498. RB to André Victor Amédée de Ripert-Monclar
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 125–128.
London
March 2. 1835.
Dear Amédée, ’tis a shame:—I have had but a single letter from you all this time, 'ενα αλλα |λεοντα|! [1] and I had reckoned on a dozen at least. What can the reason be? Is la Vendée swarming again & M de Monclar Cathelineau Redivivus? [2] or are you married .. (Dii meliora piis!) [3] .. or totally occupied with “traditions de Chancellerie”? [4] or utterly engaged in plans, projects & what not? .. or did my long answer strike a terror into the stout heart that all Bentham’s big Books could never appal? —Amédée, Amédée, I shall tell you a thing or two, without preface or comment, & leave you to reflect thereon ..
If I do not speedily hear from you, 1mo I shall swear (whatever I may believe) that you have clean forgotten me– 2do I shall triumph not a little in the fallibility of my grand model & proposed exemplar of constancy[,] precision, punctuality etc, etc. 3tio I shall .. but let these have their due effect for the present .. I shall append a huge list to my next communication, should these have no success .. for you shall have no rest till I am righted, I promise you.
—In good earnest, my dear Friend, I trust you are sound in health & spirit. I am entrusted with all possible kind remembrances on the part of my Father, Mother & Sister .. which I herewith deliver to you .. Can it be possible that you meditate another visit to London, & accordingly neglect writing?– In that case, I almost excuse you, but not altogether.
But I really must have an immediate reply, & on this account. “Paracelsus” is finished & ready to come out .. I should tell you, that you would have heard of it long ere this, had I not been very ill for a month & more,—a horrible ulcerated sore throat which effectually put a stop to my labours– I am quite recovered now & have got thro’ the job with proportionable dispatch—now, am I to understand, that your amiable desire to figure in the dedication-page as patron thereof, still continues undiminished? [5] In the event of your silence on this head, I shall set it down as certain that you repent your precipitate good nature.
—Tis an affair of some 4000 lines, done in 3 or 4 months, novel, as I think, in conception & execution at once, &, from its nature, not likely to secure an overwhelming auditory—you will make it out easily enough.
—I am in earnest about the Dedication, & if you do not instruct me to the contrary, shall consider you to decline that marvellous honour– Oh, Amédée, lose immortality etc etc, so cheaply? Carpe diem! [6]
—Was I very wrong in my political prognostications?
—The Party is “done for”—cosa fatta capo ha. [7]
—I hope you got the Metropolitan (or rather the article it contained & which my Uncle cut out, for its more easy transmission by post) & that M. le Marquis de Fortia has approved of my “telle quelle” [8] version of your paper—àpropos, I wonder whether you fully make out my scrawl .. you read printed English well enough, I am aware, but my loose plan of filling up a sheet may not be altogether so intelligible .. I can write French passably enough, if you prefer it, but it is hardly my interest to suffer your knowledge of the language in which I write my books, to rust for lack of use. Do you read our Novels & new Books––Bulwer’s for instance? There are some good things in his “Pompeii”––I should suppose it is translated by this time;—but Hugo, Hugo, how is Hugo? & his new novel & his new play (a comedy is it not?) & the new lot of lyrics, [9] of which you told me in your letter .. how go they on? And the batch of poets, artists & birds of a like feather who purposed accompanying Dumas on his expedition? .. [10] You have so much to let me know—& not a little to let me have—your own portrait in the first place—your croquis [11] in the second—the names of the Parisian Periodicals, Reviews etc which you may favour with your contributions in the third– I shall be glad to have your strictures on my forthcoming work—’tis in some measure an experiment—I wonder whether I can explain it to you? Vediam un po: [12] The conditions of the Drama are well known: [13] —those of what is popularly termed the Poem no less so: I cannot but conceive that, inasmuch as the canons of either have a reference to the peculiar ordering & exposition of each, the particular advantages offered by each, are really advantages only as long as its original purpose is kept in view, & that, for the most part, all attempts to retain one without letting go the other—are signal failures, whether they be on the one hand, what are good-naturedly styled “Poetical Plays”—wherein