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diff --git a/30671-8.txt b/30671-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db75c3b --- /dev/null +++ b/30671-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11700 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Brownings, by Lilian Whiting + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Brownings + Their Life and Art + + +Author: Lilian Whiting + + + +Release Date: December 14, 2009 [eBook #30671] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROWNINGS*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Stephanie Eason, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from +digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 30671-h.htm or 30671-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30671/30671-h/30671-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30671/30671-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/browningstheirli00whituoft + + + + + +THE BROWNINGS + +Their Life and Art + + +[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING + +_From a drawing made by Field Talfourd, in Rome, 1855_] + + +THE BROWNINGS + +Their Life and Art + +by + +LILIAN WHITING + +Author of "The World Beautiful," "Italy +the Magic Land," "The Spiritual +Significance," Etc. + +Illustrated + + + + + + + +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company +1911 + +Copyright, 1911, +by Little, Brown, and Company. + +All rights reserved + +Published, October, 1911 + +Printers +S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A. + + + + INSCRIBED TO + ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING + (CAVALIERE DELLA CORONA D'ITALIA) + PAINTER, SCULPTOR, CONNOISSEUR IN ART + WITH ENCHANTING REMEMBRANCES OF HOURS IN "LA TORRE + ALL' ANTELLA" AND THE FAITHFUL REGARDS OF + + LILIAN WHITING + FLORENCE, ITALY, + June, 1911 + + + + +FOREWORD + + +The present volume was initiated in Florence, and, from its first +inception, invested with the cordial assent and the sympathetic +encouragement of Robert Barrett Browning. One never-to-be-forgotten day, +all ethereal light and loveliness, has left its picture in memory, when, +in company with Mr. Browning and his life-long friend, the Marchesa +Peruzzi di' Medici (_náta_ Story), the writer of this biography strolled +with them under the host's orange trees and among the riotous roses of his +Florentine villa, "La Torre All' Antella," listening to their sparkling +conversation, replete with fascinating reminiscences. To Mr. Browning the +tribute of thanks, whose full scope is known to the Recording Angel alone, +is here offered; and there is the blending of both privilege and duty in +grateful acknowledgements to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Company for their +courtesy in permitting the somewhat liberal drawing on their published +Letters of both the Brownings, on which reliance had to be based in any +effort to + + "Call up the buried Past again," + +and construct the story, from season to season, so far as might be, of +that wonderful interlude of the wedded life of the poets. + +Yet any formality of thanks to this house is almost lost sight of in the +rush of memories of that long and mutually-trusting friendship between the +late George Murray Smith, the former head of this firm, and Robert +Browning, a friendship which was one of the choicest treasures in both +their lives. + +To The Macmillan Company, the publishers for both the first and the +present Lord Tennyson; To Houghton Mifflin Company; to Messrs. Dodd, Mead, +& Company; to The Cornhill Magazine (to which the writer is indebted for +some data regarding Browning and Professor Masson); to each and all, +acknowledgments are offered for their courtesy which has invested with +added charm a work than which none was ever more completely a labor of +love. + +To Edith, Contessa Rucellai (_náta_ Bronson), whose characteristically +lovely kindness placed at the disposal of this volume a number of letters +written by Robert Browning to her mother, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, special +gratitude is offered. + +"Poetry," said Mrs. Browning, "is its own exceeding great reward." Any +effort, however remote its results from the ideal that haunted the writer, +to interpret the lives of such transcendent genius and nobleness as those +of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, must also be its own exceeding +reward in leading to a passion of pursuit of all that is highest and +holiest in the life that now is, and in that which is to come. + + LILIAN WHITING + + THE BRUNSWICK, BOSTON + Midsummer Days, 1911 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +CHAPTER I + +1812-1833 + +The Most Exquisite Romance of Modern Life--Ancestry and Youth of + Robert Browning--Love of Music--Formative Influences--The + Fascination of Byron--A Home "Crammed with Books"--The Spell + of Shelley--"Incondita"--Poetic Vocation Definitely + Chosen--"Pauline" 1 + + +CHAPTER II + +1806-1832 + +Childhood and Early Youth of Elizabeth Barrett--Hope End--"Summer + Snow of Apple-Blossoms"--Her Bower of White Roses--"Living + with Visions"--The Malvern Hills--Hugh Stuart Boyd--Love of + Learning--"Juvenilia"--Impassioned Devotion to Poetry 16 + + +CHAPTER III + +1833-1841 + +Browning Visits Russia--"Paracelsus"--Recognition of Wordsworth + and Landor--"Strafford"--First Visit to Italy--Mrs. Carlyle's + Baffled Reading of "Sordello"--Lofty Motif of the Poem--The + Universal Problem of Life--Enthusiasm for Italy--The + Sibylline Leaves Yet to Unfold 26 + + +CHAPTER IV + +1833-1841 + +Elizabeth Barrett's Love for the Greek Poets--Lyrical Work-- + Serious Entrance on Professional Literature--Noble Ideal + of Poetry--London Life--Kenyon--First Knowledge of Robert + Browning 44 + + +CHAPTER V + +1841-1846 + +"Bells and Pomegranates"--Arnould and Domett--"A Blot in the + 'Scutcheon"--Macready--Second Visit to Italy--Miss Barrett's + Poetic Work--"Colombe's Birthday"--"Lady Geraldine's + Courtship"--"Romances and Lyrics"--Browning's First Letter + to Miss Barrett--The Poets Meet--Letters of Robert Browning + and Elizabeth Barrett--"Loves of the Poets"--Vita Nuova 67 + + +CHAPTER VI + +1846-1850 + +Marriage and Italy--"In That New World"--The Haunts of + Petrarca--The Magic Land--In Pisa--Vallombrosa--"Un Bel + Giro"--Guercino's Angel--Casa Guidi--Birth of Robert Barrett + Browning--Bagni di Lucca--"Sonnets from the Portuguese"--The + Enchantment of Italy 92 + + +CHAPTER VII + +1850-1855 + +"Casa Guidi Windows"--Society in Florence--Marchesa d'Ossoli-- + Browning's Poetic Creed--Villeggiatura in Siena--Venice-- + Brilliant Life in London--Paris and Milsand--Browning on + Shelley--In Florence--Idyllic Days in Bagni di Lucca--Mrs. + Browning's Spiritual Outlook--Delightful Winter in Rome--A + Poetic Pilgrimage--Harriet Hosmer--Characteristics of Mrs. + Browning 115 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +1855-1861 + +London Life--An Interlude in Paris--"Aurora Leigh"--Florentine + Days--"Men and Women"--The Hawthornes--"The Old Yellow + Book"--A Summer in Normandy--The Eternal City--The Storys and + Other Friends--Lilies of Florence--"It Is Beautiful!" 163 + + +CHAPTER IX + +1861-1869 + +The Completed Cycle--Letters to Friends--Browning's Devotion to + His Son--Warwick Crescent--"Dramatis Personæ"--London Life-- + Death of the Poet's Father--Sarianna Browning--Oxford Honors + the Poet--Death of Arabel Barrett--Audierne--"The Ring and + the Book" 199 + + +CHAPTER X + +1869-1880 + +In Scotland with the Storys--Browning's Conversation--An Amusing + Incident--With Milsand at St. Aubin's--"The Red Cotton + Night-cap Country"--Robert Barrett Browning's Gift for Art-- + Alfred Domett ("Waring")--"Balaustion's Adventure"--Browning + and Tennyson--"Pacchiarotto"--Visits Jowett at Oxford-- + Declines Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews--"La Saisiaz"--Italy + Revisited--The Dream of Asolo--"Ivanovitch"--Pride in His + Son's Success--"Dramatic Idylls" 221 + + +CHAPTER XI + +1880-1888 + +"Les Charmettes"--Venetian Days--Dr. Hiram Corson--The Browning + Society--Oxford Honors Browning--Katherine DeKay Bronson-- + Honors from Edinburgh--Visit to Professor Masson--Italian + Recognition--Nancioni--The Goldoni Sonnet--At St. Moritz-- + In Palazzo Giustiniani--"Ferishtah's Fancies"--Companionship + with His Son--Death of Milsand--Letters to Mrs. Bronson-- + DeVere Gardens--Palazzo Rezzonico--Sunsets from the Lido-- + Robert Barrett Browning's Gift in Portraiture 238 + + +CHAPTER XII + +1888-1889 + +"Asolando"--Last Days in DeVere Gardens--Letters of Browning and + Tennyson--Venetian Lingerings and Friends--Mrs. Bronson's + Choice Circle--Browning's Letters to Mrs. Bronson--Asolo-- + "In Ruby, Emerald, Chrysopras"--Last Meeting of Browning and + Story--In Palazzo Rezzonico--Last Meeting with Dr. Corson-- + Honored by Westminster Abbey--A Cross of Violets--Choral + Music to Mrs. Browning's Poem, "The Sleep"--"And with God Be + the Rest!" 269 + + +Index 297 + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +_In Photogravure_ + + PAGE + + Robert Browning _Frontispiece_ + From a drawing by Field Talfourd, Rome, 1855 + + Elizabeth Barrett Browning 39 + From a drawing by Field Talfourd, Rome, 1855 + +_Engravings_ + + Busts of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 2 + + Monument to Michael Angelo, by Vasari 80 + Church of Santa Croce, Florence + + Old Monastery at Vallombrosa 98 + + The Guardian Angel, Guercino 103 + Church of San Agostino, Fano + + Monument to Dante, by Stefano Ricci 108 + Piazza di Santa Croce, Florence + + Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 113 + + Statue of Savonarola, by E. Pazzi 116 + Sala dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence + + Fresco of Dante, by Giotto 121 + The Bargello, Florence + + Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (known as + the Duomo) 126 + + The Ponte Vecchio and the Arno, Florence 142 + + Casa Guidi 146 + + The Clasped Hands of the Brownings 153 + Cast in bronze from the model taken by Harriet Hosmer in + Rome, 1853 + + The Campagna and Ruins of the Claudian Aqueducts, Rome 156 + + The Coronation of the Virgin, by Filippo Lippi 166 + Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence + + Andrea del Sarto. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife 170 + Pitti Gallery, Florence + + Equestrian Statue of Ferdinando de' Medici, by Giovanni + da Bologna 174 + Piazza dell' Annunziata, Florence + + Villa Petraja, near Florence 178 + + Church of San Miniato, near Florence 182 + + The Palazzo Barberini, Via Quattro Fontane, Rome 188 + + The English Cemetery, Florence 197 + + Tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 200 + + Kate Field 208 + From the portrait by Elihu Vedder, Florence, 1860 + + The Pallazzo Riccardi, Florence 214 + + Bust of Robert Browning, by his Son 226 + + Portrait of Robert Browning in 1882, by his Son 242 + + Church of San Lorenzo, Florence 246 + + Portrait of Robert Barrett Browning, as a Child, 1859 263 + + Portrait of Robert Browning, by George Frederick Watts, R.A. 270 + + Mrs. Arthur Bronson, by Ellen Montalba, in Asolo 274 + + Miss Edith Bronson, (Comtessa Rucellai) 280 + + Portrait of Professor Hiram Corson, by J. Colin Forbes, R.A. 290 + + Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice 294 + + Engraved Facsimile of a letter from Robert Browning to + Professor Hiram Corson 260 + + + + + THE BROWNINGS + THEIR LIFE AND ART + + + +CHAPTER I + +1812-1833 + + "Allons! after the Great Companions! and to belong to them!" + + "To know the universe itself as a road--as many roads--as + roads for travelling souls." + + +THE MOST EXQUISITE ROMANCE OF MODERN LIFE--ANCESTRY AND YOUTH OF ROBERT + BROWNING--LOVE OF MUSIC--FORMATIVE INFLUENCES--THE FASCINATION OF + BYRON--A HOME "CRAMMED WITH BOOKS"--THE SPELL OF SHELLEY-- + "INCONDITA"--POETIC VOCATION DEFINITELY CHOSEN--"PAULINE." + + +Such a very page _de Contes_ is the life of the wedded poets, Robert and +Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that it is difficult to realize that this +immortal idyl of Poetry, Genius, and Love was less than fifteen years in +duration, out of his seventy-seven, and her fifty-five years of life. It +is a story that has touched the entire world + + "... with mystic gleams, + Like fragments of forgotten dreams," + +this story of beautiful associations and friendships, of artistic +creation, and of the entrance on a wonderful realm of inspiration and +loveliness. At the time of their marriage he was in his thirty-fifth, and +she in her forty-first year, although she is described as looking so +youthful that she was like a girl, in her slender, flower-like grace; and +he lived on for twenty-eight years after + + "Clouds and darkness + Fell upon Camelot," + +with the death of his "Lyric Love." The story of the most beautiful +romance that the world has ever known thus falls into three distinctive +periods,--that of the separate life of each up to the time of their +marriage; their married life, with its scenic setting in the enchantment +of Italy; and his life after her withdrawal from earthly scenes. The story +is also of duplex texture; for the outer life, rich in associations, +travel, impressions, is but the visible side of the life of great creative +art. A delightful journey is made, but its record is not limited to the +enjoyment of friends and place; a poem is written whose charm and power +persist through all the years. + + +[Illustration: BUSTS OF ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +Made in 1861 by William Wetmore Story] + + +No adequate word could be written of the Brownings that did not take +account of this twofold life of the poets. It is almost unprecedented that +the power and resplendence and beauty of the life of art should find, in +the temporal environment, so eminent a correspondence of beauty as it did +with Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Not that they were in any wise exempt +from sorrow and pain; the poet, least of all, would choose to be +translated, even if he might, to some enchanted region remote from all the +mingled experiences of humanity; it is the common lot of destiny, with its +prismatic blending of failure and success, of purpose and achievement, of +hope and defeat, of love and sorrow, out of which the poet draws his song. +He would not choose + + "That jar of violet wine set in the air, + That palest rose sweet in the night of life," + +to the exclusion of the common experiences of the day. + + "Who never ate his bread in sorrow, + Who never spent the darksome hours + Weeping, and watching for the morrow, + He knows you not, ye unseen Powers." + +But to those who, poets or otherwise, see life somewhat in the true +proportion of its lasting relations, events are largely transmuted into +experiences, and are realized in their extended relations. The destiny of +the Brownings led them into constantly picturesque surroundings; and the +force and manliness of his nature, the tender sweetness and playful +loveliness of hers, combined with their vast intellectual range, their +mutual genius for friendships, their devotion to each other and to their +son, their reverence for their art, and their lofty and noble spirituality +of nature,--all united to produce this exquisite and unrivaled romance of +life,-- + + "A Beauty passing the earth's store." + +The rapture of the poet's dream pervaded every experience. + + "O Life, O Poetry, + Which means life in life." + +The transmutation of each into the other, both Life and Poetry, as +revealed in their lives, is something as exceptional as it is beautiful in +the world's history. + +It is only to those who live for something higher than merely personal +ends, that the highest happiness can come; and the aim of these wedded +poets may well be read in the lines from "Aurora Leigh": + + "... Beloved, let us love so well, + Our work shall still be better for our love, + And still our love be sweeter for our work, + And both commended, for the sake of each, + By all true workers and true lovers born." + + +In the ancestry of Robert Browning there was nothing especially +distinctive, although it is representative of the best order of people; of +eminently reputable life, of moderate means, of culture, and of assured +intelligence. It is to the Brownings of Dorsetshire, who were large +manor-owners in the time of Henry VII, that the poet's family is traced. +Robert Browning, the grandfather of the poet, was a clerk in the Bank of +England, a position he obtained through the influence of the Earl of +Shaftesbury. Entering on this work at the age of twenty, he served +honorably for fifty years, and was promoted to the position of the Bank +Stock office, a highly responsible place, that brought him in constant +contact with the leading financiers of the day. Born in 1749, he had +married, in 1778, Margaret Tittle, the inheritor of some property in the +West Indies, where she was born of English parentage. The second Robert, +the father of the poet, was the son of this union. In his early youth he +was sent out to take charge of his mother's property, and his grandson, +Robert Barrett Browning, relates with pardonable pride how he resigned the +post, which was a lucrative one, because he could not tolerate the system +of slave labor prevailing there. By this act he forfeited all the estate +designed for him, and returned to England to face privation and to make +his own way. He, too, became a clerk in the Bank of England, and in 1811, +at the age of thirty, married Sarah Anna Wiedemann, the daughter of a +ship-owner in Dundee. Mr. Wiedemann was a German of Hamburg, who had +married a Scotch lady; and thus, on his maternal side, the poet had +mingled Scotch and German ancestry. The new household established itself +in Southampton Street, Camberwell, and there were born their two children, +Robert, on May 7, 1812, and on January 7, 1814, Sarah Anna, who came to be +known as Sarianna through all her later life. + +The poet's father was not only an efficient financier, but he was also a +man of scholarly culture and literary tastes. He was a lover of the +classics, and was said to have known by heart the first book of the Iliad, +and the Odes of Horace. There is a legend that he often soothed his little +son to sleep by humming to him an ode of Anacreon. He wrote verse, he was +a very clever draughtsman, and he was a collector of rare books and +prints. Mr. W. J. Stillman, in his "Autobiography of a Journalist," refers +to the elder Browning, whom he knew in his later years, as "a serene, +untroubled soul,... as gentle as a gentle woman, a man to whom, it seemed +to me, no moral conflict could ever have arisen to cloud his frank +acceptance of life as he found it come to him.... His unworldliness had +not a flaw." In Browning's poem entitled "Development" (in "Asolando") he +gives this picture of his father and of his own childhood: + + "My Father was a scholar and knew Greek. + When I was five years old, I asked him once + 'What do you read about?' + 'The siege of Troy.' + 'What is a siege, and what is Troy?' + Whereat + He piled up chairs and tables for a town, + Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat + --Helen, enticed away from home (he said) + By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close + Under the footstool.... + + * * * * * + + This taught me who was who and what was what; + So far I rightly understood the case + At five years old; a huge delight it proved + And still proves--thanks to that instructor sage + My Father...." + + +The poet's mother was a true gentlewoman, characterized by fervent +religious feeling, delicacy of perception, and a great love for music. She +was reared in the Scottish kirk, and her husband in the Church of +England, but they both connected themselves after their marriage with an +"Independent" body that held their meetings in York Street, where the +Robert Browning Hall now stands. They were, however, greatly attached to +the Rev. Henry Melvill (later Canon at St. Paul's), whose evening service +they habitually attended. While the poet's mother had little training in +music, she was a natural musician, and was blessed with that keen, +tremulous susceptibility to musical influence that was so marked a trait +in her son. William Sharp pictures a late afternoon, when, playing softly +to herself in the twilight, she was startled to hear a sound in the room. +"Glancing around, she beheld a little white figure distinctly outlined +against an oak bookcase, and could just discern two large wistful eyes +looking earnestly at her. The next moment the child had sprung into her +arms, sobbing passionately at he knew not what, but, as his paroxysm of +emotion subsided, whispering over and over,'Play! Play!'" + +The elder Browning was an impassioned lover of medieval legend and story. +He was deeply familiar with Paracelsus, with Faust, and with many of the +Talmudic tales. His library was large and richly stored,--the house, +indeed, "crammed with books," in which the boy browsed about at his own +will. It was the best of all possible educations, this atmosphere of +books. And the wealth of old engravings and prints fascinated the child. +He would sit among these before a glowing fire, while from the adjoining +room floated strains "of a wild Gaelic lament, with its insistent falling +cadences." It is recorded as his mother's chief happiness,--"her hour of +darkness and solitude and music." Of such fabric are poetic impressions +woven. The atmosphere was what Emerson called the "immortal ichor." The +boy was companioned by the "liberating gods." Something mystic and +beautiful beckoned to him, and incantations, unheard by the outer sense, +thronged about him, pervading the air. The lad began to recast in English +verse the Odes of Horace. From his school, on holiday afternoons, he +sought a lonely spot, elm-shaded, where he could dimly discern London in +the distance, with the gleam of sunshine on the golden cross of St. +Paul's,--lying for hours on the grass whence, perchance, he + + "Saw distant gates of Eden gleam + And did not dream it was a dream." + +Meantime the boy read Junius, Voltaire, Walpole's Letters, the "Emblems" +of Quarles (a book that remained as a haunting influence all his life), +and Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees." The first book of his own purchase +was a copy of Ossian's poems, and his initial effort in literary creation +was in likeness of the picturesque imaginations that appealed with +peculiar fascination to his mind. + +"The world of books is still the world," wrote Mrs. Browning in "Aurora +Leigh," and this was the world of Robert Browning's early life. The +genesis of many of his greatest poems can be traced directly to this +atmosphere of books, and their constant use and reference in his +childhood. Literature and life, are, indeed, so absolutely interpenetrated +and so interdependent that they can almost invariably be contemplated as +cause and effect, each reacting upon the other in determining sequences. +By the magic of some spiritual alchemy, reading is transmuted into the +qualities that build up character, and these qualities, in turn, determine +the continued choice of books, so that selection and result perpetuate +themselves, forming an unceasing contribution to the nature of life. If +with these qualities is united the kindling imagination, the gift that +makes its possessor the creative artist, the environment of books and +perpetual reference to them act as a torch that ignites the divine fire. +Browning's early stimulus owes much, not only to the book-loving father, +but to his father's brother, his uncle Reuben Browning, who was a +classical scholar and who took great interest in the boy. Preserved to the +end of the poet's life was a copy of the Odes of Horace, in translation, +given to him as a lad of twelve, with his uncle's autograph inscription on +the fly-leaf. This was the translation made by Christopher Smart, whose +"Song of David" soon became one of the boy's favorites, and it is curious +to trace how, more than sixty years later, Browning embodied Smart in his +"Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day," as one with +whom + + "... truth found vent + In words for once with you...." + + +Browning, with the poet's instant insight, read the essential story of his +boyhood into the lines: + + "... Dreaming, blindfold led + By visionary hand, did soul's advance + Precede my body's, gain inheritance + Of fact by fancy...?" + + +No transcription of the poet's childhood could even suggest the fortunate +influences surrounding him that did not emphasize the rare culture and +original power of his father. The elder Browning was familiar with old +French and with both Spanish and Italian literature. "His wonderful store +of information might really be compared to an inexhaustible mine," said +one who knew him well. + +It is easy to see how out of such an atmosphere the future poet drew +unconsciously the power to weave his "magic web" of such poems as the +"Parleyings," "Abt Vogler," "Ferishtah's Fancies," and was lured on into +that realm of marvelous creation out of which sprang his transcendent +masterpiece, "The Ring and the Book." + +The elder Browning's impassioned love of books was instanced by the +curious fact that he could go in the dark to his library, and out of many +hundreds of volumes select some particular one to which conversational +reference had incidentally been made regarding some point which he wished +to verify. He haunted all the old book-stalls in London, and knew their +contents better than did their owners. + +Books are so intimately associated with the very springs of both character +and achievement that no adequate idea of the formative influences of the +life and poetry of Robert Browning could be gained without familiarity +with this most determining and conspicuous influence of his boyhood. The +book with which a man has lived becomes an essential factor in his growth. +"None of us yet know," said Ruskin, "for none of us have yet been taught +in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought, +proof against all adversity, bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble +histories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful +thoughts,... houses built without hands for our souls to live in." These +houses for the soul, built in thought, will be transposed into outer form +and semblance. + +There is a nebulous but none the less pernicious tradition that great +literature is formidable, and presents itself as a task rather than as a +privilege to the reader. Devotion to the best books has been regarded as +something of a test of mental endurance, for which the recompense, if not +the antidote, must be sought in periods of indulgence in the frivolous and +the sensational. Never was there a more fatal misconception. It is the +inconsequential, the crude, the obtuse, that are dull in literature, as in +life; and stupidity in various languages might well be entitled to rank +among the Seven Deadly Sins of Dante. Even in the greatest literature +there is much that the child may easily learn to appreciate and to love. + + "Great the Master + And sweet the Magic" + +that opens the golden door of literary stimulus. Books are to the mind as +is food to the body. Emerson declares that the poet is the only teller of +news, and Mrs. Browning pronounced poets as + + "The only truth-tellers now left to God." + +Familiarity with noble thought and beautiful expression influences the +subconscious nature to an incalculable degree, and leads "the spirit +finely touched" on "to all fine issues." + +Browning lived in this stimulating atmosphere. He warmed his hands at the +divine fire; and the fact that all this richness of resource stimulated +rather than stifled him is greatly to the credit of his real power. +Favorable surroundings and circumstances did not serve him as a cushion on +which to go to sleep, but rather as the pedestal on which he might climb +to loftier altitudes. It was no lotus-eating experience into which the lad +was lulled, but the vital activity of the life of creative thought. The +Heavenly Powers are not invariably, even