2846. Joseph Arnould to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 102–104.
5 Pump Court, Temple
April 25th 1850
Dear Browning
Our excellent friend Mr Kenyon kindly affords me a corner in his cover for these few lines: I have read re-read marked learned & really inwardly digested [1] your last Poem: I need not say that my creed is still rather with ‘Paracelsus’ as he was, than as he is; but this I think I can most honestly say has not one whit interfered with my powers of appreciation; for as to all you say about German Professorship & Straussism, [2] I agree to a word. Well then I must say quite honestly that though your master hand has never dashed on the canvas the colours of poetry more grandly—though none but yourself could have written the Poem yet, as a whole, it is less satisfactory to me than some of your earlier inspirations: call me limited, narrow, academic what you will, but I cannot quite like the grotesque, wonderful inventive & ingenious as it is of your opening; & then not so much on the ground of any mere individual dislike on my own part, as from the feeling that it may be a stumbling block to so many weaker brethren in the critic world: in this however I find myself opposed to many who would, I should have fancied a priori taken the same view as myself, Chorley preeminent among the number: I have never known him I think so enthusiastic about anything of yours, and the grotesque he admired particularly, from the vigorous contrast it lent to the ‘strains of higher mood’ which abound in the Poem; & I know that one of the main grievances of his critical life was his inability to get the reviewal of your book in the Athenæum, which was done by an incompetent hand: [3] Still I don’t agree with him & in all the sincerity of friendship should venture to ask you to think twice before you again allow your wondrous facility for all the ingenuities of Hudibrastic verse to carry you so far aloof from the sympathies of readers of severer taste: as to the superb magnificences of your poem—your moonrise—your night-rainbow—your St Peters—your visioned Form—your theory of Christian art—they are in the memories & filling the hearts of hundreds of your true admirers: I have never read any book which more compelled me to go on uno flatu [4] or which left more indelible impressions.
I have been doing my possible to urge your Sister to move more into our neighbourhood. Chelsea or Brompton—where she would find many friends who in a busy London life are now prevented from seeing her as often as they could wish—do add your urgency to the same request. My wife, I should tell you, is wholly & entirely a devotee & has spoken sharp words to me for the exceptions I have ventured to make to the Poem. She begs to join me in best good wishes & kindest regards to yourself & Mrs Browning
& I am dear Browning
ever faithfully yours J Arnould
Address, on integral page: R. Browning Esqr / frwd by John Kenyon Esqr.
Publication: Smalley, p. 100.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, Gordon N. Ray Bequest.
1. Cf. Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent in The Book of Common Prayer.
2. “Straussism” refers to the ideas expounded by David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74) in Das Leben Jesu (Tübingen, 1835–36). In this biography, based upon Hegelian dialectics, Strauss compared biblical accounts of Jesus’ life with historical information and concluded that the former were more myth than fact. The work had been translated into English in 1842 and again in 1846, the latter by George Eliot, although her name did not appear on the title page.
3. John Westland Marston wrote the review of Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day that appeared in The Athenæum for 6 April 1850, (no. 1171, pp. 370–371). Although Marston admired the thought and feeling of the work, he felt it was marred by the form, which he described as “doggrel—carried to excess by strange and offensive oddities of versification.” The reviewer is given as Marston in the marked file copy of The Athenæum now at City University (London). For the full text of this review, see pp. 357–360.
4. “With one breath.”
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