SD1191. Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 7.
18 Victoria Square Pimlico
[ca. May 1843]
My dear Domett
Having nearly half a year’s arrears of news to communicate I ought to lose no time in formalities, but I cannot help stopping at the outset to condole with you on what no doubt you will have forgotten months before this reaches you viz the broken leg. How like him we immediately exclaimed. “To think of his stumbling about rivers in that way” cried Maria “and then poor fellow he has no body to nurse him” such things we thought & said in our antipodical world when we heard it. Thank you too very much for those New Zealand papers—we found you out at once as the “Correspondent”—capital vivid sketches they were—completely taking us with you into your wild scramblings & climbings confess was it not in one of those, over some “pig of a stump” that you met with your misfortune, I speak of it mildly, because it will have been of course all over for months, when you get this though I assure you it caused us great concern when we heard it.
Well! really I know not where to begin in the half year’s history there are so many things to tell which you would wish to hear, as one must begin however somewhere, suppose we take Browning: about a month after I wrote he published another number of Bells & Pomegranates called “Dramatic Lyrics”, (but after all I daresay he has sent you a copy of these so you will want no description of them) if you have seen them I am sure I need not do more than ask you if you do not think “Count Gismond” & “Artemis” of a very high order & also “Madhouse Cells”[.] “Waring” delighted us all very much for we recognized in it a fancy portrait of a very dear friend– I feel sure Browning has sent you this book so I will say no more of it– Well, on the 11th of February his play “A Blot on the Scutcheon” 3 acts was brought out at Drury Lane– That was all the public knew about the fact, but those who knew Browning were also aware of a little history of bad feeling—intrigue & petty resentment which I fancy making all allowance for both sides, amounts to just this. Macready had the usual amount of plays on hand & promises to authors unperformed when you and I witnessed the “deep damnation of the bringing forth” of Plighted Troth. That shook him a good deal. He might possibly remembering “Strafford” have looked doubtfully at Brownings chance of writing a play that would take and he brought out two new plays, one of which (the Patrician’s daughter by John W. Marston) had a decent success, while still nothing was heard of Browning’s play; meanwhile judicious friends, as judicious friends will had a habit of asking Browning when the play was coming out—you can fancy how sensitively Browning would chafe at this—at length the paramount object with him became to have the play played, no matter how, so that it was at once—with these feelings he forced Macready to name an early day for playing it—the day was named, Macready was to take the part of Austin Tresham which was made for him and every thing was going on swimmingly, when lo a week or so before the day of representation Macready declines altogether his part unless the play can be postponed till after Easter. Browning naturally in “a sultry chafe” at this declines postponement with haughty coolness indicates that If Mr. Phelps will take the part he shall be perfectly satisfied & under this new arrangement Mr Phelps having zealously laboured at his part comes the last rehearsal day. Macready then again appears, hints that he has studied the character, will act the first night, upon this our Robert does not fall prone at his feet & worship him for his condescending goodness—not that at all does our Robert do—but quite other than that—with Laconic brevity he positively declines taking the part from Phelps—dispenses with Macready’s aid &c & all this in face of a whole green room you imagine the fury & whirlwind of our Managerial wrath—silent fury; a compressed whirlwind, volcano fires burning white in our pent heart– We say nothing of course, but we do our spiteful uttermost– We give no orders– We provide paltry machinery– We issue mandates to all our dependent pen-wielders—to all tribes of men who rejoice in suppers & distinguished society—under penalty of our managerial frown they are to be up & doing in their dirty work. The results of their admirable labours I have enclosed for your inspection & now may proceed to give you an exacter notion of the real reception the piece met with. The first night was magnificent (I assume that Browning has sent you the play)—poor Phelps did his utmost—Helen Faucit very fairly & there could be no mistake at all about the honest enthusiasm of the audience– The gallery (& this of course was very gratifying because not to be expected at a play of Brownings) took all the points quite as quickly as the pit, & entered into the general feeling & interest of the action far more than the boxes, some of whom took it upon themselves to be shocked at being betrayed into so much interest for a young woman who had behaved so improperly as Mildred. Altogether the first night was a triumph. The second night was evidently presided over by the spirit of the manager, I was one of about 60 or 70 in the pit & we yet seemed crowded when compared to the desolate emptiness of the boxes. The gallery was again full & again among all who were there were the same decided impressions of pity & horror produced– The third night I again took my wife to the boxes—it was evident at a glance that it was to be the last—my own delight & hers too in the play was increased at this third representation & would have gone on increasing to a thirtieth—but the miserable, great, chilly house with its apathy and emptiness, produced on us both the painful sensation which made her exclaim that “she could cry with vexation” at seeing so noble a play so basely marred– Now—there can be no doubt whatever that the absence of Macready’s name from the list of performers of the new play was the means of keeping away numbers from the house. Whether if he had played & they had come the play would have been permanently popular is another question. I don’t myself think it would. With some of the grandest situations and finest passages you can conceive it does undoubtedly want a sustained interest to the end of the third act, in fact the whole of that act on the stage is a falling off from the second act; which I need not tell you is for all purposes of performance the most unpardonable fault. Still it will no doubt—nay it must have done this viz produced a higher opinion than ever of Brownings genius & the great things he is yet to do, in the minds not only of a clique, but of the general world of readers– No one now would shake their heads if you said of “our Robert Browning” This man will go far yet. Soon after his play came my circuit, where I became a performer on provincial boards in a very small scale and since that has come Term & some Family visiting &c. so that I have not seen our Poet since. But I am sure in whatever way he regards it, whether as a failure or a partial success the effect on him will be the same viz to make him still to work, work, work.