if frequently, sought in sorrow +only, and in the mournful midnight hours. There are natures that grow by +affluence as well as by privation, and that develop their best powers in +sunshine. + +"Even in a palace life can be well lived," said Marcus Aurelius. The +spirit formed to dwell in the starry spaces is not allured to the mere +enjoyment of the senses, even when material comfort and intellectual +luxuries may abound. Not that the modest abundance of the elder Browning's +books and pictures could take rank as intellectual luxury. It was +stimulus, not satiety, that these suggested. + +Pictures and painters had their part, too, in the unconscious culture that +surrounded the future poet. London in that day afforded little of what +would be called art; the National Gallery was not opened until Browning +was in his young manhood; the Tate and other modern galleries were then +undreamed of. But, to the appropriating temperament, one picture may do +more than a city full of galleries might for another, and to the small +collection of some three or four hundred paintings in the Dulwich Gallery, +Browning was indebted for great enjoyment, and for the art that fostered +his sympathetic appreciation. In after years he referred to his gratitude +for being allowed its privileges when under the age (fourteen) at which +these were supposed to be granted. Small as was the collection, it was +representative of the Italian and Spanish, the French and the Dutch +schools, as well as of the English, and the boy would fix on some one +picture and sit before it for an hour, lost in its suggestion. It was the +more imaginative art that enchained him. In later years, speaking of these +experiences in a letter to Miss Barrett, he wrote of his ecstatic +contemplation of "those two Guidos, the wonderful Rembrandt's 'Jacob's +Vision,' such a Watteau...." An old engraving from Correggio, in his +father's home, was one of the sources of inspiration of Browning's +boyhood. The story fascinated him; he never tired of asking his father to +repeat it, and something of its truth so penetrated into his consciousness +that in later years he had the old print hung in his room that it might be +before him as he wrote. It became to him, perhaps, one of + + "the unshaped images that lie + Within my mind's cave." + +The profound significance of the picture evidently haunted him, as is made +evident by a passage in "Pauline" that opens: + + "But I must never grieve whom wing can waft + Far from such thoughts--as now. Andromeda! + And she is with me; years roll, I shall change, + But change can touch her not--so beautiful + With her fixed eyes...." + +Is there gained another glimpse of Browning's boyhood in those lines in +"Pauline"?: + + "I am made up of an intensest life, + Of a most clear idea of consciousness + Of self, distinct from all its qualities, + From all affections, passions, feelings, powers." + + +The various and complex impressions, influences, and shaping factors of +destiny that any biographer discerns in the formative years of his subject +are as indecipherable as a palimpsest, and as little to be classified as +the contents of Pandora's box; nor is it on record that the man himself +can look into his own history and rightly appraise the relative values of +these. Nothing, certainly, could be more remote from the truth than the +reading of autobiographic significance into any stray line a poet may +write; for imagination is frequently more real than reality. Yet many of +the creations of after life may trace their germination to some incident +or impression. William Sharp offers a beautiful and interesting instance +of one of these when he ascribes the entrancing fantasy of "The Flight of +the Duchess" to a suggestion made on the poet's mind as a child on a Guy +Fawkes day, when he followed across the fields a woman singing a strange +song, whose refrain was: "Following the Queen of the Gypsies, O!" The +haunting line took root in his memory and found its inflorescence in that +memorable poem. + +It was not conducive to poetic fancy when the lad was placed in the school +of a Mr. Ready, at Peckham, where he solaced himself for the rules and +regulations which he abhorred by writing little plays, and persuading his +school-fellows to act in them with him. + +Browning's first excursion into Shelley's poems, brought home to him one +night as a gift from his mother, was in one of the enchanting evenings of +May; where, at the open window by which he sat, there floated in the +melody of two nightingales, one in a laburnum, "heavy with its weight of +gold," and the other in a copper-beech, at the opposite side of the +garden. Such an hour mirrors itself unconsciously in a poet's memory, and +affords, in future years, "such stuff as dreams are made of." + +Byron, who, as Mazzini says, "led the genius of Britain on a pilgrimage +throughout all Europe," stamped an impress upon the youthful Browning that +may be traced throughout his entire life. There was something in the +genius of Byron that acted as an enormous force on the nature in response +to it, that transformed nebulous and floating ideals and imaginings into +hope and resolution, that burned away barriers and revealed truth. By its +very nature influence is determined as much by the receiver as by the +inspirer, and if a light is applied to a torch, the torch, too, must be +prepared to ignite, or there will be no blaze. + + "A deft musician does the breeze become + Whenever an Æolian harp it finds; + Hornpipe and hurdygurdy both are dumb + Unto the most musicianly of winds." + + +The fire of Byron, the spirituality of Shelley, illuminated that world of +drift and dream in which Robert Browning dwelt; and while Shelley, with +his finer spirit, his glorious, impassioned imagination, + + "A creature of impetuous breath," + +incited poetic ardors and unmeasured rapture of vision, Byron penetrated +his soul with a certain effective energy that awakened in him creative +power. The spell of Shelley's poetry acted upon Browning as a vision +revealed of beauty and radiance. For Shelley himself, who, as Tennyson +said, "did yet give the world another heart and new pulses," Browning's +feeling was even more intense. + +In the analysis of Shelley's poetic nature Browning offers the critical +reader a key to his own. He asserts that it is the presence of the highest +faculty, even though less developed, that gives rank to nature, rather +than a lower faculty more developed. Although it was in later years that +the impression Shelley made upon his boyhood found adequate expression in +his noted essay, the spell reflected itself in "Pauline," and is to be +distinctly traced in many of his poems throughout his entire life. He was +aware from the first of that peculiarly kindling quality in Shelley, the +flash of life in his work: + + "He spurreth men, he quickeneth + To splendid strife." + + +Under the title of "Incondita" was collected a group of the juvenile +verses of Robert Browning, whose special claim to interest is in the +revelation of the impress made upon the youth by Byron and Shelley. + +Among the early friends of the youthful poet were Alfred Domett (the +"Waring" of his future poem), and Joseph Arnould, who became a celebrated +judge in India. + +With Browning there was never any question about his definite vocation as +a poet. "Pauline" was published in 1833, before he had reached his +twenty-first birthday. Rejected by publishers, it was brought out at the +expense of his aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne; and his father paid for the +publication of "Paracelsus," "Sordello," and for the first eight parts of +"Bells and Pomegranates." On the appearance of "Pauline," it was reviewed +by Rev. William Johnson Fox, as the "work of a poet and a genius." Allan +Cunningham and other reviewers gave encouraging expressions. The design +of "Pauline" is that spiritual drama to which Browning was always +temperamentally drawn. It is supposed to be the confessions and +reminiscences of a dying man, and while it is easy to discern its +crudeness and inconsistencies, there are in it, too, many detached +passages of absolute and permanent value. As this: + + "Sun-treader, life and light be thine for ever! + Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring + Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful, + Yet thy songs come not...." + + +Mr. Browning certainly gave hostages to poetic art when he produced +"Pauline," in which may be traced the same conceptions of life as those +more fully and clearly presented in "Paracelsus" and "Sordello." It +embodies the conviction which is the very essence and vital center of all +Browning's work--that ultimate success is attained through partial +failures. From first to last Browning regards life as an adventure of the +soul, which sinks, falls, rises, recovers itself, relapses into +faithlessness to its higher powers, yet sees the wrong and aims to +retrieve it; gropes through darkness to light; and though "tried, +troubled, tempted," never yields to alien forces and ignominious failure. +The soul, being divine, must achieve divinity at last. That is the +crystallization of the message of Browning. + +The poem "Pauline," lightly as Mr. Browning himself seemed in after life +to regard it, becomes of tremendous importance in the right approach to +the comprehension of his future work. It reveals to us in what manner the +youthful poet discerned "the Gleam." Like Tennyson, he felt "the magic of +Merlin,"--of that spirit of the poetic ideal that bade him follow. + + "The Master whisper'd + 'Follow The Gleam.'" + +And what unguessed sweetness and beauty of life and love awaited the poet +in the unfolding years! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +1806-1832 + + "Here's the garden she walked across. + + * * * * * + + Roses ranged in a valiant row, + I will never think she passed you by!" + + +CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH OF ELIZABETH BARRETT--HOPE END--"SUMMER SNOW OF + APPLE-BLOSSOMS"--HER BOWER OF WHITE ROSES--"LIVING WITH VISIONS"--THE + MALVERN HILLS--HUGH STUART BOYD--LOVE OF LEARNING--"JUVENILIA"-- + IMPASSIONED DEVOTION TO POETRY. + + +The literature of childhood presents nothing more beautiful than the +records of the early years of Elizabeth Barrett. Fragmentary though they +be, yet, gathered here and there, they fall into a certain consecutive +unity, from which one may construct a mosaic-like picture of the daily +life of the little girl who was born on March 6, 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, +Durham, whence the family soon removed to Hope End, a home of stately +beauty and modest luxury. There were brothers to the number of eight; and +two sisters, Henrietta and Arabel, all younger than herself. Edward, the +eldest son, especially cared for Elizabeth, holding her in tender and +almost reverential love, and divining, almost from his infancy, her +exquisite gifts. Apparently, the eldest sister was also greatly beloved by +the whole troop of the younger brothers,--Charles, Samuel, George, Henry, +Alfred, and the two younger, who were named Septimus and Octavius. + +With three daughters and eight sons, the household did not lack in +merriment and overflowing life; and while the little Elizabeth was born +to love books and dreams, and assimilated learning as naturally as she +played with her dolls, she was no prodigy, set apart because of fantastic +qualities, but an eager, earnest little maid, who, although she read Homer +at eight years of age, yet read him with her doll clasped closely in one +hand, and who wrote her childish rhymes as unconsciously as a bird sings. +It is a curious coincidence that this love of the Greeks, as to history, +literature, and mythology, characterized the earliest childhood of both +Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Pope's Homer was the childish +favorite of each. "The Greeks were my demigods," she herself said, in +later life, of her early years, "and haunted me out of Pope's Homer, until +I dreamt more of Agamemnon than of Moses the black pony." + +The house at Hope End has been described by Lady Carmichael as "a +luxurious home standing in a lovely park, among trees and sloping hills," +and the earliest account that has been preserved of the little girl +reveals her sitting on a hassock, propped against the wall, in a lofty +room called "Elizabeth's chamber," with a stained glass oriel window +through which golden gleams of light fell, lingering on the long curls +that drooped over her face as she sat absorbed in a book. She was also an +eager worker in her garden, the children all being given a plot to +cultivate for themselves, and Elizabeth won special fame for her bower of +white roses. + +There are few data about the parents of Elizabeth Barrett, and the legal +name, Moulton-Barrett, by which she signed her marriage register and by +which her father is commonly known, has been a source of some confused +statements. Her father, Edward Barrett Moulton, came into an inheritance +of property by which he was required to add the name of Barrett again, +hyphenating it, and was thus known as Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett. He +married Mary Graham Clarke, a native of Newcastle-on-the-Tyne, a woman of +gentle loveliness, who died on October 1, 1828. Mr. Moulton-Barrett lived +until 1860, his death occurring only a year before that of his famous +daughter, who was christened Elizabeth Barrett Moulton, and who thus +became, after her father's added name, Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett, +although, except when a legal signature was necessary, she signed her name +as Elizabeth Barrett. The family are still known by the hyphenated name; +and Mrs. Browning's namesake niece, a very scholarly and charming young +woman, now living in Rome, is known as Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett. She is +the daughter of Mrs. Browning's youngest brother, Alfred, and her mother, +who is still living, is the original of Mrs. Browning's poem, "A +Portrait." While Miss Moulton-Barrett never saw her aunt (having been born +after her death), she is said to resemble Mrs. Browning both in +temperament and character. By a curious coincidence the Barrett family, +like the Brownings, had been for generations the owners of estates in the +West Indies, and it is said that Elizabeth Barrett was the first child of +their family to be born in England for more than a hundred years. + +Her father, though born in Jamaica, was brought to England as a young +child, and he was the ward of Chief Baron Lord Abinger. He was sent to +Harrow, and afterwards to Cambridge, but he did not wait to finish his +university course, and married when young. One of his sisters was painted +by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and this portrait is now in the possession of +Octavius Moulton-Barrett, Esq., of the Isle of Wight. + +Elizabeth's brother Edward was but two years her junior. It was he who was +drowned at Torquay, almost before her eyes, and who is commemorated in her +"De Profundis." Of the other brothers only three lived to manhood. When +Elizabeth was three years of age, the family removed to Hope End in +Herefordshire, a spacious and stately house with domes and minarets +embowered in a grove of ancient oaks. It was a place calculated to appeal +to the imagination of a child, and in later years she wrote of it: + + "Green the land is where my daily + Steps in jocund childhood played, + Dimpled close with hill and valley, + Dappled very close with shade,-- + Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, + Running up from glade to glade." + +Here all her girlhood was passed, and it was in the garden of Hope End +that she stood, holding up an apron filled with flowers, when that lovely +picture was painted representing her as a little girl of nine or ten years +of age. Much of rather apochryphal myth and error has grown up about Mrs. +Browning's early life. However gifted, she was in no wise abnormal, and +she galloped on Moses, her black pony, through the Herefordshire lanes, +and offered pagan sacrifices to some imaginary Athene, "with a bundle of +sticks from the kitchen fire and a match begged from an indulgent +housemaid." In a letter to Richard Hengist Home, under date of October 5, +1843, in reply to a request of his for data for a biographical sketch of +her for "The New Spirit of the Age," she wrote: + + "... And then as to stories, mine amounts to the knife-grinder's, with + nothing at all for a catastrophe. A bird in a cage would have as good + a story. Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleasures, have + passed in my thoughts. I wrote verses--as I dare say many have done + who never wrote any poems--very early, at eight years of age, and + earlier. But, what is less common, the early fancy turned into a will, + and remained with me, and from that day to this, poetry has been a + distinct object with me,--an object to read, think, and live for." + + +When she was eleven or twelve, she amused herself by writing a great epic +in four books, called "The Battle of Marathon," which possessed her fancy. +Her father took great pride in this, and, "bent upon spoiling me," she +laughingly said in later years, had fifty copies of this childish +achievement printed, and there is one in the British Museum library +to-day. No creator of prose romance could invent more curious coincidences +than those of the similar trend of fancy that is seen between the +childhood of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Her "Battle of +Marathon" revealed how the Greek stories enchanted her fancy, and how +sensitive was her ear in the imitation of the rhythm caught from Pope. +This led her to the delighted study of Greek, that she might read its +records at first hand; and Greek drew her into Latin, and from this +atmosphere of classic lore, which, after all, is just as interesting to +the average child as is the (too usual) juvenile pabulum, she drew her +interest in thought and dream. The idyllic solitude in which she lived +fostered all these mental excursions. "I had my fits of Pope and Byron and +Coleridge," she has related, "and read Greek as hard under the trees as +some of your Oxonians in the Bodleian; gathered visions from Plato and the +dramatists, and ate and drank Greek.... Do you know the Malvern Hills? The +Hills of Piers Plowman's Visions? They seem to me my native hills. +Beautiful, beautiful they were, and I lived among them till I had passed +twenty by several years." + +Mr. Moulton-Barrett was one of the earliest of social reformers. So much +has been said, and, alas! with too much justice, it must be conceded, of +his eccentric tyranny, his monomania,--for it amounted to that, in +relation to the marriage of any of his children regarding which his +refusal was insanely irrational,--that it is pleasant to study him for a +moment in his more normal life. In Ledbury, the nearest village, he would +hold meetings for the untaught people, read and pray with them, and this +at a period when for a man of wealth to concern himself in social +betterment was almost unknown. He was truly "the friend of the unfriended +poor," and by his side, with wondering, upturned, childish eyes, was the +little Elizabeth, an ardent and sympathetic companion. Until quite +recently there were still living those who remembered Mr. Barrett as this +intelligent and active helper; and in the parish church is a monument to +him, by the side of a gloriously decorated tomb of the fourteenth century, +with an inscription to his memory that vividly recalls the work of one who +strove to revive the simple faith in God that has always, in all nations +and in all centuries, met every real need of life. + +Mrs. Barrett, a sweet and gentle woman, without special force of +character, died when Elizabeth was but twenty years of age; and it was +some five years before her mother's death that Elizabeth met with the +accident, from the fall from her saddle when trying to mount her pony, +that caused her life-long delicacy of health. Her natural buoyancy of +spirits, however, never failed, and she was endowed with a certain +resistless energy which is quite at variance with the legendary traditions +that she was a nervous invalid. + +Hardly less than Browning in his earliest youth, was Elizabeth Barrett +"full of an intensest life." Her Italian master one day told her that +there was an unpronounceable English word that expressed her exactly, but +which, as he could not give in English, he would express in his own +tongue,--_testa lunga_. Relating this to Mr. Browning in one of her +letters, she says: "Of course the signor meant headlong!--and now I have +had enough to tame me, and might be expected to stand still in my stall. +But you see I do not. Headlong I was at first, and headlong I +continue,--precipitately rushing forward through all manner of nettles and +briers instead of keeping the path; guessing at the meaning of unknown +words instead of looking into the dictionary,--tearing open letters, and +never untying a string,--and expecting everything to be done in a minute, +and the thunder to be as quick as the lightning." + +Impetuous, vivacious, with an inimitable sense of humor, full of +impassioned vitality,--this was the real Elizabeth Barrett, whose +characteristics were in no wise changed during her entire life. Always was +she + + "A creature of impetuous breath," + +full of vivacious surprises, and witty repartee. + +Hope End was in the near vicinity of Eastnor Castle, a country seat of the +Somersets; it is to-day one of the present homes of Lady Henry Somerset, +and there are family records of long, sunny days that the young girl-poet +passed at the castle, walking on the terraces that lead down to the still +water, or lying idly in the boat as the ripples of the little lake lapped +against the reeds and rushes that grew on the banks. In the castle library +is preserved to-day an autograph copy of the first volume of Elizabeth +Barrett's poems, published when she was twenty, and containing that +didactic "Essay on Mind" written when she was but seventeen, and of which +she afterward said that it had "a pertness and a pedantry which did not +even then belong to the character of the author," and which she regretted, +she went on to say, "even more than the literary defectiveness." This +volume was presented by her to a member of the Somerset family whose name +is inscribed over that of her own signature. + +During these years Hugh Stuart Boyd, the blind scholar, was living in +Great Malvern, and one of Miss Barrett's greatest pleasures was to visit +and read Greek with him. He was never her "tutor," in the literal sense, +as has so widely been asserted, for her study of Greek was made with her +brother Edward, under his tutor, a Mr. MacSweeney; but she read and +talked of Greek literature (especially of the Christian poets) with him, +and she loved to record her indebtedness to him "for many happy hours." +She wrote of him as one "enthusiastic for the good and the beautiful, and +one of the most simple and upright of human beings." The memory of her +discussions with him is embalmed in her poem, "Wine of Cyprus," which was +addressed to him: + + "And I think of those long mornings + Which my thought goes far to seek, + When, betwixt the folio's turnings, + Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek." + + +Elizabeth Barrett was more than a student, however scholarly, of Greek. +She had a temperamental affinity for the Greek poets, and such +translations as hers of "Prometheus Bound" and Bion's "Lament for Adonis," +identify her with the very life itself of Æschylus and Bion. In her essay +on "The Greek Christian Poets" we find her saying: "We want the touch of +Christ's hand upon our literature, as it touched other dead things ... +Something of a yearning after this may be seen among the Greek Christian +poets,... religious poets of whom the universal church and the world's +literature would gladly embrace more names than can be counted to either." + +All her work of these early years is in that same delicate microscopic +handwriting of her later life. She laughingly professed a theory that "an +immense amount of physical energy must go to the making of those immense, +sweeping hand-writings achieved by some persons." She instanced that of +Landor, "who writes as if he had the sky for a copy-book and dotted his +i's in proportion." + +Poetry as a serious art was the most earnest object in the life of +Elizabeth Barrett. To her poetry meant "life in life." + + "Art's a service,--mark." + + +The poetic vocation could hardly be said to be so much a conscious and +definite choice with her as a predetermined destiny, and still it was +both. The possibility of not being a poet could never have occurred to +her. There could have been as little question of Beethoven's being other +than a musician or of Raphael as being other than a painter. In poetry +Elizabeth Barrett recognized the most potent form of service; and she held +that poetic art existed for the sake of human co-operation with the Divine +purposes. + +The opening chapters of her life in the lovely seclusion of Hope End +closed in 1832 with the removal of the family to Sidmouth in Devonshire. +Here they were bestowed in a house which had been occupied by the Grand +Duchess Helena. It commanded a splendid sea view, on which four +drawing-room windows looked out, and there were green hills and trees +behind. They met a few friends,--Sir John Kean, the Herrings,--and the +town abounded in green lanes, "some of them quite black with foliage, +where it is twilight in the middle of the day, and others letting in +beautiful glimpses of the hills and the sunny sea." Henrietta Barrett took +long walks, Elizabeth accompanying her sister, mounted on her donkey. The +brothers and sisters were all fond of boating and passed much time on the +water. They would row as far as Dawlish, ten miles distant, and back; and +after the five o'clock dinner there were not infrequently moonlight +excursions on the sea. During these first months at Sidmouth Miss Barrett +read Bulwer's novels, which she asserts "quite delighted" her; as she +found in them "all the dramatic talent which Scott has, and all the +passion which he has not." Bulwer seemed to her, also, "a far more +profound discriminator of character" than Scott. She read Mrs. Trollope, +"that maker of books," whose work she characterized as not novels but +"libels." She found in Mrs. Trollope "neither the delicacy nor the candor +which constitute true nobility of mind," and thought that her talent +formed but "a scanty veil to shadow her other defects." + +Miss Barrett grew to love Sidmouth, with its walks on the seashore; and +letters, reading, poetic production, and family interests filled the time. +Here, too, she found time to enter on a task dear to her, the translation +of the "Prometheus Bound" of Æschylus. + +Some years later, however, she entirely revised this early translation, of +which she wrote to Hugh Stuart Boyd that it was "as cold as Caucasus, and +flat as the neighboring plain," and that "a palinodia, a recantation," was +necessary to her. In her preface to the later translation she begged that +her reader would forgive her English for not being Greek, and herself for +not being Æschylus. