2780. Joseph Arnould to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 243–244.
13 Markham Square, Chelsea—
March 23d 1849
My dear friend ’Ere you receive this you will know why it is that you have not heard earlier from me: a letter which I had written off at once on first seeing the good tidings of your being a father in the “Times” [1] was just stopped ’ere I posted it, by a note from your sister: to have sent it containing as it did an unqualified expression of our great joy & thankfulness at the most happy news of your having had a son born to you & of your dear wife’s being so well, would have been a sort of falseness & hypocrisy of which I could not have been guilty: so I have thought it better to wait till you knew all. My dear Browning I have no right whatever to steal in between you & the great sorrow you must feel for the loss of her whom to know was to love: [2] on such a grief to such a spirit as yours silence is the only sympathy: for condolence, consolation & such like I will whisper not a word: of one thing only be assured that, when the first overflow of sorrow has subsided in the hearts of your sister & father, it shall be our care to do what little, & little I fear it will be that, we can—to mitigate in some degree their distress– Indeed, indeed—I feel that I have been sadly wanting for a long time in proper shew of kindliness—but most truly it has been in show only—you know how absurdly even a small distance (in space) acts on selfish Londoners—if you also consider that my wife has been much away & ill—that I have been in all senses struggling, & as yet without more than a distant gleam of ultimate success, at a most time-engrossing profession—you will have perhaps some sort of ground not to hate me for a remissness which I can never forgive—with regard to which I can only resolve it shall not again be. But my dear friend I can now no longer refrain from expressing the deep heartfelt joy which both Maria & myself have felt & feel, (for the feeling is really & strangely present both with her & with me on all occasions) at your happy entrance into the joy of being a father– May the Allgiver pour out the abundance of his blessing upon you & your dear wife & your boy. Maria & myself cannot help looking forward to the happiness, the deep true happiness that awaits the father & the mother in tending & forming such a noble boy as yours must be: as he advances we shall be most eager to hear all about him & shall do so from his dear Aunt in England—nay who knows whether now that ‘our Italy shines o’er with civil swords’ [3] —& friends in England want comfort—that we may not, when the mother & child may safely travel, see you all back for a summer at all events—: but of this more at another season: & so of your book too about which I had so much to say that now I fear you would throw aside as impertinence, if said: one thing only I will say, that I could not have supposed the mere difference of type & form could have made so advantageous a difference in the ease & pleasure of the reading: one thing more I must say that I like all the alterations I have made out, except only those in “over the Sea our galleys went”, [4] which I had grown too fond of in its original beauty ever to like so well in any other form. I was in Chapman & Halls, on another account, last Tuesday & was told in answer to a query, that the sale was going on very steadily: but I must tell you more about this & such like matters at another time when your mind will be more apt for them: now, dear friend, I will do no more than convey to you, & beg you to convey to your dear wife, every good, sincere, & heartfelt wish for the happiness health & welfare of yourself, her & your boy—both from my wife & your ever affte friend
J. Arnould
Publication: Smalley, p. 99.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, Gordon N. Ray Bequest.
1. The notice of Pen’s birth appeared in The Times supplement for 19 March 1849: “On the 9th inst., at Florence, the wife of Robert Browning, Esq., of a son.”
2. RB’s mother had died on 18 March 1849.
3. Antony and Cleopatra, I, 3, 44–45.
4. The opening line of a lyric sung by the title character in Paracelsus, IV, 425–494. In the revised version in Poems (1849), the corresponding line numbers are 450–522.
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