Naturally enough in going down the alphabet comes Carlyle—who after long silence has just emitted a book called Past & Present—a wild Isaiah-like denunciation of the self-seeking money-worshipping of the age—more gloomy—more fierce, more fuliginous than any thing he has ever yet written—he makes out his Titlepage—by taking first the chronicle of an old Monk, Jocelyn of St Edmunds Bury, who wrote in Henry 3d & Richard 1st time & then as you may fancy tries to see the doings of that age as they were to be seen by the old monks of St Edmund & makes a running commentary of his own upon the single mindedness & devoutness of that age—that is his Past. The Present he makes wild work indeed with: we are all, as you may conceive, given over to Shams, to Unveracity, to Mammonism and Flunkeyism (a new coinage to me at least & with him a favourite one)—there is no help or hope for us unless we, each man for himself, will cease to be a Flunkey & resolve to be a Hero &c with all the rest as you may fancy in a strain & style more hugely, enormously, chaotic & volcanic than he has ever yet vexed the ears of “Dilletantism” [sic] with—I am sorry for this—I think the book would have done a million times the good it is ever likely to do now—if he had not, as though wantonly & with horselaughter driven away from his pages, all who have ever sworn by Addison & rejoiced in the harmony of Robertson: In fact even to much more tolerant people—the rude Titan horseplay of the style is a positive nuisance—the man has a giant’s strength but he need not be always gambolling with a giants clumsiness—the large limbed rough might of a Jötun is well—but the well-knit compact force of a Greek athlete or even an English boxer is better—does more with less noise—less sprawling & shambling—in fact as his object is to do good he ought to write more directly & plainly—more as he did when he wrote the life of Burns! Nevertheless the “old Norse thinker” does speak out about the present interest & thoughts of men—he tells the “game preserving Aristocracy” that he, though a Conservative would not uphold the Corn Laws if he were the conservative party for 100,000 an hour no not for Potosi & Golconda—nay he speaks out about many things—Colonization he says must be carried on on the grand scale—we must bring our Colonies as close to us by Ships—as practicable of access by Ships, as his Backwoods are to the American—then too we must educate &c. in fact the practical upshot of his book is this– Do away with your Corn Laws at once– Justice has doomed that you will then have twenty years free from starvation in which you may do much—nay all that must be done to save your Empire from Ruin– Altogether it is in a practical way the most satisfactory thing Carlyle has done & will of course furnish material for thought to be wrought up into fresh forms as speeches, leading articles, reviews &c by the “clever men” & the “rising men” of the day—who in Parliament & elsewhere are, to an extent that is quite amusing gaining a reputation for themselves by expounding Carlyleism into the vulgar tongue– By the Bye you remember I used to say of Charles Buller that he was one of the ablest men we had—he has just spoken a speech on Colonization which |exhausts| the subject & of which I think most highly– Roebuck has taken the line of upholding the present Government—I suppose because it is a Government & a strong one—he is just made Queen’s Counsel & people generally talk of his being appointed to some colonial situation or other– Brougham, has I should think caused poor Dowson deeper & more agonizing paroxysms of scorn & contempt than can be at all compatible with his comfortable digestion—he has far outspat all his former venom upon the luckless heads of honble friend after honble friend & outslavered all his former slavering of the illustrious Duke– As to general politics, our grand theme still is Corn Law, the theory of the present state of things with regard to it seems to be this. Peel is as firmly convinced as any Repealer of the badness of his own law but he is too much afraid of “the Country Gentleman” & too ashamed of the indecorum of a hasty change, to listen to any alteration for a year—so that employment is to diminish, population to increase, & hatred to our institutions to accumulate in the “poor labouring & manufacturing mind” for another long year, in order to gratify a Minister’s notions of Parliamentary Etiquette & indulge his miserable Parliamentary fears. By the bye I must not forget in this melange of all news to tell you that Charles Dickens doles out monthly numbers of a “Nickleby” Tale called “Martin Chuzzlewit” to about 50,000 monthly consumers. I persist in spite of all the pertinacity of such resolute admirers as Maria & others that this thing is a falling off—there is less fun than there used to be, less incident & next to no interest, instead of Sam Weller’s good things we have much too often only Charles Dickens’ fine things and though there can be no doubt about the elegant composition & sometimes elevated though too often fantastical & would be profound or would be German tone of the thought contained in his introductory & meditative passages, yet I would give whole volumes of them for one page of inimitable Sam– I also fancy I notice an endeavour to attain originality of character by departing from probability—as in the case of Mark &c—altogether the book seems to me more in the style of McClise than Wilkie, which Dickens ought never to have left. But of course, these will be infallible elements in your library at Nelson so I forbear .. Not True! dont believe it—nor that nonsense about Carlyle. No–