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +1833-1841 + + "... I press God's lamp + Close to my breast; its splendor, soon or late, + Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day." + + +BROWNING VISITS RUSSIA--"PARACELSUS"--RECOGNITION OF WORDSWORTH AND + LANDOR--"STRAFFORD"--FIRST VISIT TO ITALY--MRS. CARLYLE'S BAFFLED + READING OF "SORDELLO"--LOFTY MOTIF OF THE POEM--THE UNIVERSAL PROBLEM + OF LIFE--ENTHUSIASM FOR ITALY--THE SIBYLLINE LEAVES YET TO UNFOLD. + + +From Camberwell to St. Petersburg was somewhat of a transition. This was +Mr. Browning's initial excursion into a wider world of realities, as +distinguished from that mirage which rises in the world of dreams and +mental nebulæ. "To know the universe itself as a road,--as many roads," is +the way in which the beckoning future prefigures itself to the artist +temperament. + + "All around him Patmos lies + Who hath spirit-gifted eyes." + +The eyes thus touched with the chrism of poetic art see the invisible +which is peopled with forms unseen to others, and which offers a panorama +of living drama. It is the poet who overhears the "talk of the gods," and +when he shall report + + "Some random word they say," + +he becomes + + "... the fated man of men + Whom the ages must obey." + +This was the undreamed destiny hovering over the young poet, luring him on +like a guiding cloud which became a pillar of fire by night. + +Among his London friends was the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the +Russian Consul-General, who, being suddenly summoned to Russia on some +secret mission of state, invited Browning to accompany him. Browning went +"nominally in the character of secretary," Mrs. Orr says, and they fared +forth on March 1, by steamer to Rotterdam, and then journeyed more than +fifteen hundred miles by diligence, drawn by relays of galloping horses. +The expedition was to Browning a rich mine of poetic material. The +experience sank into the subconsciousness as seed to await fruition. In +his "Ivan Ivanovitch," where is seen + + "This highway broad and straight e'en from the Neva's mouth + To Moscow's gates of gold," + +and in which the unending pine forests rising from the snow-covered ground +are so vividly pictured; and in "Colombe's Birthday," where is seen the +region of the heroine,-- + + "Castle Ravestein-- + That sleeps out trustfully its extreme age + On the Meuse' quiet bank, where she lived queen + Over the water-buds,..." + +and the place + + "... when he hid his child + Among the river-flowers at Ravestein," + +it can be seen how all this country impressed his imagination. Professor +Hall Griffin finds in the fifth book of "Sordello" an unmistakable +description of the most famous and oldest portrait of Charlemagne, which +hangs in the Council Hall of the Rath-haus, in Aix, which Mr. Browning saw +on this trip. During these three months he saw something of Russian +society, and on the breaking up of the ice in the Neva in spring, +witnessed the annual ceremony of the Czar's drinking the first glass of +water from it. Much of the gorgeous, barbaric splendor of Russian fairs +and booths, "with droshkies and fish-pies" on the one hand, and stately +palaces on the other, haunted him, and reflected themselves in several of +his poems. Especially did the Russian music and strains of folk-song +linger in his memory for all the after years. + +On his return from Russia Browning had some fancy for entering on a +diplomatic career, and was momentarily disappointed at not receiving an +appointment to Persia, which he had in mind; fortunately for him and for +the world he was held to the orbit of his poetic gift. Diplomacy has an +abundance of recruits without devastating poetic genius to furnish them. +The winter of 1834 found him deeply absorbed in "Paracelsus." This poem is +dedicated to the Marquis Amédée de Ripert-Monclar, who was a great friend +of Browning at this time. The Marquis was four years his senior; he was in +England as a private agent for the Duchesse de Berri and the Royalist +party in France to the English government. The subject of the poem is said +to have been suggested by the Marquis, although the fact that all this +medieval lore had been familiar to Browning from his earliest childhood +must be accounted the pre-determining factor in its creation. William +Sharp quotes Browning as having once said of his father: "The old +gentleman's brain was a storehouse of literary and philosophical +antiquities. He was completely versed in medieval legend, and seemed to +have known Paracelsus, Faustus, and even Talmudic personages, personally," +and his son assimilated unconsciously this entire atmosphere. + +Both "Paracelsus" and "Sordello" seem to spring, as by natural poetic +evolution, from "Pauline"; all three of these poems are, in varying +degree, a drama of the soul's progress. They all suggest, and +"Paracelsus," especially, in a great degree embodies, the Hegelian +philosophy; yet Mr. Barrett Browning expresses his rather positive +conviction that his father never read Hegel at any period of his life. Dr. +Corson regarded these early poems of Browning as of peculiar value in +showing his attitude toward things. "We see in what direction the poet has +set his face," said Dr. Corson, "what his philosophy of life is, what +soul-life means with him, what regeneration means, what edification means +in its deepest sense of building up within us the spiritual temple." Dr. +Corson further illuminated this attitude of the poet by pointing out that +he emphasized the approach to perfection as something that cannot be +brought out through what is born and resides in the brain; but it must be +by "the attracting power of magnetic personalities, the ultimate, absolute +personality being the God-man, Christ. The human soul is regarded in +Browning's poetry," continued Dr. Corson, "as a complexly organized, +individualized, divine force, destined to gravitate toward the Infinite. +How is this force with its numberless checks and counter-checks, its +centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, best determined in its necessarily +oblique way? How much earthly ballast must it carry to keep it +sufficiently steady, and how little, that it may not be weighed down with +materialistic heaviness?" Incredibly enough, in the revelations of the +retrospective view, "Paracelsus" made little impression on the literary +critics of the day; the _Athenæum_ devoting to it less space even than to +"the anonymous Pauline," while the "Philip van Artevelde" of Henry Taylor +(now hardly remembered) received fifteen columns of tribute, in which the +critic confided to the public his enthusiastic estimate of that +production. Neither _Blackwood's_, the _Quarterly_, nor the _Edinburgh_ +even mentioned "Paracelsus"; the _Athenæum_ admitted that it had talent, +but admonished the poet that "Writers would do well to remember that +though it is not difficult to imitate the mysticism and vagueness of +Shelley, we love him--not because of these characteristics, but in spite +of them." The one gleam of consolation to the young poet in all this +general neglect or unfavorable comment was that of a three-column article +from the pen of John Forster in the _Examiner_, then conducted by Leigh +Hunt, and on whose staff were Sergeant Talfourd and Proctor (Barry +Cornwall) beside Forster, who was then a rising young journalist of +twenty-three, only one month the senior of Browning. But Forster spoke +with no uncertain note; rather, with authority, and in this critique he +said: + + "Since the publication of 'Philip van Artevelde' we have met with no + such evidences of poetical genius ... and we may safely predict for + its author a brilliant career, if he continues true to the present + promise of his genius." + + +The immediate effect of the publication of "Paracelsus" was of a social +rather than of a literary character, for something in it seemed magnetic +to the life of the day, and the young poet found himself welcomed by a +brilliant literary circle. He met Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor, +Dickens, Monckton Milnes (later Lord Houghton), Proctor (Barry Cornwall), +Horne, Sergeant Talfourd, Leigh Hunt, and others. Hunt was then domiciled +in Cheyne Row, in close proximity to the Carlyles, with whom Browning had +already formed a friendship. + +Rev. William Johnson Fox, one of Browning's earliest friends, was at this +time living at Craven Hill, Bayswater, and on an evening when Macready had +dined with him, Browning came in. This evening (November 27, 1835) is +noted in Macready's diary, and after speaking of Mr. Fox as an "original +and profound thinker," he adds: + + "Mr. Robert Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' came in after + dinner; I was very much pleased to meet him. His face is full of + intelligence.... I took Mr. Browning on, and requested to be allowed + to improve my acquaintance with him. He expressed himself warmly, as + gratified by the proposal, wished to send me his book. We exchanged + cards, and parted." + + +Later (under date of December 7), Mr. Macready records: + + "Read 'Paracelsus,' a work of great daring, starred with poetry of + thought, feeling, diction, but occasionally obscure. The writer can + scarcely fail to be a leading spirit of the time." + + +On New Year's Eve Mr. Macready invited a little house party, among whom +were Forster and Browning. "Mr. Browning was very popular with the whole +party," writes Mr. Macready in his journal; "his simple and enthusiastic +manner engaged attention and won golden opinions from all present; he +looks and speaks more like a youthful poet than any man I ever saw." + +Browning's personal appearance, "slim, and dark, and very handsome," as +Mary Cowden Clarke said, is pictured by many of his friends of that time. +"As a young man," writes William Sharp, "he seems to have had a certain +ivory delicacy of coloring ... and he appeared taller than he really was, +partly because of his rare grace of movement, and partly from a +characteristic high poise of the head when listening intently to music or +conversation.... His hair was so beautiful in its heavy sculpturesque +waves as to attract frequent notice. Another, and more subtle personal +charm, was his voice, then with a rare, flute-like tone, clear, sweet, and +resonant." + +Macready was not only a notable figure on the stage at this period, but he +was also (what every great actor must be) a man of thought, intense +sensibility, and wide culture. Soon after Macready had appeared in +Talfourd's "Ion" (the _première_ being on the playwright's birthday), +Talfourd gave a supper at his house, at which Browning for the first time +met Wordsworth and Landor. Macready himself sat between these two +illustrious poets, with Browning opposite to him. The guests included +Ellen Tree, Miss Mitford, and Forster. Macready, recording this night in +his diary, writes of "Wordsworth who pinned me." Landor, it seems, talked +of constructing drama, and said he "had not the faculty," that he "could +only set persons to talking; all the rest was chance." But an ever +remembered moment came for the young poet when the host proposed a toast +to the author of "Paracelsus," and Wordsworth, rising, said: "I am proud +to drink to your health, Mr. Browning," and Landor bowed with his +inimitable, courteous grace, raising his glass to his lips. For some +years, whenever Wordsworth visited London, Forster invited Browning to +meet him. The younger poet was never an enthusiast in his mild friendship +for the elder, although in after years (1875) he replied to a question by +Rev. A. B. Grosart, the editor of Wordsworth's works, that while in hasty +youth he did "presume to use the great and venerated personality of +Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model," he intended in "The Lost Leader" +no portrait of the entire man. While Wordsworth's political attitude did +not please the young disciple of Shelley, for Landor he conceived the most +profound admiration and sympathetic affection. It was a striking sequel to +this youthful attraction that in Landor's desolate old age it should be +Browning who tenderly cared for him, and surrounded his last days with +unfailing comfort and solicitude. + +At this memorable supper, just as Browning was about to take his leave, +Macready laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, saying earnestly: +"Write a play for me, and keep me from going to America." The thought +appealed to the poet, who replied: "Shall it be historical and English? +What do you say to 'Strafford' for a subject?" Forster was then bringing +out his biography of Strafford, on which Browning had assisted, so that +the theme had already engaged his imagination. A few days after the supper +Macready records in his diary receiving a note from Browning and adds: +"What can I say upon it? It was a tribute which remunerated me for the +annoyances and cares of years; it was one of the very highest, may I not +say the highest, honor I have through life received." + +A certain temperamental sympathy between the two men is evident, though +Macready sounded no such fathomless depths as lay, however unsuspected, in +Browning; but Macready gives many indications of poetic sympathies, as, +for instance, when he records in his diary how he had been looking through +Coleridge's translation of Wallenstein, "abounding with noble passages and +beautiful scenes," to see if it would lend itself to stage representation. + +On November 19 of this autumn Macready notes in his journal that Browning +came that night to bring his tragedy of "Strafford," of which the fourth +act was incomplete. "I requested him to write in the plot of what was +deficient," says Macready, and drove to the Garrick Club while Browning +wrote out this story. Later, there was a morning call from Browning, who +gave him an interesting old print of Richard, from some tapestry, and they +talked of "La Vallière." All the time we get glimpses of an interesting +circle: Bulwer and Forster call, and they discuss Cromwell; Bulwer's play +of "Virginius" is in rehearsal; Macready acts Cardinal Wolsey; there is a +dinner at Lady Blessington's, where are met Lord Canterbury, Count +D'Orsay, Bulwer, Trelawney, and Proctor; there is a call on Miss +Martineau, and meetings with Thackeray and Dickens; Kenyon appears in the +intersecting circles; Marston (the father of the blind poet) writes his +play, "The Patrician's Daughter"; Mr. Longfellow, "a Professor at one of +the U. S. Universities," appears on the scene, and there is a dinner at +which "Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Willis sat next to Longfellow." On a night when +Browning came with some alterations for "Strafford," a stranger called, +"saying he was a Greek, a great lover of the drama; I introduced Browning +to him as a great tragic poet," records Macready, "and the youth wrote +down his name, telling us he was setting off for Athens directly." + +The rehearsals of "Strafford" came on, but Macready seems already to have +had misgivings. "In Shakespeare," he writes, "the great poet has only +introduced such events as act on the individuals concerned; but in +Browning's play we have a long scene of passion--upon what? A plan +destroyed, a parliament dissolved...." It is easy to see how Browningesque +this was; for to the poet no events of the objective life were so real and +significant as those of the purely mental drama of thought, feeling, and +purpose. The rehearsals were, however, gratifying to the author, it seems, +for Macready records in his diary (that recurs like the chorus in a Greek +tragedy) that he was happy "with the extreme delight Browning testified at +the rehearsal of my part, which he said to him was a full recompense for +having written the play, as he had seen his utmost hopes of character +perfectly embodied." The play was performed at the Covent Garden Theater +on the night of May 3, 1837. + +Both Edmund Gosse and William Sharp deny that Browning's plays failed on +the stage; at all events, with each attempt there were untoward +circumstances which alone would have contributed to or even doomed a play +to a short tenure. + +In 1886 "Strafford" was produced in London under the auspices of the +Browning Society, and the real power of the play surprised as well as +deeply impressed the audiences who saw it. But "Pauline," "Paracelsus," +and "Strafford" all have a peculiar element of reminiscent importance, if +it may be so termed, in that they were the forerunners, the indications of +the great work to come. + +There is no dramatic poem of Browning's that has not passages of superb +acting effects, as well as psychological fascinations for the thinker; and +the future years were to touch him with new power to produce work whose +dramatic power lives in imperishable significance. "Strafford" had a run +of only five nights at this first time of its production; Macready +received and accepted an offer to go to America, and other things +happened. Browning became absorbed in his "Sordello," and suddenly, on +Good Friday of 1838, he sailed for Venice, "intending to finish my poem +among the scenes it describes," he wrote to John Robertson, who had been +introduced to Browning by Miss Martineau. On a sailing ship, bound for +Trieste, the poet found himself the only passenger. It was on this voyage, +while between Gibraltar and Naples, that he wrote "How They Brought the +Good News from Ghent to Aix." It was written on deck, penciled on the +fly-leaf of Bartoli's _De' Simboli trasportati al Morale_. When Dr. Corson +first visited Browning in 1881, in his London home in Warwick Crescent, +Browning showed his guest this identical copy of the book, with the +penciled poem on the fly-leaves, of which Dr. Corson said, in a private +letter to a friend: + + "One book in the library I was particularly interested in,--Bartoli's + _Simboli_, or, rather, in what the poet had written in pencil on its + fly-leaves, front and back, namely, 'How they brought the good news + from Ghent to Aix.'" + + +Dr. Corson added that he had been so often asked as to what this "good +news" was, that he put the question to Mr. Browning, who replied: + + "'I don't remember whether I had in my mind any in particular, when I + wrote the poem'; and then, after a pause," continued Dr. Corson, "he + said, with a dash of expression characteristic of him, 'Of course, + very important news were carried between those two cities during that + period.'" + + +In Mrs. Orr's biography of Browning she quotes a long letter written by +him to Miss Haworth, in the late summer of 1838, after his return from +this Italian trip, in which he says: + + "You will see 'Sordello' in a trice, if the fagging fit holds. I did + not write six lines while absent (except a scene in a play, jotted + down as we sailed through the straits of Gibraltar), but I did hammer + out some four, two of which are addressed to you,... I saw the most + gorgeous and lavish sunset in the world.... I went to Trieste, then to + Venice, then through Treviso, and Bassano to the mountains, delicious + Asolo, all my places and castles you will see. Then to Vicenza, Padua, + and Venice again. Then to Verona, Trent, Innspruck (the Tyrol), + Munich, Salzburg, Frankfort and Mayence; down the Rhine to Cologne, + then to Aix-le-Chapelle, Liège, and Antwerp; then home.... I saw very + few Italians, 'to know,' that is. Those I did see I liked...." + + +It is related that the captain of the ship became so much attached to +Browning that he offered him a free passage to Constantinople; and that +his friendly attraction to his youthful passenger was such that on +returning to England he brought to the poet's sister a gift of six bottles +of attar of roses. The poems of "Pippa Passes" and "In a Gondola" may be +directly traced to this visit, and Browning seemed so invigorated by it +that his imagination was aflame with a multitude of ideas at once. + +Meanwhile "Paracelsus" was winning increasing appreciation. The poet did +not escape the usual sweeping conclusion generally put forth regarding any +unusual work, that the author has made extensive studies for it,--as if +ideas and imagination drew their inspiration from the outer world, and +were solely to be appraised, as to their results, by the capacity for +cramming. So much cramming, so much genius! He who thus mistakes +inspiration for industry certainly proves how very remote is his mind from +the former. With this marvelous work by a young man of twenty-three the +usual literary legends were set afloat, like thistledown in the air, which +seem to have floated and alighted everywhere, and which now, more than +seventy-five years later, are apparently still floating and alighting on +the pens of various writers, to the effect that "Paracelsus" is the result +of "vast research among contemporary records," till the poem added another +to the Seven Labors of Hercules. As a matter of fact, and as has already +been noted, Browning had merely browsed about his father's library. + +Dr. Berdoe points out that the real "Paracelsus" cannot be understood +without considerable excursions into the occult sciences, and he is quite +right as to the illumination these provide, in proportionate degree as +they are acquired by the reader; as a matter of course they enlarge his +horizon, and offer him clues to unsuspected labyrinths; and so fine and +complete is Dr. Berdoe's own commentary on "Paracelsus" that it might not +unduly be held as supplementary to the reader's entire enjoyment of the +poem. Dr. Berdoe notes that the Bishop of Spanheim, who was the instructor +of Paracelsus, defined "divine magic," as another name for alchemy, "and +lays down the great doctrine of all medieval occultism, as of all modern +theosophy,--of a soul-power equally operative in the material and the +immaterial, in nature and in the consciousness of man." The sympathetic +reader of Browning's "Paracelsus" will realize, however, that the drama he +presents is spiritual, rather than occult. It is not the search for the +possible mysteries, or achievements of the crucible. It is the adventure +of the soul, not the penetration into the secrets of unknown elementals. + +In the autumn of 1835 the Browning family removed from Camberwell to +Hatcham. They bestowed themselves in a spacious, delightful old house, +with "long, low rooms," wherein the household gods, inclusive of the six +thousand books of the elder Browning's treasured library, found abundant +accommodation; and the outlook on the Surrey hills gratified them all. +During these years we catch a few glimpses of the poet's only sister, +Sarianna, who was two years younger than her brother, and quite as fond of +listening to the conversation of an uncle, William Shergold Browning, who +had removed to Paris. Here he was connected with the Rothschild banking +house, and had achieved some distinction as the author of a "History of +the Huguenots." He also wrote two historical novels, entitled "Hoel Mar en +Morven" and "Provost of Paris," and compiled one of those harmless volumes +entitled "Leisure Hours." It was this uncle who had brought about the +introduction of his nephew and Marquis Amédée de Ripert-Monclar, whose +uncle, the Marquis de Fortia, a member of the Institut, was a special +friend of William Shergold Browning. In later years a grandson of the +Paris Browning, after graduating at Lincoln College, became Crown +prosecutor in New South Wales. He is known as Robert Jardine Browning, and +he was on terms of intimacy with his cousins, Robert and Sarianna, whom he +often visited. + + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +_From a drawing made by Field Talfourd, in Rome, 1855_] + + +The family friendship with Carlyle was a source of great pleasure to Mrs. +Browning, the poet's mother, and there is on record a night when Carlyle +and his brother dined with the Brownings at Hatcham. Another family friend +and habitué was the Rev. Archer Gurney, who at a later time became +Chaplain to the British Embassy in Paris. Mr. Gurney was a writer of poems +and plays, lyrics and dramatic verse, and a volume of his work entitled +"Fra Cipollo and Other Poems" was published, from which Browning drew his +motto for "Colombe's Birthday." Mr. Gurney was deeply interested in +young Browning's poetry, and there is a nebulous trace of his having +something to do with the publication of "Bells and Pomegranates." Another +friend of the poet was Christopher Dowson, who married the sister of +Alfred Domett; at their homes, Albion Terrace, and their summer cottage in +Epping Forest, Browning was a frequent visitor. Dowson died early; but +Field Talfourd (a brother of the author of "Ion" and the artist who made +those crayon portraits of Browning and his wife, in the winter of 1859, in +Rome), Joseph Arnould, and Alfred Domett, with one or two other young men, +comprised the poet's more intimate circle at this time. Arnould and Domett +were both studying for the Bar; Arnould had gained the Newdigate in 1834, +and had won great applause by his recital (in the Sheldonian Theater) of +his "Hospice of St. Bernard." Later he was offered the editorship of the +_Daily News_, founded by Forster and Dickens, but he kept true to his +legal studies and in time became the Judge of the High Court at Bombay, +and was knighted by the Crown. + +There was a dinner given by Macready at which Browning, Carlyle, and Miss +Martineau were guests, and later a dinner at the Carlyles' where Browning +met a son of Burns "who sang some of his father's songs." To a friend +Browning wrote: "I dined with dear Carlyle and his wife (catch me calling +people 'dear' in a hurry) yesterday. I don't know any people like them." + +Browning passed a day with Miss Martineau at Ascot, and again visited her +in Elstree, where she was staying with the Macreadys. She greatly admired +"Paracelsus," and spoke of her first acquaintance with his poetry as a +"wonderful event." He dined with her at her home in Westminster, and there +met John Robertson, the assistant editor of the _Westminster Review_, to +which Miss Martineau was a valued contributor. Henry Chorley, a musical +critic of the day, was another guest that night, and soon after Browning +dined with him "in his bachellor abode," the other guests being Arnould, +Domett, and Bryan Proctor; later, at a musicale given by Chorley, Browning +met Charlotte Cushman and Adelaide Kemble. Chorley drew around him the +best musicians of the time: Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Liszt, David, and +other great composers were often rendered in his chambers. Proctor was +then living in Harley Street, and his house was a center for the literary +folk of the day. + +George Eliot speaks of the indifference with which we gaze at our +unintroduced neighbor, "while Destiny stands by, sarcastic, with our +_dramatis personæ_ folded in her hands." It was such an hour of destiny as +this when, at a dinner given by Sergeant Talfourd, at his home (No. 56) in +Russell Square, Browning first met John Kenyon. Our great events mostly +come to us like gods in disguise, and this evening was no exception. +Unknown and undreamed of, the young poet had come to one of those partings +of the ways which are only recognized in the perspective of time. +Browning's life had been curiously free from any romance beyond that with +the muses. The one woman with whom he had seemed most intimate, Miss Fanny +Haworth, was eleven years his senior, and their intercourse, both +conversationally and in letters, had been as impersonal as literature +itself. She was a writer of stories and verse, and had celebrated her +young friend in two sonnets. This friendship was one of literary +attractions alone, and the poet had apparently devoted all his romance to +poetry rather than demanded it in life. But now, golden doors were to +open. + +At this dinner at Mr. Talfourd's, John Kenyon came over to the poet, after +they had left the dining-room, and inquired if he were not the son of his +old school-fellow, Robert Browning. Finding this surmise to be true, he +became greatly attached to him. Mr. Kenyon had lost his wife some time +previously; he had no children, and he was a prominent and favorite figure +in London society. Southey said of Kenyon that he was "one of the best and +pleasantest of men, whom every one likes better the longer he is known," +and Kenyon, declaring that Browning "deserved to be a poet, being one in +heart and life," offered to him his "best and most precious gift,"--that +of an introduction to his second cousin, Elizabeth Barrett. + +This was the first intimation of Destiny, but the meeting was still to +remain in the future. "Sordello" was published in 1840,--"a colossal +derelict on the ocean of poetry," as William Sharp terms it. The +impenetrable nature of the intricacies of the work has been the theme of +many anecdotes. Tennyson declared that there were only two lines in +it--the opening and the closing ones--which he understood, and "they are +both lies," he feelingly added. Douglas Jerrold