the characters are possessed by a self consciousness truly exemplary which prompts them to develop their own constitution of head or heart systematically on every occasion with the utmost perspicuity & minuteness of detail, with every assistance from mood & figure: or on the other, those anomalous productions called “Dramatic Poems” wherein all the restrictions only submitted to for the sake of compensating advantages in the original scheme (which regarded public representation) are scrupulously retained for some undiscovered fitness in themselves, & all the new facilities which the method they pursue places at their disposal, as pertinaciously rejected .. Now, select any Drama you please, which comprises the history of a Thought or a Passion, &, putting yourself in the position of the author, view it as a conception of your own & consider that, having rêvé [14] this History, you are about to give it a permanent existence .. to reduce it to language. Do you desire that it shall be Read not Acted? Follow throughout the whole, only what Raleigh calls the “mind of the piece,” as a purple thread through a varied woof .. discarding as unnecessary, the external machinery which would develop it, & only preserving the Result which was to be traced, however dimly throughout– Then expand this simple mood—& you will have a Poem like my own: .. Shall it be Acted not Read—follow the contrary course .. make prominent & efficient the influencing incidents & persons .. make that inferred only, which in the Poem was detailed .. & you have a Drama again.– “Avez vous bien le tout entendu? Beuvez doncques ung bon coup sans eaue. Car, si ne l’entendez, non fai il, feit elle” .. as says le docte et gentil Rabelais. [15]
It is very late, & I write in a hurry, tho’ you will wonder what for, but in fact I want to hear from you & very soon .. I need not tell you how we all remember you—how we all “affectionate” you (a French-American word) & how your continued silence will disappoint others beside myself .. but I rejoice in the anticipation of a glorious epistle; & if possible, let it come before Sir R. Peel is turned out of office. The last news of this day is that he is seriously inclined to save folks that trouble .. but then he has born[e] the last weeks unprecedented series of kicks so patiently––– [16]
Adieu, mon tres cher Amedee, je vous embrasse et vous aime [17]
Robert Browning.
Address, on cover sheet: À Monsieur / M. le Comte de Ripert Monclar / Ancien Magistrat / etc. etc. etc / No 12 Rue de Larochefoucauld, / (Chaussée d’Antin).
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. The last word is indistinct, but appears to read λεοντα; if this be so, RB is punning the alliteration of “lion” and “line,” giving his phrase the meaning “but one lion (line).”
2. Monclar had been involved in an 1832 insurrection in the Vendée, a department in western France, in support of the Bourbons, for which he was imprisoned. Jacques Cathelineau (1759–93), a pedlar by trade, had been commander of the insurgent forces.
3. “May the gods give better things to the good” (Vergil, Georgics, III, 513).
4. Monclar had obtained a position as auditor in the Chancellery of France in 1828, becoming Deputy King’s Attorney in Avignon the following year. After the revolution of July 1830 forced the abdication of Charles X, Monclar abandoned the magistracy, but retained the courtesy title of Ancien Magistrat.
5. Paracelsus, when published, was “Inscribed to the Comte A. De Ripert-Monclar, By His Affectionate Friend, Robert Browning.” The introduction was dated “15th March, 1835.”
6. “Enjoy today” (Horace, Odes, I, xi, 8).
7. “What’s done is done.” See note 16 below.
8. “Such as it is.”
9. Hugo’s new play, Angelo, was first presented on 28 April 1835. His Chants du Crépuscule came out in October 1835, but it was some years before his next novel appeared.
11. “Sketches; outlines.”
12. “Let’s look a bit.”
13. For more on this subject, see RB’s Preface to Paracelsus.
14. “Dreamed.”
15. “Have you understood it all clearly? Then drink one good draught without water. Because, if you do not understand it, no indeed I don’t, she said” .. as says the learned and amiable Rabelais (La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, bk. II, ch. 1).
16. When Parliament convened on 19 February 1835, Peel’s nominee for the office of Speaker had been outvoted. Despite this setback, Peel struggled on for six weeks, but finally resigned when he was again outvoted on 8 April, on a resolution affecting the revenues of the Church of Ireland.
17. “Goodbye, my very dear Amédée, I embrace you and love you.”
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