Life and Letters of Robert Browning [19]
He set the judgments of those about him at defiance,
and gratuitously proclaimed himself everything that he was,
and some things that he was not. All this subdued itself as time advanced,
and the coming man in him could throw off the wayward child.
It was all so natural that it might well be forgotten. But it distressed
his mother, the one being in the world whom he entirely loved;
and deserves remembering in the tender sorrow with which he himself
remembered it. He was always ready to say that he had been worth little
in his young days; indeed, his self-depreciation covered the greater part
of his life. This was, perhaps, one reason of the difficulty of inducing him
to dwell upon his past. `I am better now,' he has said more than once,
when its reminiscences have been invoked.
One tender little bond maintained itself between his mother and himself
so long as he lived under the paternal roof; it was his rule
never to go to bed without giving her a good-night kiss.
If he was out so late that he had to admit himself with a latch-key,
he nevertheless went to her in her room. Nor did he submit to this
as a necessary restraint; for, except on the occasions of his going abroad,
it is scarcely on record that he ever willingly spent a night away from home.
It may not stand for much, or it may stand to the credit of his restlessness,
that, when he had been placed with some gentleman in Gower Street,
for the convenience of attending the University lectures,
or for the sake of preparing for them, he broke through the arrangement
at the end of a week; but even an agreeable visit had no power to detain him
beyond a few days.
This home-loving quality was in curious contrast to the natural bohemianism
of youthful genius, and the inclination to wildness which asserted itself
in his boyish days. It became the more striking as he entered upon the age
at which no reasonable amount of freedom can have been denied to him.
Something, perhaps, must be allowed for the pecuniary dependence
which forbade his forming any expensive habits of amusement;
but he also claims the credit of having been unable to accept
any low-life pleasures in place of them. I do not know
how the idea can have arisen that he willingly sought his experience
in the society of `gipsies and tramps'. I remember nothing in his works
which even suggests such association; and it is certain
that a few hours spent at a fair would at all times have exhausted
his capability of enduring it. In the most audacious imaginings
of his later life, in the most undisciplined acts of his early youth,
were always present curious delicacies and reserves.
There was always latent in him the real goodness of heart
which would not allow him to trifle consciously with other lives.
Work must also have been his safeguard when the habit of it had been acquired,
and when imagination, once his master, had learned to serve him.
One tangible cause of his youthful restlessness has been implied
in the foregoing remarks, but deserves stating in his sister's words:
`The fact was, poor boy, he had outgrown his social surroundings.
They were absolutely good, but they were narrow; it could not be otherwise;
he chafed under them.' He was not, however, quite without congenial society
even before the turning-point in his outward existence which was reached
in the publication of `Pauline'; and one long friendly acquaintance,
together with one lasting friendship, had their roots in these
early Camberwell days. The families of Joseph Arnould and Alfred Domett both
lived at Camberwell. These two young men were bred to the legal profession,
and the former, afterwards Sir Joseph Arnould, became a judge in Bombay.
But the father of Alfred Domett had been one of Nelson's captains,
and the roving sailor spirit was apparent in his son;
for he had scarcely been called to the Bar when he started for New Zealand
on the instance of a cousin who had preceded him, but who was drowned
in the course of a day's surveying before he could arrive.
He became