tackled it when he was +just recovering from an illness, and despairingly set down his inability +to comprehend it to the probability that his mind was impaired by disease; +and thrusting the book into the hands of his wife he entreated her to read +it at once. He watched her breathlessly, and when she exclaimed, "I don't +know what this means; it is gibberish," Jerrold exclaimed, "Thank God, I +am not an idiot." + +Still another edifying testimony to the general inability to understand +"Sordello" is given by a French critic, Odysse Barot, who quotes a passage +where the poet says, "God gave man two faculties," and adds, "I wish while +He was about it (_pendant qu'il était en train_) God had supplied +another--namely, the power of understanding Mr. Browning." + +Mrs. Carlyle declared that she read "Sordello" attentively twice, but was +unable to discover whether the title referred to "a man, a city, or a +tree"; yet most readers of this poem will be able to recognize that +Sordello was a singer of the thirteenth century, whose fame suddenly +lures him from the safety of solitude to the perils of society in Mantua, +after which "immersion in worldliness" he again seeks seclusion, and +partially recovers himself. The _motif_ of the poem recalls the truth +expressed in the lines: + + "Who loves the music of the spheres + And lives on earth, must close his ears + To many voices that he hears." + + +Suddenly a dazzling political career opens before Sordello; he is +discovered to be--not a nameless minstrel, but the son of the great +Ghibelline chief, Salinguerra; more marvelous still, he is loved by Palma, +in her youthful beauty and fascination; and the crucial question comes, as +in some form it must come to every life, whether he shall choose all the +kingdoms of power and glory, or that kingdom which is not of earth, and +cometh not with observation. + +It is easy to realize how such a problem would appeal to Robert Browning. +Notwithstanding the traditional "obscurity" of "Sordello," it offers to +the thoughtful reader a field of richest and most entrancing suggestion. + +To Alfred Domett, under date of May 22, 1842, Browning writes:[1] + + "... I cannot well say nothing of my constant thoughts of you, most + pleasant remembrances of you, earnest desires for you. I have a notion + you will come back some bright morning a dozen years hence and find me + just gone--to heaven, or Timbuctoo! I give way to this fancy, for it + lets me write what, I dare say, I have written niggardly enough, of my + real love for you, better love than I had supposed I was fit for.... I + have read your poems; you can do anything, and I should think would do + much. I will if I live. At present, if I stand on head or heels I + don't know; what men require I know as little; and of what they are in + possession I know not.... With this I send you your 'Sordello.' I + suppose, I am sure, indeed, that the translation from Dante, on the + fly-leaf, is your own...." + + +In another letter to Alfred Domett, Browning thus refers to Tennyson: + + "... But how good when good he is! That noble 'Locksley Hall!'" + + +Browning had already become enamored of Italy; and Mrs. Bridell-Fox, +writing to William Sharp, speaks of meeting the poet after his return, and +thus describes the impression he made upon her:[2] + + "I remember him as looking in often in the evenings, having just + returned from his first visit to Venice. I cannot tell the date for + certain. He was full of enthusiasm for that Queen of Cities. He used + to illustrate his glowing descriptions of its beauties, the palaces, + the sunsets, the moonrises, by a most original kind of etching. Taking + up a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a lighted candle, + moving the paper about gently till it was cloudily smoked over, and + then utilizing the darker smears for clouds, shadows, water, or what + not, would etch with a dry pen the forms of lights on cloud and + palace, on bridge or gondola, on the vague and dreamy surface he had + produced. My own passionate longing to see Venice dates from those + delightful, well-remembered evenings of my childhood." + + +This visit of the young poet to Italy forged the link of that golden chain +which was to unite all his future with that land of art and song which +held for him such wonderful Sibylline leaves of the yet undreamed-of +chapters of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +1833-1841 + + "O Life, O Beyond, + _Art_ thou fair, _art_ thou sweet?" + + + "How the world is made for each of us! + How all we perceive and know in it + Tends to some moment's product thus, + When a soul declares itself--to wit, + By its fruit, the thing it does!" + + +ELIZABETH BARRETT'S LOVE FOR THE GREEK POETS--LYRICAL WORK--SERIOUS + ENTRANCE ON PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE--NOBLE IDEAL OF POETRY--LONDON + LIFE--KENYON--FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF ROBERT BROWNING. + + +Elizabeth Barrett was but twelve days in translating the "Prometheus +Bound" of Æschylus, and of the result of this swift achievement she +herself declared, when laughingly discussing this work with Home in later +years, that it ought to have been "thrown in the fire immediately +afterward as the only means of giving it a little warmth." Combined with a +few of her other poems, however, it was published (anonymously) in 1832, +and received from the _Athenæum_ the edifying verdict that "those who +adventure in the hazardous lists of poetic translation should touch any +one rather than Æschylus, and they may take warning from the writer before +us." + +The quiet life at Sidmouth goes on,--goes on, in fact, for three +years,--and the life is not an unmixed joy to Miss Barrett. "I like the +greenness and the tranquillity and the sea," she writes to a friend. +"Sidmouth is a nest among elms; and the lulling of the sea and the shadow +of the hills make it a peaceful one; but there are no majestic features in +the country. The grandeur is concentrated upon the ocean without deigning +to have anything to do with the earth...." + +In the summer of 1835 the Barretts left Sidmouth for London, locating at +first in Gloucester Place (No. 74) where they remained for three years. +Hugh Stuart Boyd had, in the meantime, removed to St. John's Wood; Mr. +Kenyon and Miss Mitford became frequent visitors. Miss Barrett's literary +activity was stimulated by London life, and she began contributing to a +number of periodicals, and her letter-writing grew more and more +voluminous. To Mr. Boyd she wrote soon after their arrival in London: + + "As George is going to do what I am afraid I shall not be able to do + to-day,--to visit you,--he must take with him a few lines from me, to + say how glad I am to feel myself again only at a short distance from + you; and gladder I shall be when the same room holds both of us. But I + cannot open the window and fly.... How much you will have to say to me + about the Greeks, unless you begin first to abuse me about the Romans. + If you begin that, the peroration will be a very pathetic one, in my + being turned out of your doors. Such is my prophecy. + + "Papa has been telling me of your abusing my stanzas on Mrs. Hemans's + death. I had a presentiment that you would...." + + +If the classic lore and ponderous scholarship unfitted Mr. Boyd to feel +the loveliness of this lyric, those who enter into its pathos may find +some compensation for not being great classicists. It is in this poem that +the lines occur,-- + + "Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning: + Would she have lost the poet's fire, for anguish of the burning? + + * * * * * + + Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, + The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing." + + +Miss Barrett's fugitive poems of this time tell much of the story of her +days. She sees Haydon's portrait of Wordsworth, and it suggests the sonnet +beginning: + + "Wordsworth upon Helvellyn!..." + + +The poems written previously to "A Drama of Exile" do not at all indicate +the power and beauty and the depth of significance for which all her +subsequent work is so remarkable. "The Seraphim," "Isobel's Child," "The +Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus," however much they may contain occasional +glimpses of poetic fire, would never have established her rank. Yet "The +Sleep" belongs to this period, and that poem of exquisite pathos, +"Cowper's Grave." Anticipating a little, there came that poem which +awakened England and the modern world, indeed, to a sense of the suffering +of children in factory life, "The Cry of the Children," which appeared +almost simultaneously with Lord Shaftesbury's great speech in Parliament +on child labor. The poem and the statesman and philanthropist together +aroused England. + +A poem called "Confessions" is full of a mysterious power that haunts the +reader in a series of pictures: + + "Face to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her: + God and she and I only, there I sate down to draw her + Soul through the clefts of confession--'Speak, I am holding thee fast, + As the angel of resurrection shall do at the last.'" + + +And what touching significance is in these lines: + + "The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and + by night; + Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, + if ever so light." + + +There were the "Crowned and Wedded" that celebrated the marriage of +England's beloved queen; "Bertha in the Lane," which has been one of the +most universal favorites of any of her lyrics; still later, "The Dead +Pan," which essentially embodies her highest convictions regarding the +poetic art: that Poetry must be real, and, above all, true. + + "O brave poets, keep back nothing, + Nor mix falsehood with the whole! + + * * * * + + Hold, in high poetic duty, + Truest Truth the fairest Beauty!" + +In such lines as these she expressed her deepest feeling. + +Then appeared "Comfort," "Futurity," and "An Apprehension"; the dainty +little picture of her childish days in "Hector in the Garden"; the sonnets +to George Sand, on which the French biographer[3] of Mrs. Browning, in +recent years, has commented, translating the first line,-- + + "_Vrai genie, mais vraie femme!_" + +and adding that these words, addressed to George Sand, are illustrated by +her own life. + +The sonnet "Insufficiency," of this period, closes with the lines, + + "And what we best conceive we fail to speak. + Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall, + And then resume thy broken strains, and seek + Fit peroration without let or thrall." + + +In all this work that deep religious note, that exaltation of spirituality +which so completely characterized Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is felt by +the reader. Religion was always to her a life, not a litany. The Divine +Love was as the breath of life to her, wherein she lived and moved, and on +which she relied for her very being. + +The poem called "A Rhapsody of Life's Progress," though not often noted +by the critical writers on Mrs. Browning, is one full of impressive lines, +with that haunting refrain of every stanza,-- + + "O Life, O Beyond, + Thou art strange, thou art sweet!" + +Albeit, a candid view must also recognize that this poem reveals those +early faults, the redundancy, the almost recklessness of color and rhythm, +that are much less frequently encountered in the poems of Mrs. Browning +than they were in those of Miss Barrett. For poetic work is an art as well +as a gift, and while "Poets are born, not made," yet, being born, the poet +must proceed also to make himself. In this "Rhapsody" occur the lines that +are said to have thrown cultured Bostonians into a bewilderment +exceptional; a baffled and despairing state not to be duplicated in all +history, unless by that of the Greeks before the Eleusinian mysteries; the +lines running,-- + + "Let us sit on the thrones + In a purple sublimity, + And grind down men's bones + To a pale unanimity." + +Polite circles in Boston pondered unavailingly upon this medley, and were +apparently reduced to the same mental condition as was Mrs. Carlyle when +she read "Sordello." Unfortunately for Jane Carlyle there were in her day +no Browning societies, with their all-embracing knowledge, to which +Browning himself conveniently referred all persons who questioned him as +to the meaning of certain passages. One Boston woman, not unknown to fame, +recalls even now that she walked the Common, revolving these cryptic lines +in her mind, and meeting Dr. Holmes, asked if he understood them, to which +the Autocrat replied, "God forbid!" + +This very affluence of feeling, however, or even recklessness of imagery, +was not without its place as a chastened and subdued factor in the power +of Miss Barrett later on. From her earliest childhood she had the +scholar's instinct and love of learning; she read fluently French, German, +and Italian; she was well grounded in Latin, and for the Greek she had +that impassioned love that made its literature to her an assimilation +rather than an acquirement. Its rich intellectual treasure entered into +her inmost life. She also read Hebrew, and all her life kept with her a +little Hebrew Bible, as well as a Greek Testament, the margins of both of +which are filled with her notes and commentaries in her clear, microscopic +handwriting. Miss Barrett's earliest work, published anonymously, at her +father's expense, rather to gratify himself and a few friends than to make +any appeal to the public, had no special claim to literary immortality, +whatever its promise; but once in London, something in the very atmosphere +seemed to act as a solvent to precipitate her nebulous dreams and +crystallize them into definite and earnest aims. Poetry had always been to +her "its own exceeding great reward," but she was now conscious of a +desire to enter into the stress and storm of the professional writer, who +must sink or swim, accept the verdict of success or failure, and launch +forth on that career whose very hardships and uncertainties are a part of +its fascination. To Elizabeth Barrett, secure in her father's home, there +was little possibility of the hardships and privations on the material +side not unfrequently incidental to the pursuit of letters, but to every +serious worker life prefigures itself as something not unlike the Norse +heaven with its seven floors, each of which must be conquered. + + "Here a star, and there a star, + Some lose their way,-- + Here a mist, and there a mist, + Afterwards ... day!" + + +Miss Barrett finds London "wrapped up like a mummy, in a yellow mist," but +she tries to like it, and "looks forward to seeing those here whom we +might see nowhere else." Her brother George, who had recently graduated +from the University of Glasgow, was now a barrister student at the Inner +Temple. Henrietta and Arabel, the two sisters, found interest and delight +in the new surroundings. + +Retrospectively viewed, Mrs. Browning's life falls easily into three +periods, which seem to name themselves as a prelude, an interlude, and a +realization. She was just past her twenty-ninth birthday when the family +came up to London, and up to that time she had, indeed, lived with dreams +and visions for her company. These years were but the prelude, the +preparatory period. She then entered on the experimental phase, the +testing of her powers, the interlude that lay between early promise and +later fulfillment. In her forty-first year came her marriage to Robert +Browning and the beginning of those nearly fifteen years of marvelous +achievement, during which the incomparable "Sonnets from the Portuguese" +and "Aurora Leigh" were written,--the period of realization. + +Before the beginning of the London period Miss Barrett's literary work had +been largely that of the amateur, though in the true meaning of that +somewhat misused term, as the lover, rather than as merely the more or +less crude experimenter. For Poetry to Elizabeth Barrett was a divine +commission no less than an inborn gift. Under any circumstances, she would +have poured her life "with passion into music," and with the utmost +sincerity could she have said, with George Eliot's "Armgart," + + "I am not glad with that mean vanity + Which knows no good beyond its appetite + Full feasting upon praise! I am only glad, + Being praised for what I know is worth the praise; + Glad of the proof that I myself have part + In what I worship!" + + +As is revealed and attested in many expressions of her maturer years, +Poetry was to her the most serious, as well as the most enthralling, of +pursuits, while she was also a very accomplished scholar. A special gift, +and a facility for the acquirement of scholarly knowledge in the academic +sense, do not invariably go together; often is the young artist so +bewitched with his gift, so entranced with the glory and the splendor of a +dream, that the text-book, by contrast, is a dull page, to which he cannot +persuade himself to turn. To him the air is peopled with visions and +voices that fascinate his attention. In the college days of James Russell +Lowell is seen an illustration of this truth, the young student being +temporarily suspended, and sent--not to Coventry, but to Concord. Perhaps +the banishment of a Harvard student for the high crime and misdemeanor of +being addicted to rhyme rather than mathematics, and his penalty in the +form of exile to Concord, the haunt of Emerson and the Muses, may have +made Pan laugh. But, at all events, Miss Barrett was as naturally a +scholar, in the fullest significance of the term, as she was a poet. This +splendid equipment was a tremendous factor in that splendor of +achievement, and in that universally recognized success, that has made the +name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning immortal in all ages, as the greatest +woman poet the world has ever known. + +The professional literary life is a drama in itself,--comedy, or tragedy, +as may be, and usually a mixture of both. It ranges over wide areas of +experience, from that of the author of "Richard Feverel," who is said to +have written that novel on a diet of oatmeal and cold water, to that of +the luxurious author whose _séances_ with the Muses are decorously +conducted in irreproachable interiors, with much garnishing, old rose and +ivory, ebony carvings, and inlaid desks, at which the marvelous being who +now and then condescends to "dictate" a "best seller," is apt to be +surprised by a local photographer. But as a noted educator defined a +University as "a log,--with Mark Hopkins sitting on the other end," so the +"real thing" in a literary career may not inaptly be typified by Louisa +Alcott sitting on the back stairs, writing on an old atlas; and it was +into actualities somewhat like these that Elizabeth Barrett desired to +plunge. The question that she voiced in later years, in "Aurora Leigh,"-- + + "My own best poets, am I one with you, + That thus I love you,--or but one through love? + Does all this smell of thyme about my feet + Conclude my visit to your holy hill + In personal presence, or but testify + The rustling of your vesture through my dreams + With influent odours?"-- + +this question, in substance, stirred now in her life, and insisted upon +reply. She must, like all real poets, proceed to "hang her verses in the +wind," and watch if perchance there are + + "... the five + Which five hundred will survive." + + +Elizabeth Barrett was of a simplicity that had no affinities with the +_poseur_ in any respect, and she had an inimitable sense of humor that +pervaded all her days. Wit and pathos are, indeed, so closely allied that +it would be hardly possible that the author of the "De Profundis," a poem +that sounds the profoundest depths of the human soul, should not have the +corresponding quality of the swiftest perception of the humorous. It was +somewhere about this time that Poe sent to her a volume of his poems with +an inscription on the fly-leaf that declared her to be "the noblest of her +sex." + +"And what could I say in reply," she laughingly remarked, "but 'Sir, you +are the most discerning of yours!'" + +The first poem of hers that was offered in a purely professional way was +"The Romaunt of Margret." It appeared in the _New Monthly Magazine_, then +edited by Bulwer, who was afterward known as the first Lord Lytton. At +this time Richard Hengist Horne was basking in the fame of his "Orion," +and to him Miss Barrett applied, through a mutual friend, as to whether +her enclosed poem had any title to that name, or whether it was mere +verse. "As there could be no doubt in the mind of the recipient on that +point," said Mr. Horne, "the poem was forwarded to Bulwer, and duly +appeared. The next one sent," continues Mr. Horne, "started the poetess at +once on her bright and noble career." This "next one" appears to have been +"The Poet's Vow," and a confirmation of this supposition is seen in a +letter of hers at this date to Mr. Boyd, in which she explains her not +having at hand a copy of the _Athenæum_ that he had wished to see, and +adds: + + "I can give you, from memory, the _Athenæum's_ review in that number. + The critic says 'It is rich in poetry ... including a fine, although + too dreamy, ballad, The Poet's Vow. We are almost tempted to pause and + criticise the work of an artist of so much inspiration and promise as + the author of this poem, and to exhort him to a greater clearness of + expression, and less quaintness in the choice of his phraseology, but + this is not the time or place for digression.' + + "You see my critic has condemned me with a very gracious countenance. + Do put on yours." + + +Again, under date of October, 1836, she writes to Mr. Boyd: + + "... But what will you say to me when I confess that in the face of + all your kind encouragement, my Drama of the Angels (The Seraphim) + has not been touched until the last three days? It was not out of pure + idleness on my part, nor of disregard to your admonition; but when my + thoughts were distracted with other things, books just began enclosing + me all around, a whole load of books upon my conscience, and I could + not possibly rise to the gate of heaven and write about my angels. You + know one can't sometimes sit down to the sublunary occupation of even + reading Greek, unless one feels free to it. And writing poetry + requires a double liberty, and an inclination which comes only of + itself.... + + "... I have had another note from the editor--very flattering, and + praying for farther supplies. The 'Angels' were not ready, and I was + obliged to send something else." + + +A discussion arises in the family regarding the taking of a house in +Wimpole Street, and Elizabeth remarks that for her part she would rather +go on inhabiting castles in the air than to live in that particular house, +"whose walls look so much like Newgate's turned inside out." She +continues, however, that if it is decided upon, she has little doubt she +will wake and sleep very much as she would anywhere else. With a strong +will, and an intense, resistless kind of energy in holding any conviction, +and an independence of character only equalled by its preeminent justice +and generous magnanimity, she was singularly free from any tenacious +insistence upon the matters of external life. She had her preferences; but +she always accommodated herself to the decision or the necessity of the +hour, and there was an end of it. She had that rare power of instantaneous +mental adjustment; and if a given thing were right and best, or if it were +not best but was still inevitable, she accepted it and did not make life a +burden to every one concerned by endless discussion. + +London itself did not captivate her fancy. "Did Dr. Johnson in his +paradise in Fleet Street love the pavements and the walls?" she +questioned. "I doubt that," she added; "the place, the privileges, don't +mix in one's love as is done by the hills and the seaside." + +The privileges, however, became more and more interesting to her. One of +these was when she met Wordsworth, whom she describes as being "very +kind," and that he "let her hear his conversation." + +This conversation she did not find "prominent," for she saw at the same +time Landor, "the brilliant Landor," she notes, and felt the difference +"between great genius and eminent talent." But there was a day on which +she went to Chiswick with Wordsworth and Miss Mitford, and all the way she +thought she must be dreaming. It was Landor, though, who captivated her +fancy at once, as he already had that of her future poet-lover and +husband, who was yet unrevealed to her. Landor, "in whose hands the ashes +of antiquity burn again," she writes, gave her two Greek epigrams he had +recently written. All this time she is reading everything,--Sheridan +Knowles's play of "The Wreckers," which Forrest had rejected, "rather for +its unfitness to his own personal talent than for its abstract demerit," +she concludes; and "Ion," which she finds beautiful morally rather than +intellectually, and thinks that, as dramatic poetry, it lacks power, +passion, and condensation. Reading Combe's "Phrenology," she refers to his +theory that slowness of the pulse is a sign of the poetical impulse. If +this be true, she fears she has no hope of being a poet, "for my pulse is +in a continual flutter," she notes; and she explains to Mr. Boyd that the +line + + "One making one in strong compass" + +in "The Poet's Vow," which he found incomprehensible, really means that +"the oneness of God, 'in Whom are all things,' produces a oneness, or +sympathy, with all things. The unity of God preserves a unity in man." + +All in all, Miss Barrett is coming to enjoy her London life. There was +the Royal Academy, "and real live poets, with their heads full of the +trees and birds, and sunshine of Paradise"; and she has "stood face to +face with Wordsworth and Landor"; Miss Mitford has become a dear friend, +but she visits London only at intervals, as she lives--shades of benighted +days!