2483. RB to Alfred Domett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 155–157.
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.
July 13. 1846.
My dear Domett,
I got as much of your very self as letter could hold, full two months ago—since then “Hope,” [1] the ship, has been deferred & deferred as is characteristic– The five-months’ inevitable voyage is bad enough without these stoppages & delays– Meantime, and before, I have received “Examiners” in abundance. Can you remember what this letter is about which lies open here as fresh as if you had penned it yesterday? It is full of cautions and warnings as touching my well-being mental and physical, all admirable of their kind; and I think that, on the whole, I have profited by them, turned them to practical account .. for “laid them to heart” I know I have. As to the obscurity and imperfect expression,—the last number of my “Bells” which you get with this, must stand for the best I could do, four or five months ago, to rid myself of those defects; and if you judge I have succeeded in any degree, you will not fancy I am likely to relax in my endeavour now: as for the necessity of such endeavour I agree with you altogether: from the beginning, I have been used to take a high ground and say all endeavour elsewhere is thrown away—endeavour to think (the real thought) to imagine, to create, or whatever they call it,—as well endeavour to add the cubit to your stature. “Nascitur poeta” [2] —and that conceded to happen, the one object of labour is naturally what you recommend to me—and I to myself—nobody knows better, with what indifferent success. But here is, without affectation, the reason why I have gone on so far although succeeding so indifferently– I felt instinctively from the beginning that unless I tumbled out the dozen more or less of conceptions I should bear them about forever and year by year get straiter and stiffer in those horrible cross-bones with a long name, and at last parturition would be the curse indeed. Mine was the better way, I do calmly believe,—for at this moment I feel as every body does who has worked—“in vain”? No matter, if the work was real: it seems disinspiriting for a man to hack away at trees in a wood and at the end of his clearing come to rocks or the sea or whatever disappoints him as leading to nothing .. but still, turn the man’s face, point him to new trees and the true direction, and who will compare his power arising from experience with that of another who has been confirming himself all the time in the belief that chopping wood is incredible labour and that the first blow he strikes will be sure to jar his arm to the shoulder without shaking a leaf on the lowest bough? I stand at present and wait like such a fellow as the first of these—if the real work should present itself to be done, I shall begin at once and in earnest .. not having to learn first of all how to keep the axe head from flying back into my face; and if I stop in the middle .. let the bad business of other years show that I was not idle nor altogether incompetent—there, my brave Domett, is the Author’s flourish you call forth,—but it is, at bottom, very sincere fact. You know, in the world, they bid one secure a livelihood and then try to be rich: so, fancy me subsisting respectably on what you see,—and about to adventure for what you shall see .. God willing! which includes, “and the body availing”—which I am neither sure of, nor despondent about: all cant apart,—better suffer physically than morally—wear yourself out in work than in vexation that you did not work .. as (you will be sure to think) you could have done so notably!
I have some important objects in view with respect to my future life—which I will acquaint you with next time I write, when they will be proved attainable or no.
You see all Newspapers, know of all occurrences infinitely better than I: this change of ministry makes for you surely! [3] Your “Declaration of Wrongs” has been properly appreciated I do hope! Of late I have not seen Dowson—(he lives no longer at dear old Limehouse [4] .. which I love heartily for the sake of his four walls and front court, all I know of it) and Arnould I do not see as often as I ought and might—yet they know nothing precisely about any good befallen you or I should hear it, I am certain. Both men are true as truth, and their wives are part of them– We never, I am sure, have talked, for a quarter of an hour, together, since your departure without “bringing you in” .. Shall I say spitefully, that I do believe if you returned tomorrow we ought not to give you an extraordinary welcome—whether we should, or no? for you have never been really out and away from the midst of us.
My father and mother are pretty well—the latter especially—my sister is quite well– They at this moment (I having called out down stairs) send up the most energetic of desires to be spoken of as your best of well wishers[.] —“Let him but come back and come here,” they say. —So says your affectionate friend,
RB.
Address: Alfred Domett Esqre/ Port Nelson, / New Zealand.
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 126–130.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. The Times of 13 July 1846 reported that “the splendid full-poop ship hope” would “sail punctually on the 15th of July.”
2. “The poet is born” (cf. the proverbial “poeta nascitur, non fit”; “the poet is born, not made”).
3. A reference to the new Colonial Secretary in England and a new Governor in New Zealand (see letter 2261, note 1). The “Declaration of Wrongs” refers to the injuries outlined by the New Zealand Company in a petition to Parliament the previous April. The complaints of the company primarily concerned excessive and unnecessary government expenditures.
4. There is no indication in RB’s address book for this period of a change of address for Christopher Dowson, Jr. (see vol. 9, p. 390). His direction is given as 3 Albion Terrace, Commercial Road, Limehouse.
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