Correspondence

2715.  Joseph Arnould to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 347–351.

18 Victoria Square, Pimlico.

Dec. 19th/47

Very welcome, my dear Browning, was the sight of your hand writing once more, & truly on my part it ought to have been acknowledged earlier: but you live so constantly in our thoughts here; & you & yours are so often the subject of our words, that the only forgetfulness I can reproach myself with, in not writing, is that of not telling you how much we think & talk of you: it seems to me that yourself & Mrs Robert Browning are the most frequently & kindly talked of people, of any whose names are current in this great, jealous, & generally oblivious London society, as far at least as my little knowledge of it extends. It is impossible, at all events I find it so, not to envy you your life of study & repose in Florence, a city of all others I think, delightful, to those who will lead their own life in it, & let the noisy shallow stream of gossip & scandal, which there runs perpetually, foam away as it will without heeding it: you have air clear, though cold, libraries, stores of art, a cheerful smiling country, & silent streets, great churches, & cloudless moonlights for thought & that higher energy of creative invention, to expand in: well exchanged all this, to my mind, for the smoke & stir of this dim spot where with low thoughted cares we toil on after money, or power, or pleasure: I am still climbing, without much encouragement up the stubborn ascents of the Law: for rapid climbing in that direction, as in fact for rapid climbing anywhere, you want nimbleness & shiftiness of foot, hand & eye, which unluckily for me, I don’t possess: all I can bring to the work is a certain toughness of sinew, strength of mind, & an indomitable resolution never to bate heart or hope: I believe I may say after 6 years that I am some few decided steps in advance, & only last week had my first opportunity, which I have long wanted, of making a speech in Court in a case of some importance to my client: wherein those who should be able to judge of such things tell me I acquitted myself not discreditably: then I am at length on the eve of publishing a Law Book [1] which has cost me (man of genius don’t smile at such plodding) 4 years of the best labour & pains I could bestow on it & therefore, if I am not an absolute dolt, ought to do something for me: at all events therefore, my dear friend, to put an end to this egotism (strongest proof of my confidence in your friendship)—if I fail I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that to the best of my powers I have striven not to fail, & shall take failure as the just verdict of man on my want of ability.

We have been very quiet for some months’ past: I know you will be sorry to hear that my dear wife has been for some time a great invalid; for the last year she had been complaining & (this is of course completely entre nous [2] as old friends) having at length prevailed upon her to undergo an examination it appeared that she had been for some long time labouring under that very distressing, but I believe not uncommon malady with women prolapsus uteri; which in all probability had for months if not years been producing that debility of which she at times used to complain: I sent her down immediately to the sea side where she has now been for 6 weeks & I am delighted to say appears completely renovated, & will, as I am assured by the first medical advice in London, get completely sound: I should hardly have told you all this thus explicitly were it not in order to account (what nothing but the Truth could explain) for the depression of health & spirits which has quite prevented her from seeing her friends, especially your sister & Mrs Browning, so often as she could have wished: I trust that, after Xmas, all this may be altered.

I have not heard from Domett since I wrote to you last, nor have I any positive information as to his present exact position with Governor Grey: [3] but this I know, that on Grey’s first going out as governor, Domett was singled out by him in a very marked way; he took him in his company to Auckland (govt station in the North Island), talked a great deal & very confidentially about plans of government &c, which was very natural as Domett had been throughout advocating the very line of policy which Grey went determined to carry out. I think from all this it is most probable that our friend has ere this received some appointment, which will at all events enable him to live on there, until the opportunity offers of something more valuable: you know how little would suffice Domett; ship biscuit, a bed, a room, fire & grog when required. Meantime I am very anxiously looking for his next letter from which I shall learn something positive:

I see a great deal of Chorley, a valuable friendship which is not the least of the benefits for which I have to thank you: his life is one of the most desperate hard work—over work in fact: I wish he could only grasp one decided success: this he wants at present very much: besides his journalism he is doing a great deal just now in the translation of operas (chiefly French—the Iphigenie of “the Ritter Gluck” among the number) for Mons. Jullien, [4] who is giving English opera at Drury Lane: the work is lucrative, but laborious from the high pressure speed at which it is required to be done: his play, I was in great hopes .. was to have been acted at the Princesse’s [sic], but Maddox, the manager, was it seems so disheartened at the result of the Philip Van Artevelde that he has declared finally against any more new plays: so that unless Miss Cushman takes the play with her elsewhere I fear it will not be brought out at all: [5] As to the Philip Van Artevelde the critics all pronounced it nought as an acting play: [6] I confess I could not agree in their verdict, for, though wanting in lightness & event, yet there was a nobleness & grandeur about the character of Philip as developed by Macready, & a power & interest about many of the scenes, which gave me, & seemed to me calculated to give any moderately cultivated audience, very high pleasure. Dickens, in the conduct of his present story, ‘Dombey & Son’—seems to me sadly degenerating from the humourist of native English growth, into the sentimentalist of a half French, half German & to my mind wholly unsupportable school—the clear raciness of style & vigour of thought, as it seems to me, gone—& in it’s stead melodramatic vehemence of action, alternating with most morbid anatomy of the inner men & women of his tale—a sense of unreality & effort in the whole business which when one recollects his old felicity & facility is painful: [7] Tennyson is on the eve of publication “The Princess—a Medley” & as you may imagine ‘the Town’ is on the tiptoe of expectation: My dear Browning do you know the German transcendental writers at all—especially Fichte? [8] an enterprising American bookseller here has been translating all his exoteric works i.e. all except his Formal System of Metaphysics—the titles will show you the nature of the Books[:] “The destination of Man” “The nature & vocation of the scholar” “Characteristics of the present age’[’] Religion or the Holy life (last not yet published)– I have been reading them with that engrossing, rapt, concentrated attention which no book can command except one which speaks to the very soul of the reader: formalized in Fichte’s books I find what has long been hovering vaguely before my own mind as truth: especially on Religion & Christianity. Do read them—they are not costly[,] the price of the hitherto published is as follows Characteristics of the Present Age 7s. Vocation of the Scholar 2s, The Destination of Man 3s 6d. The Nature of the Scholar 6s—in all 18s6d May I send them to you: I am sure you would find grand food for thought in them: to my mind the most satisfactory word which has yet been spoken about that which is of supreme interest to all men: you will find yourself in that school where Carlyle evidently had been a most earnest student: the manner even closely resembling Carlyle in his loftier & graver moods; I mean when he does not give himself up to the grotesque whimsicality which he seems to have caught from Richter: [9] altogether I think you must read these books: tell me about it when you write next & my dear Browning, if not too exacting, let me ask for a letter soon; if you knew the pleasure your letters give me, I should not ask this in vain: I should so like you to give me the benefit of your thoughts on such great subjects as that of the Progress of the Race as developed after Fichte’s theory in his book <now> named Characteristics of the Present age—which in <re>ality contains his whole plan of world history: <it> would be an infinite refreshment to my mind if you would condescend occasionally to hold commune with it on such points & then too I think our letters, having some worthier end than mere gossip might be more frequent: I trust Mrs. Browning’s health will continue improving: “Give my kindest regards to Browning & his wife when you write” were my wife’s general orders—& will you take & give mine & Believe me your warmly attached Friend