--thirty miles from London. A twentieth century residence across the +continent could hardly seem more remote. + +The removal to Wimpole Street was decided upon, and to that house (No. +50), gloomy or the reverse, the Barretts migrated. Miss Barrett's new +book, under the title of "The Seraphim and Other Poems," was published, +marking her first professional appearance before the public over her own +name. "I feel very nervous about it," she said; "far more than I did when +my 'Prometheus' crept out of the Greek." + +Mr. Kenyon was about to go to Rydal Mount on a visit to Wordsworth, and +Miss Barrett begs him to ask, as for himself, two garden cuttings of +myrtle or geranium, and send to her--two, that she may be sure of saving +one. + +Autographs had value in those days, and in a note to Mr. Bray Miss Barrett +alludes to one of Shakespeare's that had been sold for a hundred pounds +and asks if he feels sure of the authenticity of his own Shakespearean +autograph. + +A new poetic era had dawned about the time that "The Seraphim" appeared. +Tennyson had written "Audley Court," and was beginning to be known in +America, owing this first introduction to Emerson, who visited Landor in +Florence and made some sojourn afterward in England. The Boston publishing +house of C. C. Little and Company (now Little, Brown, and Company) had +written to Tennyson (under date of April 27, 1838) regarding a +republishing of his volume, as the future laureate was already recognized +for the musical quality and perfection of art in his work. Browning had +published only "Pauline," "Paracelsus," and "Strafford." Shelley and Keats +were dead, their mortal remains reposing in the beautiful English cemetery +in Rome, under the shadow of the tall cypresses, by the colossal pyramid +of Caius Cestus. Byron and Scott and Coleridge had also died. There were +Landor and Southey, Rogers and Campbell; but with Miss Barrett there came +upon the scene a new minstrelsy that compelled its own recognition. Some +of her shorter poems had caught the popular ear; notably, her "Cowper's +Grave," which remains, to-day, one of her most appealing and exquisite +lyrics. + + "It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying; + It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying." + +The touching pathos of the line, + + "O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging!" + +moves every reader. And what music and touching appeal in the succeeding +stanza: + + "And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, + How discord on the music fell and darkness on the glory, + And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, + He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted." + + +In seeing, "on Cowper's grave,... his rapture in a vision," Miss Barrett +pictured his strength-- + + "... to sanctify the poet's high vocation." + +Her reverence for poetic art finds expression in almost every poem that +she has written. + +Among other shorter poems included with "The Seraphim" were "The Poet's +Vow," "Isobel's Child," and others, including, also, "The Romaunt of +Margret." _The Athenæum_ pronounced the collection an "extraordinary +volume,--especially welcome as an evidence of female genius and +accomplishment,--but hardly less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss +Barrett's genius is of a high order," the critic conceded; but he found +her language "wanting in simplicity." One reviewer castigated her for +presuming to take such a theme as "The Seraphim" "from which Milton would +have shrank!" All the critics agree in giving her credit for genius of no +ordinary quality; but the general consensus of opinion was that this +genius manifested itself unevenly, that she was sometimes led into errors +of taste. That she was ever intentionally obscure, she denied. +"Unfortunately obscure" she admitted that she might be, but "willingly +so,--never." + +Of the personal friends of Elizabeth Barrett one of the nearest was Mary +Russell Mitford, who was nineteen years her senior. Miss Mitford describes +her at the time of their meeting as having "such a look of youthfulness +that she had some difficulty in persuading a friend that Miss Barrett was +old enough to be introduced into society." Miss Mitford added that she was +"certainly one of the most interesting persons" she had ever seen; "of a +slight, delicate figure,... large, tender eyes, and a smile like a +sunbeam." + +Mr. Kenyon brought Andrew Crosse, a noted electrician of the day, to see +Miss Barrett; and in some reminiscences[4] written by Mrs. Andrew Crosse +there is a chapter on "John Kenyon and his Friends" that offers the best +comprehension, perhaps, of this man who was so charming and beloved a +figure in London society,--a universal favorite. Born in 1784 in Jamaica, +the son of a wealthy land-owner, he was sent to England as a lad, educated +there, and in 1815 he set out for a tour of the continent. In 1817, in +Paris, he met and became intimate with Professor George Ticknor of +Harvard University, the Spanish historian; and through this friendship Mr. +Kenyon came to know many of the distinguished Americans of the day, +including Emerson, Longfellow, and Willis. Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, +and Landor were among Kenyon's most intimate circle; and there is a record +of one of his dinners at which the guests were Daniel Webster, Professor +and Mrs. Ticknor, Dickens, Montalembert, and Lady Mary Shepherd. In 1823 +Kenyon married Miss Curteis, and they lived for some years in Devonshire +Place, with frequent interludes of travel on the continent. Mrs. Kenyon +died in 1835, but when the Barretts came up to London Kenyon had resumed +his delightful hospitalities, of which he made fairly a fine art. +Professor Ticknor has left an allusion to another dinner at Kenyon's where +he met Miss Barrett. In the autumn of 1839 Miss Barrett, accompanied by +her brother Edward, went to Torquay, for the warmer climate, and Mr. +Kenyon also had gone there for the winter. Around him were gathered a +group of notable friends, with whom Miss Barrett, his cousin (with one +remove), was constantly associated,--Landor, Andrew Crosse, Theodosia +Garrow (afterwards the wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope), and Bezzi, an +accomplished Italian, who was afterward associated with Seymour Kirkup in +discovering Dante's portrait concealed under the whitewash applied to the +walls of the Bargello in Florence. Miss Barrett was at this time entering +into that notable correspondence with Richard Hengist Horne, many of these +letters containing passages of interest. For instance, of poetry we find +her saying: + + "If poetry under any form be exhaustible, Nature is; and if Nature is, + we are near a blasphemy, and I, for one, could not believe in the + immortality of the soul. + + '_Si l'âme est immortelle,_ + _L'amour ne l'est-il-pas?_' + + Extending _l'amour_ into all love of the ideal, and attendant power of + idealizing.... I don't believe in mute, inglorious Miltons, and far + less in mute, inglorious Shakespeares." + + +Referring to some correspondence with Miss Martineau, Miss Barrett +characterizes her as "the noblest female intelligence between the seas," +and of Tennyson, in relation to some mention of him, she wrote that "if +anything were to happen to Tennyson, the whole world should go into +mourning." + +A project (said to have originated with Wordsworth) was launched to +"modernize" Chaucer, in which Miss Barrett, Leigh Hunt, Monckton Milnes, +Mr. Horne, and one or two others enthusiastically united, the only +dissenter being Landor, who characteristically observed that any one who +was fit to read Chaucer at all could read him in the original. Later on +the co-operation of Browning, Tennyson, Talfourd, Bulwer, Mary Howitt, and +the Cowden Clarkes was solicited and in part obtained. But Landor held +firm, and of his beloved Chaucer he said: "I will have no hand in breaking +his dun, but rich-painted glass, to put in thinner (if clearer) panes." A +great deal of correspondence ensued in connection with this Herculean +labor, most of which is of less interest to the general reader than it +might well be to the literary antiquarian. + +The next special literary enthusiasm of Mr. Horne and Miss Barrett was the +projection of a work of criticism, to be issued anonymously, and entitled +"The New Spirit of the Age." They collaborated on the critique on +Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt, and for the one on Landor Miss Barrett was +mainly responsible, in which she says he "writes poetry for poets, and +criticism for critics;... and as if poetry were not, in English, a +sufficiently unpopular dead language, he has had recourse to writing +poetry in Latin." She speaks of his "Pericles and Aspasia" and his +"Pentameron" as "books for the world and for all time, complete in beauty +of sentiment and subtlety of criticism." Two of Landor's works, very +little known, the "Poems from the Arabic and Persian" and "A Satire upon +Satirists," are here noted. "It will be delightful to me to praise +Tennyson,--although, by Saint Eloy, I never imitated him," she writes to +Mr. Horne; "and I take that oath because the _Quarterly_ was sure that if +it had not been for him I should have hung a lady's hair 'blackly' instead +of 'very blackly.'" Miss Mitford was somewhat concerned with this +hazardous venture, but she had no desire to discuss Dickens, as she "could +not admire his love of low life!" Miss Barrett's appreciation of Tennyson +is much on record. She finds him "a divine poet." Monckton Milnes, whose +first work she liked extremely, seemed to her in his later poems as +wanting in fire and imagination, and as being too didactic. Barry +Cornwall's lyrics impressed her "like embodied music." Mr. Horne finally +wrote the critique on Dickens, and of it Miss Barrett said: "I think the +only omission of importance in your admirable essay is the omission of the +influence of the French school of imaginative literature upon the mind of +Dickens, which is manifest and undeniable.... Did you ever read the +powerful _Trois Jours d'un Condamné_, and will you confront that with the +tragic saliences of 'Oliver Twist'?... We have no such romance writer as +Victor Hugo ... George Sand is the greatest female genius of the world, at +least since Sappho." (At this time George Eliot had not appeared.) Miss +Barrett appreciatively alludes to Sir Henry Taylor (the author of "Philip +van Artevelde") as "an infidel in poetry," and to the author of "Festus" +as "a man of great thoughts." She finds part of the poem "weak," but, +"when all is said," she continues, "what poet-stuff remains! what power! +what fire of imagination, worth the stealing of Prometheus!" + +In relation to some strictures on Carlyle, Miss Barrett vivaciously +replies that his object is to discover the sun, not to specify the +landscape, and that it would be a strange reproach to bring against the +morning star that it does not shine in the evening. + +The idea of a lyrical drama, "Psyche Apocalypte," was entertained by Mr. +Horne and Miss Barrett, but, fortunately, no fragment of it was +materialized into public light. There was a voluminous correspondence +between them concerning this possible venture. Meanwhile Miss Barrett's +poems won success past her "expectation or hope. _Blackwood's_ high help +was much," she writes, "and I continue to have the kindest letters from +unknown readers.... The American publisher has printed fifteen hundred +copies. If I am a means of ultimate loss to him, I shall sit in +sackcloth." + +In another of her letters to Mr. Horne we read that Wordsworth is in a +fever because of a projected railroad through the Lake Country, and that +Carlyle calls Harriet Martineau "quite mad," because of her belief in +Mesmerism. "For my own part," adds Miss Barrett, "I am not afraid to say +that I almost believe in Mesmerism, and quite believe in Harriet +Martineau." She is delighted that Horne's "Orion" is to be published in +New York. "I love the Americans," she asserts, "a noble and cordial +people." + +Miss Barrett remained for three years in Torquay, the climate being +regarded as better for her health. But the tragedy of her life took place +there in the drowning of her brother Edward, who went out one day with two +friends in a boat and never returned. Three days later the boat was found +floating, overturned, and the bodies of the three young men were +recovered. This sad event occurred in the August of 1840, and it was more +than a year before she was able to resume her literary work and her +correspondence. In the September of 1841 she returned to London, and in a +letter to Mr. Boyd soon after she replied to his references to Gregory as +a poet, saying she has not much admiration even for his grand _De +Virginitate_, and chiefly regards him as one who is only poetical in +prose. + +Miss Barrett's delicacy of health through all these years has been so +universally recorded (and, according to her own words, so exaggerated) +that it needs no more than passing allusion here. So far as possible she +herself ignored it, and while it was always a factor to be reckoned with, +yet her boundless mental energy tided her over illness and weakness to a +far greater degree than has usually been realized. "My time goes to the +best music when I read or write," she says, "and whatever money I can +spend upon my own pleasures flows away in books." + +Elizabeth Barrett was the most sympathetic and affectionate of friends, +and her devotion to literature resulted in no mere academic and abnormal +life. Her letters are filled with all the little inquiries and interests +of household affection and sweetness of sympathy with the personal matters +of relatives and friends, and if those are not here represented, it is +simply that they are in their nature colloquial, and to be taken for +granted rather than repeated for reading, when so long separated by time +from the conditions and circumstances that called them forth. She was glad +to return from Torquay to her family again. "Papa's domestic comfort is +broken up by the separation," she said, "and the associations of Torquay +lie upon me, struggle against them as I may, like a nightmare.... Part of +me is worn out; but the poetical part--that is, the love of poetry--is +growing in me as freshly every day. Did anybody ever love poetry and stop +in the middle? I wonder if any one ever could?... besides, I am becoming +better. Dear Mr. Boyd," she entreats, "do not write another word about my +illness either to me or to others. I am sure you would not willingly +disturb me. I can't let ... prescribe anything for me except her own +affection." These words illustrate the spirit in which Miss Barrett +referred to her own health. No one could be more remote from a morbid +invalidism too often associated with her. + +One of her first efforts after her return from Torquay was to send to the +_Athenæum_ some Greek translations, which, to her surprise, were accepted, +and she writes to Mr. Boyd that she would enclose to him the editor's +letter "if it were legible to anybody except people used to learn reading +from the Pyramids." It must have been due to a suggestion from the editor +of the _Athenæum_ at this time that she wrote her noble and affluent essay +on "The Greek Christian Poets," which is perhaps her finest work in prose. +Something in the courteous editorial note suggested this to her, and she +discusses the idea with Mr. Boyd. + +Mr. Dilke was then the editor of the _Athenæum_. He quite entered into the +idea of this essay, only begging Miss Barrett to keep away from theology. +Mr. Dilke also suggests that she write a review of English poetical +literature, from Chaucer to contemporary times, and this initiated her +essay called "The Book of the Poets." For her Greek review she desired a +copy of the _Poetæ Christiani_, but found the price (fourteen guineas) +ruinous. But whether she had all the needful data or not, the first paper +was a signal success, and she fancied that some _bona avis_, as good as a +nightingale, had shaken its wings over her. Of the three Greek tragedians, +Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, Elizabeth Barrett had read every line. +Plato she loved and read exhaustively; of Aristotle at this time she had +read his Ethics, Poetics, and his work on Rhetoric, and of Aristophanes a +few, only, of his plays. But Miss Barrett was also a great novel-reader, +keeping her "pillows stuffed with novels," as she playfully declared. Her +room, in the upper part of the house, revealed the haunt of the scholar. +Upon a bracket the bust of Homer looked down; her bookcase showed one +entire shelf occupied by the Greek poets; another relegated wholly to the +English poets; and philosophy, ethics, science, and criticism were +liberally represented. A bust of Chaucer companioned that of Homer. By her +sofa nestled Flush, her dog, Miss Mitford's gift. + +It was in this year of 1841 that there penetrated into her atmosphere and +consciousness the first intimation of Robert Browning. "Pippa Passes" had +just been published, and John Kenyon, ever alert to bring any happiness +into the lives of his friends (Kenyon, "the joy-giver," as he was well +termed), suggested introducing the young poet to her, but on the plea of +her ill-health she declined. A little later, in a letter to Mr. Boyd, she +mentions one or two comments made on her essay, "The Greek Christian +Poets,"--that Mr. Horne, and also "Mr. Browning, the poet," had both, as +she was told, expressed approval. "Mr. Browning is said to be learned in +Greek," she adds, "especially the dramatists." So already the air begins +to stir and tremble with the coming of him of whom in later days she +wrote: + + "I yield the grave for thy sake, and resign + My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee." + + +The entrancing thrill of that wonderful Wagner music that ushers in the +first appearance of the knight in the music-drama of "Lohengrin" is +typical of the vibrations that thrill the air in some etherial +announcement of experiences that are on the very threshold, and which are +recognized by a nature as sensitive and impressionable as was that of +Elizabeth Barrett. A new element with its transfiguring power awaited her, +and some undefined prescience of that + + "... most gracious singer of high poems" + +whose music was to fall at her door + + "... in folds of golden fulness" + +haunted her like "an odor from Dreamland sent." + +She pondered on + + "... how Theocritus had sung + Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years," + +but she dared not dream that the "mystic Shape" that drew her backward, +and whose voice spoke "in mastery," had come to lead her,--not to Death, +but Love. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +1841-1846 + + "... If a man could feel, + Not one day in the artist's ecstasy, + But every day,--feast, fast, or working-day, + The spiritual significance burn through + The hieroglyphic of material shows, + Henceforward he would paint the globe with wings." + + +"BELLS AND POMEGRANATES"--ARNOULD AND DOMETT--"A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON"-- + MACREADY--SECOND VISIT TO ITALY--MISS BARRETT'S POETIC WORK-- + "COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY"--"LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP"--"ROMANCES AND + LYRICS"--BROWNING'S FIRST LETTER TO MISS BARRETT--THE POETS MEET-- + LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING AND ELIZABETH BARRETT--"LOVES OF THE + POETS"--VITA NUOVA. + + +The appearance of "Bells and Pomegranates" made a deep impression on +Elizabeth Barrett, as the numbers, opening with "Pippa Passes," +successively appeared between 1841 and 1846. Of "Pippa" she said she could +find it in her heart to covet the authorship, and she felt all the +combinations of effect to be particularly "striking and noble." In a paper +that Miss Barrett wrote in these days for the _Athenæum_, critically +surveying the poetic outlook of the time, she referred to Browning and +Tennyson as "among those high and gifted spirits who would still work and +wait." When this London journal reviewed (not too favorably) Browning's +"Romances and Lyrics," Miss Barrett took greatly to heart the injustice +that she felt was done him, and reverted to it in a number of personal +letters, expressing her conviction that "it would be easier to find a more +faultless writer than a poet of equal genius." An edition of Tennyson, in +two volumes, came out, including the "Ulysses," "Morte d'Arthur," +"Locksley Hall," and "OEnone," of which she says no one quite appeals to +her as does "OEnone," and she expresses her belief that philosophic +thinking, like music, is always involved in high ideality of any kind. +Wordsworth she insisted upon estimating from his best, not from his +poorest work, and his "Ode" was to her so grand as to atone for a +multitude of poetic sins. "I confess," she wrote to Boyd, "that he is not +unfrequently heavy and dull, and that Coleridge has an intenser genius." +To her cousin, Kenyon, Miss Barrett sent the manuscript of her poem, "The +Dead Pan," which he showed to Browning, who wrote of it to Kenyon with +ardent admiration. This note was sent to Miss Barrett, who displayed it to +Horne that he might see the opinion of the poet whom they both admired. +Still later, Horne published in his "New Spirit of the Age" sketches of +several writers with their portraits; and those of Carlyle, Miss +Martineau, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, Miss Barrett had framed for +her own room. She asked Kenyon if that of Browning were a good one. +"Rather like," he replied. So here and there the Fates were invisibly at +work, forging the subtle threads that were drawing the poets unconsciously +nearer. + +It was the suggestion of Browning's publisher, Moxon, that "Bells and +Pomegranates" might be issued in pamphlet form, appearing at intervals, as +this plastic method would be comparatively inexpensive, and would also +permit the series to be stopped at any time if its success was not of a +degree to warrant continuance. The poet found his title, as he afterward +explained in a letter to Miss Barrett, in Exodus, "... upon the hem of the +robe thou shalt make pomegranates of blue and of purple, and of scarlet, +and bells of gold between them round about." After "Pippa Passes" there +followed "King Victor and King Charles," a number of Lyrics, "The Return +of the Druses," "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," "Luria," and "A Soul's +Tragedy." On each of the title-pages the author was named as the writer of +"Paracelsus," "Sordello" being ignored. Among the dedications of these +several numbers those so honored included John Kenyon, Proctor, and +Talfourd. + +Browning offered "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" to Macready (whose stage +fortunes at this period were not brilliant), with the remark that "The +luck of the third venture is proverbial." The actor consulted Forster, who +passed the play on to Dickens, to whom it deeply appealed. Under date of +November 25, 1842, Dickens wrote of it to Forster in the most enthusiastic +words, saying the reading of it had thrown him "into a perfect passion of +sorrow," and that it was "full of genius, natural, and great thoughts,... +and I swear it is a tragedy that must be played, and played by Macready," +continued the novelist. "And tell Browning that I believe from my soul +there is no man living (and not many dead) who could produce such a work." +Forster did not, however, administer this consolation to the young author, +who was only to learn of Dickens's admiration thirty years later, when +Forster's biography of him appeared. The story of the production of the +play is told in a letter from Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett (then in New +Zealand), written under date of May, 1843, dated from Arnould's home in +Victoria Square, Pimlico: + + "As one must begin somewhere, suppose we take Browning.... In February + his play, 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,' was announced as forthcoming at + Drury Lane.... Meantime, judicious friends had a habit of asking when + the play was coming out...."[5] + + +A long chapter of vexations is humorously described by Domett, who +concludes his letter with this tribute to the play. + + "... With some of the finest situations and grandest 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, which I need not tell you is, for 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 Browning's genius and the great things he is yet to do, + in the minds not only of a clique, but of the general world of + readers. This man will go far yet...." + + +While this vexation cancelled the friendly relations that had existed +between Browning and Macready, it fostered the friendship between the poet +and Helen Faucit (later Lady Martin), who remembered Browning's attitude +"as full of generous sympathy" for the actors of the cast; while he +recalled Miss Faucit's "perfect behavior as a woman, and her admirable +playing, as the one gratifying factor" in the affair. But Browning was too +noble by nature for any lasting resentment, and meeting Macready soon +after the death of both his own wife, in Italy, and of Mrs. Macready, he +could only grasp his old friend's hand and exclaim with emotion, "Oh, +Macready!" + +In the autumn of 1844 Browning set forth for Italy on his second visit. +Two years before his friend Domett had left England for New Zealand, +commemorated by the poet in the lines,-- + + "How, forsooth, was I to know it + If Waring meant to glide away + Like a ghost at break of day." + + +Browning landed at Naples, and there, according to Mrs. Orr, he became +acquainted with a young Neapolitan, Signor Scotti, who took the +bargaining of their tour upon himself, after they had agreed to travel +together, "and now as I write," said Mr. Browning in a letter from his +Naples hotel to his sister Sarianna, "I hear him disputing our bill. He +does not see why we should pay for six wax candles when we have used only +two." The pair wandered over the enchanting shores of all the Naples +region, lingered in Sorrento, drove over the picturesque road to Amalfi, +and listened to the song of the sirens along the shore. Their arrival in +Rome was Browning's first sight of the Eternal City. Here Mr. Browning +found an old friend, the Contessa Carducci, with whom the two passed most +of their evenings. He made his poetic pilgrimage to the graves of Shelley +and Keats, as do all later pilgrims, and he visited the grotto of Egeria +in memory of Byron. He loitered in the old _chiesa_ near Santa Maria +Maggiore, where the sixteenth century Bishop "ordered his tomb," and he +visited Trelawney in Leghorn. There exists little record of this trip save +in the poem "The Englishman in Italy," and his return to England through +Germany is alike unrecorded. + +Six years had passed since the publication of "The Seraphim and Other +Poems," and on Mr. Browning's arrival at home again, he found two new +volumes of Miss Barrett's, entitled simply "Poems," in which were "A Drama +of Exile," "Bertha in the Lane," "Catarina to Camoens," "A Vision of +Poets," nearly all of the sonnets that she ever wrote save that immortal +sequence, "Sonnets from the Portuguese," and "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." +These volumes absolutely established her poetic rank with that of Tennyson +and Browning. She "heard the nations praising her far off." While she had +many expressions of grateful gladness for all this chorus of praise with +hardly a dissenting voice, the verdict did not affect her own high +standards. "I have written these poems as well as I could," she says, "and +I hope to write others better. I have not reached my own ideal ... but I +love poetry more than I love my own successes in it." + +Her love of absolute truth, and the absence of any petty self-love in her +character, stand out in any study of her life. "Why, if you had told me +that my books were without any value in your eyes, do you imagine that I +should not have valued you, reverenced you ever after for your truth, so +sacred a thing in friendship?" she writes to a friend. + +The reviews are eminently appreciative and satisfying. _Blackwood's_ gave +a long critique in a special article, frankly pointing out faults, but +asserting that her merits far outweighed her defects, and that her genius +"was profound, unsullied, and without a flaw." The long poem, "A Drama of +Exile" was pronounced the least successful of all, and the prime favorite +was "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Of this poem of ninety-two stanzas, with +eleven more in its "Conclusion," thirty-five of the stanzas, or one +hundred and forty-four lines, were written in one day. + +Though lack of health largely restricted Miss Barrett to her room, her +sympathies and interests were world-wide. She read the reviews of the +biography of Dr. Arnold, a work she desired to read, entire, and records +that "Dr. Arnold must have been a man in the largest and noblest sense." +She rejoices in the refutation of Puseyism that is offered in the +_Edinburgh Review_; she reads "an admirable paper by Macaulay" in the same +number; she comments on the news that Newman has united himself with the +Catholic Church; and in one letter she writes that Mr. Horne has not +returned to England and adds: "Mr. Browning is not in England, either, so +that whatever you send for him must await his return from the east, or +west, or south, wherever he is; Dickens is in Italy; even Miss Mitford +talks of going to France, and the 'New Spirit of the Age' is a wandering +spirit." + +In her "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" had occurred the lines: + + "Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate,' which, if cut deep down the + middle, + Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity." + + +A certain consciousness of each other already stirred in the air for +Browning and Miss Barrett, and still closer were the Fates drawing the +subtle threads of destiny. + +It was in this November that Mrs. Jameson first came into Miss Barrett's +life, coming to the door with a note, and "overcoming by kindness was let +in." This initiated a friendship that was destined