And now to tell you of my own doings. I have left not much room for them because they are very unvaried & therefore very unnaratable[.] But I know you will be glad to hear that I have made some beginnings at law, which though but beginnings have been generally successful[.] Besides some few things in Town, I had divers prisoners to defend & to prosecute on the circuit, in fact have been exactly doing, what Sheridan described as the circuit practice of every young lawyer, viz picking up small fees & impudence—on one occasion I had to get up on the sudden & make an impromptu of half an hour in defence of a fellow– The brief had been given to an acquaintance of mine—a regular criminal lawyer—but he was sent for into the Civil Court just as the case was called on & he supplicated me to assist him, as one or two of those about him had refused & I did not like the poor devil to lose a chance[.] I got up & on cross examination made the prosecutrix & the other two witnesses show that they knew nothing about it & then addressed myself to the jury—& had the pleasure of getting off my man, against whom the charges had been trumped up for money– The men about me congratulated me on my speech. I was pleased at finding that I was not in the least nervous & that I had no want of words[.] Since that I have had two or three things of a similar kind to do & I believe have done them creditably, so that the law prospect begins a little to brighten, though, of course anything like remunerating employment seems nearly as far as ever—but the fact is every man at the bar who has not a strong connexion must wait years some more, some less according to luck before they begin to make an income. Compared to some who started at the same time I have no reason to complain, compared to others I am far distanced. Time however is sure to bring these matters to their level. Meanwhile I am working with might & main & I believe have a patient power of endurance about me which will enable me to go on a long while upon a very minimum of encouragement. Meanwhile I like the profession, the men improve as you go amongst them– Looked at from a distance as a mere muster of fellows in horse hair wigs & black gowns who are sworn to spend their lives in carrying out the petty rules of a crabbed science, & waste their best years in longing expectation of that, which, when it comes is only a gilded slavery, more severe (always excepting the gilding) than any corporeal hard-labour gone through in treadmills– Looked at thus indeed they might well seem to be a body of men with whom a mind “enlarged by reading & reflection” could never have more than a very imperfect sympathy—but once among them & of them the whole scene changes—you find yourself among many young men whose ardour for literature, for poetry, for reflection is just as strong as your own—but who, like yourself, from the pressure of a thousand difft circumstances have been led, lured, or driven into the only calling which seems in modern times to give a man any reasonable chance of rising above other men by the possession of learning or eloquence or a feeling for what is noblest in man. I do not find practically that there is any want of sympathy among the younger barristers for what may be classed generally “as literary pursuits”—in fact provided law is not sacrificed to these, they always procure for their possessor a higher degree of respect. Then again I think there is no man of a dreamy or unpractical nature who will not find his mind itself—all his powers strengthened materially by the study & practice of the law & the feeling of increasing strength whether of body or mind is always in itself pleasant. So that on the whole I have come entirely to the conclusion that for me, being what I am, in “this England of ours” being what it is Law is of all pursuits the one best adapted for me[.] Therefore at Law I work & shall work, I hope effectually. One awkward thing about it is that it takes one so much from home. I am in chambers 4 evenings out of every week & on circuit 12 weeks out of every year—but then to make up for that—there is a 3 months vacation, which no other profession can offer. … the same conclusion follows that Law is the best profession Q.E.D. I have not seen very much lately of any of our mutual friends[.] We dined at Baker’s some month or so back and had a delightful evening– By the bye Baker was kind enough to entrust me with a brief in the Sheriff’s Court—in which I did not unluckily succeed in getting a verdict, though, I did not fail, I hope, with any discredit. Such is my narrative—as I promised you flat enough—in return for it you must send a thoroughly good practical account of all doings in Nelson—specially as to the hardness of the life & of course also as to its pleasantness, in fact a picture of Nelson done to the life with yourself as the most prominent figure in the foreground. I was thinking whether I had any friend at the Antipodes except yourself but alas now that poor W. Young is gone I have no one but you to send the heartfelt greeting of your affte friend
Joseph Arnould
God bless you old fellow. Maria sends her kind love—we talk of you oftener than you imagine.
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 58–78.
Manuscript: British Library.
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