J. Arnould

Publication: Smalley, pp. 96–98.

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, Gordon N. Ray Bequest.

1. A Treatise on the Law of Marine Insurance and Average: With References to American Cases, and the Later Continental Authorities was published in 1848; subsequent editions appeared throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the preface to the sixteenth edition, published in 1981, the editors state that the work “is a masterpiece, in the forefront of the great writings on commercial laws in the English language: owing … to the genius of its author” (p. vii).

2. “Between us.”

3. See letter 2662, note 4. In 1848, Grey appointed Domett Colonial Secretary for the southern province of New Munster. In this position Domett was involved in a wide range of government activities; over the next few years, he would concentrate on policies related to education in the colony. (See The Diary of Alfred Domett: 1872–1885, ed. E.A. Horsman, 1953, pp. 22–25.)

4. Louis Antoine Jullien (1812–60), French-born composer and conductor, had arrived in England in 1841, and had become a household name by this time. He was often featured in Punch, where he was referred to as “the Mons.” According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980), “an ill-planned season of grand opera at the Drury Lane Theatre, beginning in December 1847 with Berlioz as conductor, caused his first bankruptcy in England” (9, 749). Grove lists translations of ten libretti of opera by Chorley, including Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride; however, it was not performed until 1860. Either Arnould was unaware of the financial failings, or they occurred later, as Chorley suffered “the loss, not only of all his labour, but the greater part of his remuneration” (Henry Fothergill Chorley: Autobiography, Memoir, Letters, ed. H.G. Hewlett, 1873, II, 92). While visiting in Rome in 1756, Gluck was created Knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope, hence the “Ritter.”

5. Duchess Eleanour, which Chorley had started working on in late 1846, was not performed until 1854, with Charlotte Cushman in the lead role (see letter 2642, note 8).

6. Macready’s adaptation of Henry Taylor’s verse drama was produced by John Medex Maddox at the Princess Theatre from 22 November through 3 December 1847, but it was an immediate failure. In his diary entry for 22 November, Macready wrote: “Acted Philip Van Artevelde. Failed; I cannot think it my fault” (The Diaries of William Charles Macready, 1833–1851, ed. William Toynbee, 1912, II, 377). The following day, Macready noted that he “saw the papers, which—I should instance the Times and Chronicle as especially disgusting—did not raise my spirits” (II, 378). Macready blamed the rest of the cast; and, according to his biographer, “the critics were inclined to agree with him” (Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian: William Charles Macready, 1966, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 282–283). Charlotte Cushman, who had offered to act the part of Adriana in the play, for whatever reasons ended up not acting in the play, but her sister Susan took the part of Clara. The review in The Athenæum for 27 November, while noting some problems with the cast, was more critical of Macready’s adaptation, stating that the author, “while yet living, had the honour of having his work mutilated for the stage” (no. 1048, p. 1225).

7. Arnould’s opinion of Dickens’s latest work was not dissimilar to that of Macready. In his diary entry for 30 November, in which he noted Maddox’s decision to close Philip Van Artevelde, Macready wrote: “Read the December No. of Dombey and Son, which I did not like. I thought it obscure and heavy” (II, 379). Nor was Carlyle impressed; see the penultimate paragraph of letter 2682.

8. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was a German metaphysical philosopher. Several of his works, including the ones Arnould names here, were translated into English by a Scottish actuary named William Smith (1816–96), and were published as single titles in “The Catholic Series” between 1845 and 1849 by John Chapman (1821–94), who was an agent for American publishers, which may explain Arnould’s confusion. Smith’s translations were collected as The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, with a Memoir (2 vols., 1848–49). There is no evidence that Arnould ever sent these works to RB, nor that RB ever acquired them. Fichte’s ideas and writings, as indicated by Arnould, influenced Carlyle’s works.

9. Carlyle was an admirer of the German novelist and philosopher Johann Paul Friedrich (“Jean Paul”) Richter (1763–1825), whose works he translated and praised.

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 3-29-2024.

Copyright © 2024 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top