in the near future to +play its salient part in the life of Elizabeth Barrett. In what orderly +sequence the links of life appear, viewed retrospectively! + +She "gently wrangles" with Mr. Boyd for addressing her as "Miss Barrett," +deprecating such cold formality, and offering him his choice of her little +pet name "Ba" or of Elizabeth. + +She reads Hans Christian Andersen's "Improvisatore," and in reply to some +expressed wonder at her reading so many novels she avows herself "the most +complete and unscrupulous romance reader" possible; and adds that her love +of fiction began with her breath, and will end with it; "and it goes on +increasing. On my tombstone may be written," she continued, "'_Ci gît_ the +greatest novel reader in the world,' and nobody will forbid the +inscription." + +And so the prelude of her life draws to a close, and the future is to be +no more the mere living "with visions for her company," for now, in this +January of 1845, she has a letter from Browning, and she writes: "I had a +letter from Browning, the poet, last night, which threw me into +ecstasies,--Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' and king of the +mystics." Not long after she writes that she is getting deeper and deeper +into correspondence with Robert Browning, and that they are growing to be +the truest of friends. Lowell writes to Miss Barrett regarding her poems, +though the letter does not seem to be anywhere on record, and she writes +to Mr. Westwood that in her view Mr. Browning's power is of a very high +order, and that he must read "Paracelsus." In its author she finds one who +"speaks true oracles." She finds "Colombe's Birthday" exquisite, and +"Pippa Passes" she "kneels to, with deepest reverence." + +The first letter of Browning to Miss Barrett was written on January 10 of +this year (1845), and he began with the words: "I love your verses with +all my heart, dear Miss Barrett." He enters into the "fresh strange music, +the exquisite pathos, and true, brave thought" of her work; and reminds +her that Kenyon once asked him if he would like to see Miss Barrett, but +that she did not feel able, and he felt as if close to some world's +wonder, but the half-opened door shut. Her reply, which is dated the next +day, thanks him for his sympathy and offers him her gratitude, "agreeing +that of all the commerce from Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy +for gratitude is the most princely thing." And she craves a lasting +obligation in that he shall suggest her master-faults in poetry. She does +not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism, and possibly +might not be at all obedient to it, but she has such high respect for his +power in Art, and his experience as an artist. She refers to Mr. Kenyon as +her friend and helper, and her books' friend and helper, "critic and +sympathizer, true friend at all hours!" and she adds that "while I live to +follow this divine art of poetry ... I must be a devout student and +admirer of your works." + +Browning is made very happy by her words, and he feels that his poor +praise "was nearly as felicitously brought out as a certain tribute to +Tasso, which amused me in Rome some weeks ago," he says. "In a neat +penciling on the wall by his tomb at Sant' Onofrio--'_Alla cara +memoria--di--Torquato Tasso--il Dottore Bernardini--offriva--il sequente +Carme--tu_'--and no more; the good man, it would seem, breaking down with +the over-load of love here! But my '_O tu_' was breathed out most +sincerely, and now you have taken it in gracious part, the rest will come +after." And then he must repeat (to himself) that her poetry must be +infinitely more to him than his could be to her, "for you do what I have +only hoped to do." And he hopes she will nevermore talk of "the honor" of +his acquaintance, but he will joyfully wait for the delight of her +friendship. And to his fear that she may hate letter-writing she replies +suggesting that nobody likes writing to everybody, but it would be strange +and contradictory if she were not always delighted to hear from and to +write to him; and she can read any manuscript except the writing on the +pyramids, and if he will only treat her _en bon camarade_ "without +reference to the conventionalities of 'ladies and gentlemen'"; taking no +thought for his sentences (or hers), "nor for your badd speling nor for +mine," she is ready to sign and seal the contract of correspondence. And +while she throws off the ceremony, she holds faster to the kindness. She +is overjoyed with this cordial sympathy. "Is it true," she asks, "that I +know so little of you? And is it true that the productions of an artist do +not partake of his real nature? It is not true to my mind,--and therefore +it is not true that I know little of you, except in so far as it is true +that your greatest works are to come.... I think--if I may dare name +myself with you in the poetic relation--that we both have high views of +the Art we follow and steadfast purpose in the pursuit of it.... And that +neither of us would be likely to be thrown from the course by the casting +of any Atalanta ball of speedy popularity. + +"And after all that has been said and mused upon the anxiety experienced +by the true artist,--is not the good immeasurably greater than the evil? +For my part I sometimes wonder how, without such an object and purpose of +life, people contrive to live at all." + +And her idea of happiness "lies deep in poetry and its associations." And +he replies that what he has printed "gives no knowledge of me," and that +he has never begun what he hopes he was born to begin and end--"R. B. a +poem." + +"Do you know Tennyson?" she asks, "that is, with a face to face knowledge? +I have great admiration for him," she continues. "In execution he is +exquisite,--and in music a most subtle weigher out to the ear of fine +airs." And she asks if he knows what it is to covet his neighbor's +poetry,--not his fame, but his poetry. It delights her to hear of his +garden full of roses and his soul full of comforts. She finds the +conception of his Pippa "most exquisite, and altogether original." + +In one of Miss Barrett's letters a few weeks later there seems discernible +a forecast of "Aurora Leigh," when she writes that her chief intention is +the writing "of a sort of novel-poem," and one "as completely modern as +'Geraldine's Courtship,' running into the midst of our conventions, and +rushing into drawing-rooms and the like 'where angels fear to tread'; and +so meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, and +speaking the truth, as I conceive of it, out plainly." She is waiting for +a story; she will not take one, because she likes to make her own. Here is +without doubt the first conception of "Aurora Leigh." + +Touching on Life in another letter, she records her feeling that "the +brightest place in the house is the leaning out of the window." + +Browning replies: "And pray you not to lean out of the window when my own +foot is only on the stair."... + +"But I did not mean to strike a tragic chord," she replies; "indeed I did +not. As to 'escaping with my life,' it was just a phrase ... for the rest +I am essentially better ... and feel as if it were intended for me to live +and not to die." And referring to a passage relating to Prometheus she +asks: "And tell me, if Æschylus is not the divinest of all the divine +Greek souls?" She continues: + + "But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are not + to think--whatever I may have written or implied--that I lean either + to the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world through + darkness instead of light ... and after a course of bitter mental + discipline and long bodily seclusion I come out with two lessons + learned--the wisdom of cheerfulness and the duty of social + intercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude in + society.... What we call life is a condition of the soul, and the soul + must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault.... And + I do like to hear testimonies like yours, to happiness, and I feel it + to be a testimony of a higher sort than the obvious one.... Remember, + that as you owe your unscathed joy to God, you should pay it back to + His world. I thank you for some of it already." + +And she feels how kind he is,--how gently and kindly he speaks to her. In +his next letter he alludes with much feeling to her idea of the +poem-novel: + + "The Poem you propose to make; the fresh, fearless, living work you + describe, is the only Poem to be undertaken now by you or any one who + is a poet at all; the only reality, only effective piece of service to + be rendered God or man; it is what I have been all my life intending + to do, and now shall be much nearer doing since you will be along with + me. And you can do it, I know and am sure,--so sure that I could find + it in my heart to be jealous of your stopping on the way even to + translate the Prometheus...." + + +The lovers, for such they already are, however unconsciously to both, fall +into a long discussion of Prometheus, and the Greek drama in general, and +in another letter, with allusion to his begging her to take her own good +time in writing, she half playfully proffers that it is her own bad time +to which she must submit. "This implacable weather!" she writes; "this +east wind that seems to blow through the sun and the moon!... There will +be a May and June if we live to see such things," and then she speaks of +seeing him besides, and while she recognizes it is morbid to shrink and +grow pale in the spirit, yet not all her fine philosophy about social +duties quite carries her through. But "if he thinks she shall not like to +see him, he is wrong, for all his learning." What pathos of revelation of +this brave, celestial spirit, tenanting the most fragile of bodies, is +read in the ensuing passage: + + "What you say of society draws me on to many comparative thoughts of + your life and mine. You seem to have drunken of the cup of life full + with the sun shining on it. I have lived only inwardly, or with sorrow + for a strong emotion. Before this seclusion of my illness I was + secluded still, and there are few of the youngest women in the world + who have not seen more, known more, of society, than I, who am hardly + to be called young now. I grew up in the country, had no social + opportunities, had my heart in books and poetry, and my experience in + reveries.... Books and dreams were what I lived in--and domestic life + seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees about the grass.... Why, + if I live on and escape this seclusion, do you not perceive that I + labor under signal disadvantages, that I am, in a manner, a blind + poet?... I have had much of the inner life ... but how willingly would + I exchange some of this ponderous, helpless knowledge of books for + some experience of life.... But grumbling is a vile thing, and we + should all thank God for our measures of life, and think them + enough.... Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live + while I write--it is life for me. Why, what is it to live? Not to eat + and drink and breathe,--but to feel the life in you down all the + fibers of being, passionately and joyfully.... + + "Ah, you tempt me with a grand vision of Prometheus!... I am inclined + to think that we want new forms.... The old gods are dethroned. Why + should we go back to the antique moulds? If it is a necessity of Art + to do this, then those critics are right who hold that Art is + exhausted.... I do not believe this; and I believe the so-called + necessity of Art to be the mere feebleness of the artist. Let us all + aspire rather to Life.... For there is poetry everywhere...." + + +Miss Barrett writes to him, continuing the discussion of poetry as an Art, +that she does not want "material as material, but that every life requires +a full experience," and she has a profound conviction that a poet is at a +lamentable disadvantage if he has been shut from most of the outer aspects +of life. And he, replying, deprecates a little the outward life for a +poet, with amusing references to a novel of D'Israeli's, where, "lo, +dinner is done, and Vivian Grey is here, and Violet Fane there, and a +detachment of the party is drafted off to catch butterflies." But still he +partly agrees, and feels that her Danish novel ("The Improvisatore") must +be full of truth and beauty, and "that a Dane should write so, confirms me +in a belief that Italy is stuff for the use of the North and no more--pure +Poetry there is none, as near as possible none, in Dante, even;... and +Alfieri,... with a life of travel, writes you some fifteen tragedies as +colorless as salad grown under a garden glass...." But she--if she asks +questions about novels it is because she wants to see him by the refracted +lights, as well as by the direct ones; and Dante's poetry--"only material +for northern rhymers?" She must think of that before she agrees with him. + +As for Browning, he bids her remember that he writes letters to no one but +her; but there is never enough of telling her.... And she, noting his +sitting up in the morning till six, and sleeping only till nine, wants to +know "how 'Lurias' can be made out of such ungodly imprudences? And what +is the reasonableness of it," she questions, "when we all know that +thinking, dreaming, creative people, like yourself, have two lives to bear +instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others"; and he is +anticipating the day when he shall see her with his own eyes, and now a +day is named on which he will call, and he begs her not to mind his coming +in the least, for if she does not feel able to see him he will come again, +and again, as his time is of no importance. + +It was on the afternoon of May 20 (1845) that Robert Browning and +Elizabeth Barrett first met, and of them it could almost have been said, +in words ascribed to Michael Angelo for Vittoria Colonna,-- + + "We are the only two, that, face to face, + Do know each other, as God doth know us both." + + +It is said that the first letter of Browning's to her after this meeting +is the only one destroyed of all this wonderful correspondence; and this +was such a letter as could only be interpreted into a desire for marriage, +which she, all tender thoughtfulness always for others, characteristically +felt would be fatal to his happiness because of her invalid state. He +begged her to return the letter, and he then destroyed it; and again +pleaded that their friendship and intellectual comradeship should +continue. "Your friendship and sympathy will be dear and precious to me +all my life, if you indeed leave them with me so long, or so little," she +writes; and she utterly forbids any further expression or she must do this +"to be in my own eyes and before God a little more worthy, or a little +less unworthy, of a generosity...." And he discreetly veils his ardors for +the time, and the wonderful letters run on. + + +[Illustration: MONUMENT TO MICHAEL ANGELO, BY VASARI + +CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE. + + "_They are safe in heaven...._ + _The Michaels and Rafaels...._" + +Old Pictures in Florence.] + + +He is writing "The Flight of the Duchess," and sending it to her by +installments; she finds it "past speaking of," and she also refers to +"exquisite pages" of Landor's in the "Pentameron." And poems which he has +left with her,--she must have her own gladness from them in her own way. +And did he go to Chelsea, and hear the divine philosophy? + +Apparently he did, for he writes: + + "Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone--his wife is in + the country where he will join her as soon as the book's last proof + sheets are corrected.... He was all kindness, and talked like his own + self while he made me tea--and would walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge + with me on my way home." + + +She writes: + + "I had a letter yesterday from Charles Hemans, the son of Felicia, ... + who says his mother's memory is surrounded to him 'with almost a + divine lustre,'... and is not that better than your tradition about + Shelley's son? and is it not pleasant to know that the noble, + pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of our country, should be so + loved and comprehended by one, at least, of her own house?" + + +Under date of August 25, Miss Barrett has been moved to write out the +pathetic story of her brother Edward's death. He had accompanied her to +Torquay,--he, "the kindest, the noblest, the dearest, and when the time +came for him to return I, weakened by illness, could not master my spirits +or drive back my tears," and he then decided not to leave her. "And ten +days from that day," she continued, "the boat left the shore which never +returned--and he had left me! For three days we waited,--oh, that awful +agony of three days!... Do not notice what I have written to you, my +dearest friend. I have never said so much to a living being--I never could +speak or write of it...." + +But he writes her that "better than being happy in her happiness, is it +to participate in her sorrow." And the very last day of that August he +writes that he has had such power over himself as to keep silent ... but +"Let me say now--this only once,--that I loved you from my soul, and gave +you my life, as much of it as you would take, and all that ... is +independent of any return on your part." She assures him that he has +followed the most generous of impulses toward her, "yet I cannot help +adding that, of us two, yours has not been quite the hardest part." She +confesses how deeply she is affected by his words, "but what could I +speak," she questions, "that would not be unjust to you?... Your life! if +you gave it to me and I put my whole heart into it, what should I put in +but anxiety, and more sadness than you were born to? What could I give you +which it would not be ungenerous to give?" + +There was a partial plan that Miss Barrett should pass that next winter in +Pisa, but owing to the strange and incalculable disposition of her father, +who, while he loved her, was singularly autocratic in his treatment, the +plan was abandoned. All this sorrow may have contributed to her confession +to Browning that no man had ever been to her feelings what he was; and +that if she were different in some respects she would accept the great +trust of his happiness.... "But we may be friends always," she continues, +"and cannot be so separated that the knowledge of your happiness will not +increase mine.... Worldly thoughts these are not at all, there need be no +soiling of the heart with any such;... you cannot despise the gold and +gauds of the world more than I do,... and even if I wished to be very +poor, in the world's sense of poverty, I could not, with three or four +hundred a year, of which no living will can dispossess me. And is not the +chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it?" But +he, perfect in his beautiful trust and tenderness, was "joyfully +confident" that the way would open, and he thanks God that, to the utmost +of his power, he has not been unworthy of having been introduced to her. +He is "no longer in the first freshness of his life" and had for years +felt it impossible that he should ever love any woman. But he will wait. +That she "cannot dance like Cerito" does not materially disarrange his +plan! And by the last of those September days she confesses that she is +his "for everything but to do him harm," he has touched her so profoundly, +and now "none, except God and your own will, shall interpose between you +and me." And he answered her in such words as these: + + "When I come back from seeing you and think over it all, there is + never a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with...." + + +In a subsequent letter Elizabeth Barrett questions: "Could it be that +heart and life were devastated to make room for you? if so it was well +done." And she sends thanks to Browning's sister, Sarianna, for a copy of +Landor's verses. + +And with all these gracious and tenderly exquisite personal matters, the +letters are yet brilliant in literary allusion and criticism. + +During these three years from 1844 to 1847 were written the greater number +of Miss Barrett's finest lyrics. Those two remarkable poems, "A Rhapsody +of Life's Progress" and "Confessions"; "Loved Once"; "The Sleep" (the poem +which was read at her burial in the lovely, cypress-crowned cemetery in +Florence, and whose stanzas, set to music, were chanted by the choir in +Westminster Abbey when the body of her husband was laid in the "Poets' +Corner"), "The Dead Pan," and that most exquisite lyric of all, "Catarina +to Camoens," were all written during this period. + +The title of the latter was but a transparent veil for her own feelings +toward Robert Browning, and had she died in his absence, as Catarina did +in that of Camoens, the words would have expressed her own feeling. What +profound pathos is in the line, + + "Death is near me,--and not _you_," + +and how her own infinite sweetness of spirit is mirrored in the stanza, + + "I will look out to his future; + I will bless it till it shine, + Should he ever be a suitor + Unto sweeter eyes than mine." + +And read her own self-revelation again in "A Denial," + + "We have met late--it is too late to meet, + O friend, not more than friend!" + +But the denial breaks down, and the last lines tell the story: + + "Here's no more courage in my soul to say + 'Look in my face and see.'" + +And in that last line of "Insufficiency," + + "I love thee so, Dear, that I only can leave thee." + +In "Question and Answer," in "Proof and Disproof," "A Valediction," "Loved +Once," and "Inclusions," he who reads between the lines and has the magic +of divination may read the story of her inner life. + +In the poem "Confessions" is touched a note of mystical, spiritual +romance, spiritual tragedy, wholly of the inner life, that entirely +differentiates from any other poetic expression of Mrs. Browning. In one +stanza occur these lines: + + "The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and + by night; + Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, + if ever so light." + +Even with all allowance for the imagination of the poet, these lines +reveal such feeling, such tremulous susceptibility, that with less +intellectual balance than was hers, combined with such lack of physical +vigor, would almost inevitably have resulted in failure of poise. The +current of spiritual energy was so strong with Elizabeth Barrett as to +largely take the place of greater physical strength. That she never +relapsed into the conditions of morbid invalidism is a marvel, and it is +also an impressive testimony to the power of spiritual energy to control +and determine physical conditions. + +All through that summer the letters run on, daily, semi-daily. Of his work +Browning writes that he shall be "prouder to begin one day,--may it be +soon!--with your hand in mine from the beginning." Miss Barrett, referring +to the Earl of Compton, who is reported from Rome as having achieved some +prominence as a painter, proceeds to say: + + "People in general would rather be Marquises than Roman artists, + consulting their own wishes and inclination. I, for my part, ever + since I could speak my mind and knew it, always openly and inwardly + preferred the glory of those who live by their heads, to the opposite + glory of those who carry other people's arms. So much for glory. + Happiness goes the same way to my fancy. There is something + fascinating to me in that Bohemian way of living.... All the + conventions of society cut so close and thin, that the soul can see + through.... Beyond, above. It is real life as you say ... whether at + Rome or elsewhere. I am very glad that you like simplicity in habits + of life--it has both reasonableness and sanctity.... I am glad that + you--who have had temptation enough, more than enough, I am sure, in + every form--have lived in the midst of this London of ours, close to + the great social vortex, yet have kept so safe, and free, and calm, + and pure from the besetting sins of our society." + + +Browning, in one letter, alluding to the prevailing stupidity of the idea +that genius and domestic happiness are incompatible, says: "We will live +the real answer, will we not?... A man of genius mistreats his wife; well, +take away the genius,--does he so instantly improve?" + +Of the attitude of his family toward their marriage he writes: + + "My family all love you, dearest,--you cannot conceive my father's and + mother's childlike faith in goodness--and my sister is very + high-spirited, and quick of apprehension--so as to seize the true + point of the case at once.... Last night I asked my father, who was + absorbed over some old book, if he should not be glad to see his new + daughter?--to which he, starting, replied, 'Indeed I shall'; with such + a fervor as to make my mother laugh,--not abated by his adding: 'And + how I should be glad of her seeing Sarianna!'" + +And she writes: + + "Shall we go to Greece, then, Robert? Let us, if you like it. When we + have used a little the charm of your Italy,... I should like to see + Athens with my living eyes.... Athens was in all the dreams I dreamed, + before I knew you. Why should we not see Athens, and Egypt, too, and + float down the mystical Nile, and stand in the shadow of the Pyramids? + All of it is more possible now, than walking up the street seemed to + me last year." + +And he writes that he always felt her "Wine of Cyprus" poem to fill his +heart "with unutterable desires." + +To book-lovers the question as to how many books may be taken on a +journey, or what volumes, indeed, may be left behind, is a vital one. The +reader will smile sympathetically at Miss Barrett's consultation with +Browning as to whether, if they do "achieve the peculiar madness of going +to Italy," they could take any books? And whether it would be well to so +arrange that they should not take duplicates? He advises the narrowest +compass for luggage. "We can return for what we want, or procure it +abroad," he says, made wise by his two Italian journeys; and he adds: + + "I think the fewer books we take the better; they take up room,--and + the wise way always seemed to me to read at home, and open one's eyes + and see abroad. A critic somewhere mentioned that as my + characteristic--there were two other poets he named placed in novel + circumstances ... in a great wood, for instance, Mr. Trench would + begin opening books to see how woods were treated ... the other man + would set to writing poetry forthwith,--and R. B. would sit still and + learn how to write after! A pretty compliment, I thought that. But, + seriously, there must be a great library at Pisa (with that + University) and abroad they are delighted to facilitate such + matters.... I have read in a chamber of the Doges' palace at Venice + painted all over by Tintoretto, walls and ceiling, and at Rome there + is a library with a learned priest always kept ready 'to solve any + doubts that may arise.'" + + +Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married on September 12, 1846, +in the church of St. Pancras, Marylebone, the only witnesses being his +cousin, James Silverthorne, and her maid, Wilson. To have taken her +sisters into her confidence would have been to expose them to the fairly +insane wrath of her father. "I hate and loathe everything which is +clandestine--we both do, Robert and I," said Mrs. Browning later; but this +was the only possible way. Had Mr. Browning spoken to her father in the +usual manner, "he would have been forbidden the house without a moment's +scruple," she explained to a friend; "and I should have been incapacitated +from any after exertion by the horrible scenes to which, as a thing of +course, I should have been exposed.... I cannot bear some words. In my +actual state of physical weakness, it would have been the sacrifice of my +whole life--of my convictions, of my affections, and, above all, of what +the person dearest to me persisted in calling his life, and the good of +it--if I had observed that 'form.' Therefore I determined not to observe +it, and I consider that in not doing so, I sinned against no duty. That I +was _constrained_ to act clandestinely, and did not _choose_ to do so, God +is my witness. Also, up to the very last, we stood in the light of day for +the whole world, if it please, to judge us. I never saw him out of the +Wimpole Street house. He came twice a week to see me, openly in the sight +of all." + +In no act of her life did Mrs. Browning more impressively reveal her good +sense than in this of her marriage. "I had long believed such an act," she +said, "the most strictly personal of one's life,--to be within the rights +of every person of mature age, man or woman, and I had resolved to +exercise that right in my own case by a resolution which had slowly +ripened. All the other doors of life were shut to me, and shut me as in a +prison, and only before this door stood one whom I loved best and who +loved me best, and who invited me out through it for the good's sake he +thought I could do him."