster for Editor)—yet like the Apostle “it dies daily”– [3] The preliminary flourish of brass instruments only serving to render the after-quiet more profound. But at first, I believed a good appointment might come of it,—for the arrangements were all on the most liberal scale.
Arnould sends a letter, I know,—he will have told whatever is to tell—good, admirable fellow that he is! I value his friendship more as the years get on,—we never meet but we talk of you. His wife is really, & not figuratively, a part of him—so talks, and so wishes. Dowson gave one of his old dinners (in, to me, a new locale for them,—the City)—and you were “in our flowing cups freshly remembered”– [4] Last sunday week, I saw your Father—who rejoiced my heart by an account of another kind of dinner at which you were done justice to—the report being unluckily in one of the “Examiners” not received by me– I am to see it, however. [5]
This morning I went to Moxon’s to see about the issue of my number 8—and last of this series—at least. [6] They (two plays, to get done)—will appear in a fortnight or so—and then I shall breathe for a month or two, God willing, and consider my ways. You received of course,—I trust,—the last number with a letter. I don’t think that at that time Landor’s all too generous Lines about it had appeared. My father having been at the pains of getting them printed, I can send a copy. [7] The first thing to notice is the kindness, and after, the blindness of such praise—but these acknowledged duly—surely one may remark on the happy epithet “hale” as applied to Chaucer,—and all is musical and vigorous; I was very much gratified—and, perhaps, again gratified at that,—in the consciousness of not being altogether indifferent, as might easily be. I never was much disturbed in my natural post of “most unintelligible of writers,”—nor, consequently, got a tithe of the notices book-makers get as a matter of course—yet my gettings, what all the unintelligibility and unpopularity in the world could not preserve me from getting,—quite enough has been, indeed! But one morning we may talk over our experiences—shall that not be? All here are well and bid me put as much “best regard” as I can into the letter[’]s end—but nobody has forgotten you, by a shade,—“out of sight—out of mind”– [8] So they malign the world where it least deserves!
God bless you, dear Domett—won’t you write a line by next ship? Don’t if it bores you, though—I quite understand, and always am
yours affectionately
R Browning.
Address: Per Madras / Alfred Domett Esqre / Port Nelson, / New Zealand.
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 122–125.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. The daily papers carried the latest news just received from New Zealand. The Times said that “a new Colonial Secretary in England, and a new Governor on the spot, may possibly do something at last.”
2. The Madras sailed for New Zealand the following day, as reported in The Times.
3. Cf. I Corinthians 15:31.
4. Cf. Henry V, IV, 3, 55 (see letter 2198, note 6).
5. The Nelson Examiner of 13 December 1845 carried an extensive report of a dinner “given on Thursday evening to Alfred Domett, Esq., by the settlers of Nelson, to thank that gentleman for his very able exposition of the wrongs sustained by the southern settlers of this colony at the hands of the Government … About forty gentlemen sat down to a most excellent dinner in the Literary Institution” (p. 1).
6. Bells and Pomegranates, No. VIII, containing Luria and A Soul’s Tragedy, was published on 13 April 1846.
7. RB enclosed a copy of Landor’s lines “To Robert Browning,” which his father had printed the day following RB’s last letter to Domett (no. 2109); it is the only known copy (now at Texas). See illustration facing p. 324. RB had sent a copy of Bells and Pomegranates, No. VII, with letter 2109.
8. Attributed to Thomas à Kempis in De Imitatione Christi (ca. 1420), bk. I, cap. xxiii.
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