... To a friend she explained her long refusal to +consent to the marriage, fearing that her delicate health would make it +"ungenerous" in her to yield to his entreaty; but he replied that + + "he would not tease me, he would wait twenty years if I pleased, and + then, if life lasted so long for both of us, then, when it was ending, + perhaps, I might understand him and feel that I might have trusted + him.... He preferred, he said, of free and deliberate choice, to be + allowed to sit only an hour a day by my side, to the fulfillment of + the brightest dream which should exclude me, in any possible world." + +She continues: + + "I tell you so much that you may see the manner of man I had to do + with, and the sort of attachment which for nearly two years has been + drawing and winning me. I know better than any in the world, indeed, + what Mr. Kenyon once unconsciously said before me, that 'Robert + Browning is great in every thing.'... Now may I not tell you that his + genius, and all but miraculous attainments, are the least things in + him, the moral nature being of the very noblest, as all who ever knew + him admit." + + +After the marriage ceremony Mrs. Browning drove with her maid to the home +of Mr. Boyd, resting there, as if making a morning call on a familiar +friend, until joined by her sisters, who took her for a little drive on +Hampstead Heath. For five days she remained in her father's house, and +during this time Browning could not bring himself to call and ask for his +wife as "Miss Barrett," so they arranged all the details of their journey +by letter. On September 19 they left for Paris, and the last one of these +immortal letters, written the evening before their departure, from Mrs. +Browning to her husband, contains these words: + + "By to-morrow at this time I shall have you, only, to love me, my + beloved! You, only! As if one said, God, only! And we shall have Him + beside, I pray of Him!" + +With her maid, Mrs. Browning walked out of her father's house the next +day, meeting her husband at a bookseller's around the corner of the +street, and they drove to the station, leaving for Southampton to catch +the night boat to Havre. + +Never could the world have understood the ineffable love and beauty and +nobleness of the characters of both Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, +had these letters been withheld from the public. Quite aside from the +deeper interest of their personal revelation,--the revelation of such +nobleness and such perfect mutual comprehension and tenderness of sympathy +as are here revealed,--the pages are full of interesting literary allusion +and comment, of wit, repartee, and of charm that defies analysis. It was a +wise and generous gift when the son of the poets, Robert Barrett +Browning, gave these wonderful letters to the reading public. The supreme +test of literature is that which contributes to the spiritual wealth of +the world. Measured by this standard, these are of the highest literary +order. No one can fail to realize how all that is noblest in manhood, all +that is holiest in womanhood, is revealed in this correspondence. + +Edmund Clarence Stedman, after reading these letters, said: "It would have +been almost a crime to have permitted this wonderful, exceptional +interchange of soul and mind, between these two strong, 'excepted' beings, +to leave no trace forever." + +Robert Barrett Browning, in referring to his publication of this +correspondence in a conversation with the writer of this volume, remarked +that he really had no choice in the matter, as the Apochryphal legends and +myths and improvisations that had even then begun to weave themselves +about the remarkable and unusual story of the acquaintance, courtship, and +marriage of his parents, could only be dissipated by the simple truth, as +revealed in their own letters. + +Their love took its place in the spiritual order; it was a bond that made +itself the mystic force in their mutual development and achievement; and +of which the woman, whose reverence for the Divine Life was the strongest +element in her nature, could yet say,-- + + "And I, who looked for only God, found thee!" + + +Life, as well as Literature, would have been the poorer had not Mr. +Barrett Browning so wisely and generously enriched both by the publication +of this correspondence. + +Not the least among the beautiful expressions that have been made by those +spirits so touched to fine issues as to enter into the spiritual +loveliness of these letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, is +a sonnet by a New England poet, Rev. William Brunton,--a poet who "died +too soon," but whose love for the poetry of the Brownings was as ardent as +it was finely appreciative: + + "Oh! dear departed saints of highest song, + Behind the screen of time your love lay hid, + Its fair unfoldment was in life forbid-- + As doing such divine affection wrong, + But now we read with interest deep and strong, + And lift from off the magic jar the lid, + And lo! your spirit stands the clouds amid + And speaks to us in some superior tongue! + + "Devotion such as yours is heavenly-wise, + And yet the possible of earth ye show; + Ye dwellers in the blue of summer skies, + Through you a finer love of love we know; + It is as if the angels moved with men, + And key of Paradise were found again!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +1846-1850 + + "And on her lover's arm she leant + And round her waist she felt it fold, + And far across the hills they went + To that new world which is the old. + Across the hills, and far away, + Beyond their utmost purple rim, + Beyond the night, beyond the day, + Through all the world she followed him." + + +MARRIAGE AND ITALY--"IN THAT NEW WORLD"--THE HAUNTS OF PETRARCA--THE MAGIC + LAND--IN PISA--VALLOMBROSA--"UN BEL GIRO"--GUERCINO'S ANGEL--CASA + GUIDI--BIRTH OF ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING--BAGNI DI LUCCA--"SONNETS + FROM THE PORTUGUESE"--THE ENCHANTMENT OF ITALY. + + +Paris, "and such a strange week it was," wrote Mrs. Browning to Miss +Mitford; "whether in the body, or out of the body, I can scarcely tell. +Our Balzac should be flattered beyond measure by my even thinking of him +at all." The journey from London to Paris was not then quite the swift and +easy affair it now is, the railroad between Paris and Havre not being then +completed beyond Rouen; still, such an elixir of life is happiness that +Mrs. Browning arrived in the French Capital feeling much better than when +she left London. Mrs. Jameson had only recently taken leave of Miss +Barrett on her sofa, and sympathetically offered to take her to Italy +herself for the winter with her niece; Miss Barrett had replied: "Not only +am I grateful to you, but happy to be grateful to you," but she had given +no hint of the impending marriage. Mrs. Jameson's surprise, on receiving +a note from Mrs. Browning, saying she was in Paris, was so great that her +niece, Geraldine Bate (afterward Mrs. MacPherson of Rome), asserted that +her aunt's amazement was "almost comical." Mrs. Jameson lost no time in +persuading the Brownings to join her and her niece at their quiet pension +in the Rue Ville l'Eveque, where they remained for a week,--this "strange +week" to Mrs. Browning. + +In Paris they visited the galleries of the Louvre, but did little +sight-seeing beyond, "being satisfied with the idea of Paris," she said. + +To a friend Mrs. Jameson wrote: + + "I have also here a poet and a poetess--two celebrities who have run + away and married under circumstances peculiarly interesting, and such + as render imprudence the height of prudence. Both excellent; but God + help them! for I know not how the two poet heads and poet hearts will + get on through this prosaic world." + + +As for ways and means, however, the Brownings were sufficiently provided. +He had a modest independence, and she also had in her own right a little +fortune of some forty thousand pounds, yielding three or four hundred +pounds a year; but in the July preceding their marriage Browning, with his +sensitive honor, insisted upon her making a will bequeathing this capital +to her own family. In a letter to him dated July 27 of that summer the +story of his insistence on this is revealed in her own words: "I will +write the paper as you bid me.... You are noble in all things ... but I +will not discuss it so as to tease you.... I send you the paper therefore, +to that end, and only to that end...." The "document," by Browning's +insistence, gave her property to her two sisters, in equal division, or, +in case of their death, to the surviving brothers. Nothing less than this +would satisfy Robert Browning. + +Meantime, there was the natural London comment. Wordsworth observed: "So +Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett have gone off together! It is to be +hoped they can understand each other, for no one else can." + +Mr. Kenyon wrote "the kindest letter" to them both, and pronounced them +"justified to the uttermost," and to Mrs. Browning he said: "I considered +that you had imperiled your life upon this undertaking and I still thought +you had done wisely!" But by that magic alchemy of love and happiness Mrs. +Browning only gained constantly in strength, and Mrs. Jameson pronounced +them "wise people, whether wild poets or not." + +Among the interesting comments on the marriage was Joseph Arnould's letter +to Alfred Domett, under date of November of that year. He wrote: + + "... I think the last piece of news I told you of was Browning's + marriage to Miss Barrett. She is, you know, our present greatest + living English poetess: ... she has been in the most absolute and + enforced seclusion from society; cultivating her mind to a wonderful + amount of accomplishment, instructing herself in all languages, + reading Chrysostom in the original Greek, and publishing the best + metrical translation that has yet appeared of the 'Prometheus + Bound'--having also found time to write three volumes of poetry, the + last of which raised her name to a place second only to that of + Browning and Tennyson, amongst all those who are not repelled by + eccentricities of external form from penetrating into the soul and + quintessential spirit of poetry that quickens the mould into which the + poet has cast it. Well, this lady, so gifted, so secluded, so + tyrannized over, fell in love with Browning in the spirit before ever + she saw him in the flesh--in plain English, loved the writer, before + she knew the man. Imagine, you who know him, the effect which his + graceful bearing, high demeanor, and noble speech must have had on + such a mind when first she saw the man of her visions in the twilight + of her darkened room. She was at once in love as a poet-soul only can + be; and Browning, as by contagion or electricity, was no less from + the first interview wholly in love with her.... He is a glorious + fellow! Oh, I forgot to say that the _soi-disante_ invalid, once + emancipated from the paternal despotism, has had a wondrous revival, + or rather, a complete metamorphosis; walks, rides, eats, and drinks + like a young and healthy woman,--in fact, is a healthy woman of, I + believe, some five and thirty. But one word covers all; they are in + Love, who lends his own youth to everything." + + +The journey from Paris to Italy, if less comfortable and expeditious than +now, was certainly more romantic, and the Brownings, in company with Mrs. +Jameson and her niece, fared forth to Orleans, and thence to Avignon, +where they rested for two days, making a poetic pilgrimage to Vaucluse, +where Petrarca had sought solitude. "There at the very source of the +'_chiare, fresche e dolci acque_,'" records Mrs. MacPherson in her +biography of Mrs. Jameson, "Mr. Browning took his wife up in his arms, and +carrying her across through the shallow, curling waters, seated her on a +rock that rose throne-like in the middle of the stream. Thus Love and +Poetry took a new possession of the spot immortalized by Petrarca's +fancy." + +From Marseilles they sailed to Livorno (Leghorn), the port only a few +miles from Pisa. The voyage was a delight to Mrs. Browning. She was +enchanted with the beautiful panorama of the Riviera as they sailed down +the coast, where the terraces of mountains rise, with old castles and +ruins often crowning their summits, and the white gleam of the hill-towns +against a background of blue sky. All the Spezzia region was haunted by +memories of Shelley; Lerici, where last he had lived, was plainly in view, +and they gazed sadly at Viareggio, encircled by pine woods and mountains, +where the body of the poet had been found. In Pisa they took rooms in the +Collegio Fernandino, in the Piazza del Duomo, in that corner of Pisa +wherein are grouped the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, and +the Campo Santo, all in this consummate beauty of silence and +seclusion,--a splendor of abandoned glory. All the stir of life (if, +indeed, one may dream of life in Pisa) is far away on the other side of +the city; to this corner is left the wraith-like haunted atmosphere, where +only shadows flit over the grass, and the sunset reflections linger on the +Tower. A statue of Cosimo di Medici was near; the Lanfranchi palace, where +Byron had lived, was not far away, on the banks of the Arno. They quite +preferred the Duomo and the Campo Santo to social festivities, and +Professor Ferrucci offered them all the hospitalities of the University +library. They had an apartment of four rooms, "matted and carpeted," +coffee and rolls in the morning, dinner at the Trattoria, "thrushes and +chianti with a marvelous cheapness, no trouble, no cook, no kitchen; the +prophet Elijah, or the lilies of the field, took as little thought for +their dining," writes Mrs. Browning, "and it exactly suits us. At nine we +have our supper of roast chestnuts and grapes.... My head goes round +sometimes. I was never happy before in my life.... And when I am so good +as to let myself be carried up-stairs, and so angelical as to sit still on +the sofa, and so considerate as not to put my foot into a puddle, why, my +duty is considered done to a perfection worthy all adoration.... Mrs. +Jameson and Geraldine are staying in the hotel, and we manage to see them +every day; so good and true and affectionate she is, and so much we shall +miss her when she goes.... Our present residence we have taken for six +months, but we have dreams, and we discuss them like soothsayers over the +evening grapes and chestnuts." + +That in London Mrs. Jameson, on her first call on Miss Barrett, should +have so winningly insisted on being admitted to her room as to be +successful, almost to Miss Barrett's own surprise, seems, when seen in +connection with the way in which Fate was to throw them together +afterward, in Italy, to have been one of those "foreordained" happenings +of life. + +They heard a musical mass for the dead in the Campo Santo; they walked +under orange trees with golden fruit hanging above their heads; they took +drives to the foot of the mountains, and watched the reflections in the +little lake of Ascuno. Mrs. Browning, from her windows, could see the +cathedral summit glitter whitely, between the blue sky and its own yellow +marble walls. Beautiful and tender letters came to them both from Mr. +Kenyon, and they heard that Carlyle had said that he hoped more from +Robert Browning, for the people of England, than from any other living +English writer. All of these things entered into the very fiber of their +Pisan days. Pisa seemed to her a beautiful town,--it could not be less, +she felt, with Arno and its palaces, and it was to her full of repose, but +not desolate. Meantime, Mr. Browning was preparing for a new edition of +his collected poems. + +Curiously, all the biographers of Robert Browning have recorded that it +was during this sojourn in Pisa that the "Sonnets from the Portuguese" +were first made known to him. Dr. Dowden quotes the story as given by Mr. +Edmund Gosse, and Mr. Gosse cites Browning himself as his authority. Yet +there was some mistake, as the Sonnets were not seen by Mr. Browning till +some time later. + +Robert Barrett Browning, in Florence, in the spring of 1910, in reply to a +question asked by the writer of this book in regard to the accuracy of +this impression, replied that both Mr. Gosse and Dr. Dowden were mistaken; +as his mother did not show these "Sonnets" to his father until the summer +of 1849, when they were at Bagni di Lucca. Mr. Gosse must in some way have +mistaken Mr. Browning's words, and the error has perpetuated itself +through every successive biography of the poet. + +The first home of the Brownings in Florence was in an apartment near +Santa Maria Novella, where the Italian sunshine burned fiercely, and where +Mrs. Browning exclaimed that she began to comprehend the possibility of +St. Lawrence's ecstasies on the gridiron. "Yet there have been cool +intermissions," she wrote, "and as we have spacious and airy rooms, and as +we can step out of the window on a balcony terrace which is quite private, +and swims over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon +watermelons, and iced water, and figs, and all manner of fruit, we bear +the heat with angelic patience." + +There was a five days' interlude at Vallombrosa, which the poets vainly +entreated the monks to prolong to two months, but the brethren would have +none of the presence of two women,--Mrs. Browning and her maid, Wilson. So +they perforce left these fascinating hills, "a sea of hills looking alive +among the clouds." Still further up above the monastery was the old +Hermitage now transformed into a hotel. It was here that Migliorotti +passed many years, asserting that he could only think of it as Paradise, +and thus it came to be known as Paradisino, the name it still bears. Far +below in a dim distance lies Florence, with her domes and towers on which +the sunshine glitters, or the white moonlight of the Val d'Arno shines; +and on every hand are the deep valleys and crevasses, the Val di Sieve, +the Val di Casentino, and the height of San Miniato in Alpe. Castles and +convents, or their ruins, abound; and here Dante passed, and there St. +Benedict, and again is the path still holy with the footsteps of St. +Francis. The murmuring springs that feed the Arno are heard in the hills; +and the vast solitudes of the wood, with their ruined chapels and shrines, +made this sojourn to the Brownings something to be treasured in memory +forever. They even wandered to that beautiful old fifteenth-century +church, Santa Maria delle Grazie Vallombrosella, "a daughter of the +monastery of Vallombrosa," where were works of Robbia, and saw the blue +hills rise out of the green forests in their infinite expanse. + + +[Illustration: OLD MONASTERY AT VALLOMBROSA + + "_And Vallombrosa we two went to see_ + _Last June beloved companion..._" + +Casa Guidi Windows.] + + +When they fared forth for Vallombrosa, it was at four o'clock in the +morning, Mrs. Browning being all eagerness and enthusiasm for this +matutinal pilgrimage. Reaching Pelago, their route wound for five miles +along a "_via non rotabile_," through the most enchanting scenery, to +Pontassieve. + + "Oh! such mountains," wrote Mrs. Browning of this + never-to-be-forgotten journey, "as if the whole world were alive with + mountains--such ravines--black in spite of flashing waters in + them--such woods and rocks--traveled in basket sledges drawn by four + white oxen--Wilson and I and the luggage--and Robert riding step by + step. We were four hours doing the five miles, so you may fancy what + rough work it was. Whether I was most tired or charmed was a _tug_ + between body and soul. + + "The worst was that," she continued, "there being a new abbot at the + monastery--an austere man, jealous of his sanctity and the approach of + women--our letter, and Robert's eloquence to boot, did nothing for us, + and we were ingloriously and ignominiously expelled at the end of five + days." + + +While the Brownings were in Vallombrosa Arnould wrote to Alfred Domett: + + "Browning is spending a luxurious year in Italy--is, at this present + writing, with his poetess bride dwelling in some hermit hut in + Vallombrosa, where the Etruscan shades high overarched embower. He + never fails to ask pressingly about you, and I give him all your + messages. I would to God he would purge his style of + obscurities,--that the wide world would, and the gay world and even + the less illuminated part of the thinking world, know his greatness + even as we do. I find myself reading 'Paracelsus' and the 'Dramatic + Lyrics' more often than anything else in verse." + + +They descended, perforce, into Florence again, burning sunshine and all, +the abbot of the monastery having someway confounded their pleadings with +the temptation of St. Anthony, as something to be as heroically resisted. +They set up their household gods in the shades of the Via delle Belle +Donne, near the Duomo, where dinners, "unordered," Mrs. Browning said, +"come through the streets, and spread themselves on our table, as hot as +if we had smelt cutlets hours before." She found Florence "unspeakably +beautiful," both by grace of nature and of art, but they planned to go to +Rome in the early autumn, taking an apartment "over the Tarpeian rock." +Later this plan was relinquished, and with an apartment on their hands for +six months they yet abandoned it, for want of sunshine, and removed to +Casa Guidi. + + "Think what we have done," wrote Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford; "taken + two houses, that is, two apartments, each for six months, pre-signing + the contract. You will set it down to excellent poet's work in the way + of domestic economy, but the fault was altogether mine, for my + husband, to please me, took rooms with which I was not pleased for + three days, through the absence of sunshine. The consequence was that + we had to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go, ourselves, but + you can scarcely fancy the wonderful difference which the sun makes in + Italy. So away we came into the blaze of him into the Piazza Pitti; + precisely opposite the Grand Duke's palace; I with my remorse, and + poor Robert without a single reproach. Any other man, a little lower + than the angels, would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere + relief of the thing,--but as for his being angry with me for any cause + except not eating enough dinner, the said sun would turn the wrong way + first." + + +Mrs. Browning's dog, Flush, was a member of the household not to be +ignored, and her one source of consolation, in being turned away from the +Vallombrosa summer, lay in the fact that "Flush hated it," and was +frightened by the vast and somber pine forests. "Flush likes civilized +life," said Mrs. Browning laughingly, "and the society of little dogs +with turned-up tails, such as abound in Florence." + +So now they bestowed themselves in "rooms yellow with sunshine from +morning till night," in Casa Guidi, where, "for good omen," they looked +down on the old gray church of San Felice. There was a large, square +anteroom, where the piano was placed, with one large picture, picked up in +an obscure street in Florence; and a little dining-room, whose walls were +covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and +of Robert Browning; a long, narrow room, wraith-like with plaster casts +and busts, was Mr. Browning's study, while she had her place in the large +drawing-room, looking out upon the ancient church. Its old pictures of +saints, gazing sadly from their sepulchral frames of black wood, with here +and there a tapestry, and with the lofty, massive bookcases of Florentine +carving, all gave the room a medieval look. Almost could one fancy that it +enthroned the "fairy lady of Shalott," who might weave + + "... from day to day, + A magic web of colors gay." + +Dante's grave profile, a cast of the face of Keats taken after death, and +a few portraits of friends, added their interest to the atmosphere of a +salon that seemed made for poets' uses. There were vast expanses of +mirrors in the old carved Florentine frames, a colossal green velvet sofa, +suggesting a catafalque, and a supernaturally deep easy-chair, in the same +green velvet, which was Mrs. Browning's favorite seat when she donned her +singing robes. Near this low arm-chair was always her little table, strewn +with writing materials, books, and newspapers. Other tables in the +_salotto_ bore gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. On the +floor of a bedroom were the arms (in scabola), of the last count who had +lived in this apartment, and there was a picturesque oil-jar, to hold +rain-water, which Mrs. Browning declared would just hold the Captain of +the Forty Thieves. All in all, the poets vowed they would not change homes +with the Grand Duke himself, who was their neighbor in the Palazzo Pitti +at the distance of a stone's throw. In the late afternoons they would +wander out to the Loggia dei Lanzi, where Mrs. Browning greatly admired +Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa, and they watched "the divine +sunsets on the Arno, turning it to pure gold under the bridges." Sometimes +they were joined by Hiram Powers, who was one of their earliest friends in +Florence, "our chief friend and favorite," Mrs. Browning said of him, and +she found him a "simple, straightforward, genial American, as simple as +the man of genius he has proved himself need be." Another friend of these +early days was Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, somewhat a poet, +withal, who, with her mother, was domiciled in the Villa Careggi, in which +Lorenzo il Magnifico died, and which was loaned to the Boyles by Lord +Holland. Miss Boyle frequently dropped in on them in the evening, "to +catch us at hot chestnuts and mulled wine," said Mrs. Browning, "and a +good deal of laughing she and Robert make between them." On the terrace of +Casa Guidi orange trees and camellias bloomed, and the salons with their +"rococo chairs, spring sofas, carved bookcases, and satin from Cardinals' +beds," were a picturesque haunt. The ideal and poetic life of Mrs. +Browning, so far from isolating her from the ordinary day and daylight +duties, invested these, instead, with glow and charm and playful repartee; +and, indeed, her never-failing sense of humor transformed any +inconvenience or inadvertence into amusement. She, who is conceded to have +written the finest sonnets since Shakespeare, could also mend a coat for +her husband with a smile and a Greek epigram. + + +[Illustration: THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. + +GUERCINO. CHURCH OF SAN AGOSTINO, FANO, ITALY + + "_Guercino drew this angel I saw teach_ + (_Alfred, dear friend!_) _that little child to pray._" + +The Guardian Angel; A Picture at Fano.] + + +Joseph Arnould again wrote to their mutual friend, Domett: + + "Browning and his wife are still in Florence; both ravished with Italy + and Italian life; so much so, that I think for some years they will + make it the Paradise of their poetical exile. I hold fast to my faith + in 'Paracelsus.' Browning and Carlyle are my two crowning men amongst + the highest English minds of the day. Third comes Alfred Tennyson.... + By-the-bye, did you ever happen upon Browning's 'Pauline'? a strange, + wild (in parts singularly magnificent) poet-biography; his own early + life as it presented itself to his own soul viewed poetically; in + fact, psychologically speaking, his 'Sartor Resartus'; it was written + and published three years before 'Paracelsus,' when Shelley was his + God." + +A little later Arnould wrote again: + + "Browning and his wife are still in Florence, and stay there till the + summer; he is bringing out another edition of his poems (except + 'Sordello'), Chapman and Hall being his publishers, Moxon having + declined. He writes always most affectionately, and never forgets kind + inquiries about and kind messages to you." + + +Allured by resplendent tales of Fano, the Brownings made a trip to that +seaside hamlet, but found it uninhabitable in the late summer heat. A +statue in the Piazza commemorated the ancient _Fanum Fortunæ_ of +tradition, and in the cathedral of San Fortunato were frescoes by +Domenichino, and in the _chiesa_ of Sant' Agostino was the celebrated +painting of Sant' Angelo Custode, by Guercino, which suggested to Browning +his poem "The Guardian Angel." The tender constancy of Browning's +friendship for Alfred Domett is in evidence in this poem, and the beauty +of his reference to his wife,-- + + "My angel with me, too,..." + +lingers with the reader. + +In no poem of his entire work has Browning given so complete a revelation +of his own inner life as in this memorable lyric. The picture, dim as is +the light in which it is seen, is one of the most impressive of all +Guercino's works. In the little church of San Paterniano is a "Marriage of +the Virgin," by Guercino, and in the Palazzo del Municipio of Fano is +Guercino's "Betrothal of the Virgin," and the "David" of Domenichino. + +The Brownings while in Fano made the excursion to the summit of Monte +Giove, an hour's drive from the Piazza, where was the old monastery and a +wonderful view of the Adriatic, and of the panorama of the Apennines. "We +fled from Fano after three days," wrote Mrs. Browning, "and finding +ourselves cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, we resolved on +substituting for it what the Italians call '_un bel giro_.' So we went to +Ancona ... where we stayed a week, living on fish and cold water." They +found Ancona "a straggling sea city, holding up against the brown rocks, +and elbowing out the purple tides," and Mrs. Browning felt an inclination +to visit it again when they might find a little air and shadow. They went +on to Loreto, and then to Ravenna, where in the early dawn of a summer +morning they stood by the tomb of Dante, deeply touched by the +inscription. All through this journey they had "wonderful visions of +beauty and glory." Returning to Florence, to their terraces, orange trees, +and divine sunsets, one of their earliest visitors in Casa Guidi was +Father Prout, who had chanced to be standing on the dock at Livorno when +they first landed in Italy, from the journey from France, and who now +appeared in Florence on his way to Rome. Mr. Browning had fallen ill after +their trip to Fano, and Father Prout prescribed for him "port wine and +eggs," which _régime_, combined with the racy conversation of the genial +priest, seemed efficacious. + +In the meantime Mrs. Browning stood with her husband by the tomb of +Michael Angelo in Santa Croce; she saw the Venus, the "divine Raphaels." +The Peruzzi chapel had then recently been restored--some exquisite +frescoes by Giotto being among the successful restorations. The +"mountainous marble masses" of the Duomo, "tessellated marbles climbing +into the sky, self-crowned with that prodigy of marble domes," struck Mrs. +Browning as the wonder of all architecture. + +The political conditions of Italy began to enlist her interest. In June of +1846 Pio Nono had ascended the Papal throne, preceded by a reputation for +a liberal policy, and it was even hoped that he would not oppose the +formation of a United Italy. The papal and the temporal government was +still one, but Pius IX was a statesman as well as a churchman. England had +especially commissioned Lord Minto to advocate reform, and the enthusiasts +for Italian liberty received him with acclaim. The disasters of 1848 were +still in the unrevealed future, and a new spirit was stirring all over the +Italian kingdom. Piedmont was looked to with hope; and the Grand Duke of +Tuscany had instituted a National Guard, as the first step toward popular +government. The great topic of the day was the new hope of Italy. In +Florence the streets and piazzas were vocal with praises of the Grand +Duke. On one night that Browning went to the opera the tumult grew +intense, and the Duke was escorted back to Palazzo Pitti with thousands of +wax torchlights and a blaze of glory and cries of "Eviva! Eviva!" +Browning, however, distrusted Pio Nono, thinking him weak, and events +proved that his opinion was justified. + +The winter of 1847-1848 was passed by the Brownings in Casa Guidi. "I wish +you could see what rooms we have," wrote Mrs. Browning to her husband's +sister, Sarianna: "what ceilings, what height and breadth, what a double +terrace for orange trees; how cool, how likely to be warm, how perfect +every way!" + +The poets were constantly engaged in their work. Mrs. Browning began her +long poem, "Casa Guidi Windows," and many of Browning's lyrics that +appeared in the collection called "Men and Women" were written at this +period. They passed much time in the galleries and churches. They drove in +the beautiful environs of Florence. The pictures, history, and legends +entered into their lives to serve in later days as poetic material. In the +brief twilight of winter days they often strolled into the old gray church +of San Felice, on which their windows looked out, where Browning would +gratify his passion for music by evolving from the throbbing keys of the +organ some faint Toccata of Galuppi's, while his wife smiled and listened, +and the tide of Florentine life flowed by in the streets outside. Casa +Guidi is almost opposite the Palazzo Pitti, so that Mrs. Browning had easy +access to her beloved Madonnas in the Pitti gallery, which to her husband, +also, was so unfailing a resource. + +One of Mrs. Browning's American admirers, and one of the reviewers of her +poems, George Stillman Hillard, visited Florence that winter, and passed +more than one evening in Casa Guidi with the Brownings. Of Mrs. Browning +he wrote: + + "Mrs. Browning is in many respects the correlative of her husband.... + I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent + veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire + enclosed in a shell of pearl.... Nor is she more remarkable for genius + and learning than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth + of feeling, and purity of spirit.... A union so complete as theirs--in + which the mind has nothing to crave, nor the heart to sigh for--is + cordial to behold and cheering to remember." + + +Of all Italy Mr. Hillard perhaps best loved Florence, finding there an +indescribable charm, "a blending of present beauty and traditional +interest; but then Florence is alive," he added, "and not enslaved." It +was probably Hillard who suggested to William Wetmore Story that he +should meet Browning. At all events this meeting took place, initiating +the friendship that endured "forty years, without a break," and that was +one of the choicest social companionships. + +The spring of 1849 brought new joy to Casa Guidi, for on March 9 was born +their son, who was christened Robert Wiedemann Barrett, the middle name +(which in his manhood he dropped) being the maiden name of the poet's +mother. The passion of both husband and wife for poetry was now quite +equaled by that for parental duties, which they "caught up," said Mrs. +Browning, "with a kind of rapture." Mr. Browning would walk the terraces +where orange trees and oleanders blossomed, with the infant in his arms, +and in the summer, when they visited Spezzia, and the haunt of Shelley at +Lurici, they wandered five miles into the mountains, the baby with them, +on horseback and donkey-back. The child grew rounder and rosier; and Mrs. +Browning was able to climb hills and help her husband to lose himself in +the forests. + +The death of Browning's mother immediately after the birth of his son was +a great sadness to the poet, and one fully shared by his wife, who wrote +to Miss Browning: "I grieve with you, as well as for you; for though I +never saw her face, I loved that pure and tender spirit.... Robert and I +dwell on the hope that you and your father will come to us at once.... If +Florence is too far off, is there any other place where we could meet and +arrange for the future?" + +The Brownings went for the summer to Bagni di Lucca, after the little +_détour_ on the Mediterranean coast, where they lingered in the white +marble mountains of Carrara. In Lucca they passed long summer hours in the +beautiful Duomo, which had been consecrated by Pope Alexander II in the +eleventh century. The beauty and the solitude charmed the poets; the +little Penini was the "most popular of babies," and when Wilson carried +the child out in the sunshine the Italians would crowd around him and +exclaim, "_Che bel bambino!_" They had given him the pet Italian name +"Penini," which always persisted. The Austrians had then taken possession +of Florence, and Leopoldo, "L'intrepido," as the Italians asserted, +remained quietly in the Palazzo Pitti. Browning, writing to Mrs. Jameson, +says there is little for his wife to tell, "for she is not likely to +encroach upon my story which I could tell of her entirely angel nature, as +divine a heart as God ever made." The poet with his wife and Wilson and +the baby made almost daily excursions into the forests and mountains, up +precipitous fays and over headlong ravines; dining "with the goats," while +the baby "lay on a shawl, rolling and laughing." The contrast of this +mountain-climbing Mrs. Browning, with her husband and child, and the Miss +Barrett of three or four years before, lying on a sofa in a darkened room, +is rather impressive. The picture of one day is suggested by Mrs. +Browning's description in a letter to Miss Mitford, where she writes: + + "... I have performed a great exploit, ridden on a donkey five miles + deep into the mountains, to an almost inaccessible volcanic ground not + far from the stars. Robert on horseback, Wilson and the nurse with + baby, on other donkeys; guides, of course. We set off at eight in the + morning and returned at six P. M., after dining on the mountain + pinnacle.... The scenery, sublime and wonderful,... innumerable + mountains bound faintly with the gray sea, and not a human + habitation." + + +[Illustration: MONUMENT TO DANTE, IN THE PIAZZA DI SANTA CROCE. + +STEFANO RICCI. + + "_....The architect and hewer_ + _Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb._" + +Casa Guidi Windows.] + + +It was during this _villeggiatura_ that Mrs. Browning, one morning after +their breakfast, with shy sweetness, tucked the pages of the "Sonnets" +into her husband's pocket and swiftly vanished. Robert Barrett Browning, +who, as already noted, gave the history of this poetic interlude _viva +voce_, has also recorded it in writing, as follows: + +What earthly vocabulary can offer fit words in which to speak of +celestial beauty? How these exquisite "Sonnets" tell the story of that +romance of Genius and Love,--from the woman's first thrill of interest in +the poetry of an unknown poet, to the hour when he, "the princely giver," +brought to her "the gold and purple" of his heart + + "For such as I to take or leave withal," + +and she questions + + "Can it be right to give what I can give?" + +with the fear that her delicacy of health should make such gifts + + "Be counted with the ungenerous." + +But she thinks of how he "was in the world a year ago," and thus she +drinks + + "Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful, + Never to feel thee thrill the day or night + With personal act or speech,-- + + * * * * * + + ... Atheists are as dull, + Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight." + +And the questioning,-- + + "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. + I love thee to the depth and breadth and height + My soul can reach,... + ... I love thee with the breath, + Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, + I shall but love thee better after death." + + +Returning to Florence in October, Browning soon began the preparation for +his poem, "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," and Mrs. Browning arranged for a +new one-volume edition of her poems, to include "The Seraphim," and the +poems that had appeared in the same volume, and also the poems appearing +in 1844, many of them revised. + +Marchesa d'Ossoli, whom the Brownings had heretofore known as Margaret +Fuller, surprised them by appearing in Florence with her husband and +child, the private marriage having taken place some two years before. The +Greenoughs, the Storys, and Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Pearse Cranch were +all in Florence, and were all habitués of Casa Guidi. Mr. Cranch, poet, +painter, and musician, was the kindly friend of Longfellow and of Lowell +in their Cambridge homes, and the Greenoughs and Storys were also of the +Cambridge circle. To friends at home the Marchesa wrote of going to the +opera with the Greenoughs, and that she saw the Brownings often, "and I +love and admire them more and more," she continued. "Mr. Browning enriches +every hour passed with him, and he is a most true, cordial, and noble +man." + +The Florentine days have left their picturings: Mr. Story opens a studio, +and while he is modeling, Mrs. Story reads to him from Monckton Milnes's +Life of Keats, which Mr. Browning loaned them. Mrs. Story drives to Casa +Guidi to carry Mrs. Browning her copy of "Jane Eyre," and Mrs. Greenough +takes both Mrs. Story and Mrs. Browning to drive in the Cascine. Two +American painters, Frank Boott and Frank Heath, are in Florence, and are +more or less caught up in the Casa Guidi life; and the coterie all go to +Mrs. Trollope's to see fancy costumes arranged for a ball to be given at +Sir George Hamilton's. In one of the three villas on Bellosguardo Miss Isa +Blagden was now domiciled. For more than a quarter of a century Miss +Blagden was a central figure in English society in Florence. She became +Mrs. Browning's nearest and most intimate friend, and she was the ardently +prized friend of the Trollopes also, and of Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who +shared her villa during one spring when Florence was in her most radiant +beauty. "Isa was a very bright, warm-hearted, clever little woman," said +Thomas Adolphus Trollope of her; "who knew everybody, and was, I think, +more universally beloved among us than any other individual." Miss Blagden +had written one or two novels, of little claim, however, and after her +death a small volume of her poems was published, but all these had no more +than the mere _succès d'estime_, as apparently the pen was with her, as +with Margaret Fuller, a non-conductor; but as a choice spirit, of the most +beautiful and engaging qualities of companionship, "Isa," as she was +always caressingly called, is still held in memory. Madame Pasquale +Villari, the wife of the great historian and the biographer of Machiavelli +and of Savonarola, well remembers Miss Blagden, who died, indeed, in her +arms in the summer of 1872. + +The intimate friendship between Mrs. Browning and Miss Blagden was +initiated in the early months of the residence of the Brownings in +Florence; but it was in this winter of 1849-1850 that they began to see +each other so constantly. The poems of Matthew Arnold were published that +winter, among which Mrs. Browning especially liked "The Deserted Merman" +and "The Sick King of Bokkara," and about this time the authorship of +"Jane Eyre" was revealed, and Charlotte Brontë discovered under the +_nom-de-plume_ of Currer Bell. + +During the time that Mrs. Browning had passed at Torquay, before her +marriage, she had met Theodosia Garrow, whose family were on intimate +terms with Mr. Kenyon. Miss Barrett and Miss Garrow became friends, and +when they met again it was in Florence, Miss Garrow having become the wife +of Thomas Adolphus Trollope. Hiram Powers in these days was domiciled in +the Via dei Serragli, in close proximity to Casa Guidi, and he frequently +dropped in to have his morning coffee with the Brownings. + + +[Illustration: THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.] + + +Landor had been for some years in his villa on the Fiesolean slope, not +far from Maiano, where Leigh Hunt had wandered, dreaming of Boccaccio. Two +scenes of the "Decameron" were laid in this region, and the deep ravine +at the foot of one of the neighboring hills was the original of the +"Valley of the Ladies." Not far away had been the house of Machiavelli; +and nestling among the blue hills was the little white village of +Settignano, where Michael Angelo was born. Leigh Hunt had been on terms of +the most cordial intimacy with Landor, whom he described as "living among +his paintings and hospitalities"; and Landor had also been visited by +Emerson, and by Lord and Lady Blessington, by Nathaniel Parker Willis +(introduced by Lady Blessington), by Greenough, Francis and Julius Hare, +and by that universal friend of every one, Mr. Kenyon, all before the +arrival of the Brownings in Florence. Landor had, however, been again in +England for several years, where Browning and Miss Barrett had both met +and admired him, as has been recorded. + +The Florence on which the Brownings had entered differed little from the +Florence of to-day. The Palazzo Pitti, within a stone's throw of Casa +Guidi, stood in the same cyclopean massiveness as now; the piazza and +church of San Miniato, cypress-shaded, rose from the sweep of the hills, +and the miraculous crucifix of San Giovanni Gualberto was then, as now, an +object of pilgrimage. The wonder of the Italian sunsets, that "perished +silently of their own glory," burned away over the far hills, and the +strange, lofty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio caught the lingering rays. +Beyond the Porta Romana, not far from Casa Guidi, was the road to the Val +d'Emo, where the Certosa crowns an eminence. The stroll along the Arno at +sunset was a favorite one with the poets, and in late afternoons they +often climbed the slope to the Boboli Gardens for the view over Florence +and the Val d'Arno. Nor did they ever tire of lingering in the Piazza +della Signoria, before the marvelous palace with its medieval tower, and +standing before the colossal fountain of Neptune, just behind the spot +that is commemorated by a tablet in the pavement marking the martyrdom of +Savonarola. The great equestrian statue of Cosimo I always engaged their +attention in this historic piazza, which for four centuries had been the +center of the political life of the Florentines. All these places, the +churches, monuments, palaces, and the art of Florence, were fairly +mirrored in the minds of the wedded poets, impressing their imagination +with the fidelity of an image falling on a sensitized plate. To them, as +to all who love and enter into the ineffable beauty of the City of Lilies, +it was an atmosphere of enchantment. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +1850-1855 + + "I heard last night a little child go singing + 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, + _O bella libertà, O bella!..._" + + + "But Easter-Day breaks! But + Christ rises! Mercy every way + Is infinite,--and who can say?" + + +"CASA GUIDI WINDOWS"--SOCIETY IN FLORENCE--MARCHESA D'OSSOLI--BROWNING'S + POETIC CREED--VILLEGGIATURA IN SIENA--VENICE--BRILLIANT LIFE IN + LONDON--PARIS AND MILSAND--BROWNING ON SHELLEY--IN FLORENCE--IDYLLIC + DAYS IN BAGNI DI LUCCA--MRS. BROWNING'S SPIRITUAL OUTLOOK--DELIGHTFUL + WINTER IN ROME--A POETIC PILGRIMAGE--HARRIET HOSMER--CHARACTERISTICS + OF MRS. BROWNING. + + +The Brownings were never for a moment caught up in the wave of popular +enthusiasm for Pio Nono that swept over Italy. Yet Mrs. Browning confessed +herself as having been fairly "taken in" by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Had +_Blackwood's Magazine_ published Part I of her "Casa Guidi Windows" at the +time that she sent it to this periodical, the poem would have been its own +proof of her distrust of the Pope, but it would also have offered the same +proof of her ill-founded trust in the Grand Duke; so that, on the whole, +she was well content to fail in having achieved the distinction of a +prophet regarding Pio Nono, as no Cassandra can afford to be convicted of +delusion in some portion of the details of her prophecy. To achieve +lasting reputation as a soothsayer, the prophecy must be accurate +throughout. The fact that there was an interval of three years between the +first and the second parts of this poem accounts for the discrepancy +between them. In her own words she confessed: + + "I wrote a meditation and a dream, + Hearing a little child sing in the street: + I leant upon his music as a theme, + Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat + Which tried at an exultant prophecy, + But dropped before the measure was complete-- + Alas for songs and hearts! O Tuscany, + O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain?" + + +The flashing lightnings of a betrayed people gleam like an unsheathed +sword in another canto beginning: + + "From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth, + And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines + Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north." + + +These ardent lines explain how she had been misled, for who could dream at +the time that Leopoldo ("_l'Intrepido_," as a poet of Viareggio called him +in a truly Italian fervor of enthusiasm) could have proved himself a +traitor to these trusting people,--these tender-hearted, gentle, +courteous, refined Italians? All these attributes pre-eminently +characterize the people; but also Mrs. Browning's insight that "the +patriots are not instructed, and the instructed are not patriots," was too +true. The adherents of the papal power were strong and influential, and +the personal character, whatever might be said of his political +principles,--the personal character of Pio Nono was singularly winning, +and this was by no means a negligible factor in the great problem then +before Italy. + + +[Illustration: STATUE OF SAVONAROLA, BY E. PAZZI, + +IN THE SALA DEI CINQUECENTO, PALAZZO VECCHIO.] + + +Mrs. Browning very wisely decided to let "Casa Guidi Windows" stand as +written, with all the inconsistency between its first and second parts, +as each reflected what she believed true at the time of writing; and it +thus presents a most interesting and suggestive commentary on Italian +politics between 1850 and 1853. Its discrepancies are such "as we are +called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature," she +herself said of it, "implying the interval between aspiration and +performance, between faith and disillusion, between hope and fact." This +discrepancy was more painful to her than it can be even to the most +critical reader; but the very nature of the poem, its very fidelity to the +conditions and impressions of the moment, give it great value, though +these impressions were to be modified or canceled by those of a later +time; it should stand as it is, if given to the world at all. And the +courage to avow one's self mistaken is not the least of the forms that +moral courage may assume. + +Regarding Pio Nono, Mrs. Browning is justified by history, notwithstanding +the many amiable and beautiful qualities of the Pontiff which forever +assure him a place in affection, if not in political confidence. Even his +most disastrous errors were the errors of judgment rather than those of +conscious intention. Pio Nono had the defects of his qualities, but loving +and reverent pilgrimages are constantly made to that little chapel behind +the iron railing in the old church of San Lorenzo _Fuori le Mura_ in Rome +(occupying the site of the church founded by Constantine), where his body +is entombed in a marble sarcophagus of the plainest design according to +his own instructions; but the interior of the vestibule is richly +decorated with mosaic paintings, the tribute of those who loved him. + +Leopoldo was so kindly a man, so sincere in his work for the liberty of +the press and for other important reforms, that it is no marvel that Mrs. +Browning invested him with resplendence of gifts he did not actually +possess, but which it was only logical to feel that such a man must have. +Sometimes a too complete reliance on the _ex pede Herculem_ method of +judgment is misleading. + +While the cause of Italian liberty had the entire sympathy of Robert +Browning, he was yet little moved to use it as a poetic motive. Professor +Hall Griffin suggests that it is possible that Browning deliberately chose +not to enter a field which his wife so particularly made her own; but that +is the less tenable as they never discussed their poetic work with each +other, and as a rule rarely showed to each other a single poem until it +was completed. + +The foreign society in Florence at this time included some delightful +American sojourners, for, beside the Storys and Hiram Powers (an especial +friend of the Brownings), there were George S. Hillard, George William +Curtis, and the Marchesa d'Ossoli with her husband,--all of whom were +welcomed at Casa Guidi. The English society then in Florence was, as Mrs. +Browning wrote to Miss Mitford, "kept up much after the old English +models, with a proper disdain for continental simplicities of expense; and +neither my health nor our pecuniary circumstances," she says, "would admit +of our entering it. The fact is, we are not like our child, who kisses +everybody who smiles on him! You can scarcely imagine to yourself how we +have retreated from the kind advances of the English here, and struggled +with hands and feet to keep out of this gay society." But it is alluring +to imagine the charm of their chosen circle, the Storys always first and +nearest, and these other gifted and interesting friends. + +Mr. Story is so universally thought of as a sculptor that it is not always +realized how eminent he was in the world of letters as well. Two volumes +of his poems contain many of value, and a few, as the "Cleopatra," "An +Estrangement," and the immortal "Io Victis," that the world would not +willingly let die; his "Roba di Roma" is one of those absolutely +indispensable works regarding the Eternal City; and several other books +of his, in sketch and criticism, enrich literature. A man of the most +courtly and distinguished manner, of flawless courtesy, an artist of +affluent expressions, it is not difficult to realize how congenial and +delightful was his companionship, as well as that of his accomplished +wife, to the Brownings. Indeed, no biographical record could be made of +either household, with any completeness, that did not largely include the +other. In all the lovely chronicles of literature and life there is no +more beautiful instance of an almost lifelong friendship than that between +Robert Browning and William Wetmore Story. + +In this spring of 1850 Browning was at work on his "Christmas Eve and +Easter Day," and Casa Guidi preserved a liberal margin of quiet and +seclusion. "You can scarcely imagine," wrote Mrs. Browning, "the retired +life we live.... We drive day by day through the lovely Cascine, only +sweeping through the city. Just such a window where Bianca Capello looked +out to see the Duke go by,--and just such a door where Tasso stood, and +where Dante drew his chair out to sit." + +When Curtis visited Florence he wrote to Browning begging to be permitted +to call, and he was one of the welcomed visitors in Casa Guidi. Browning +took him on many of those romantic excursions with which the environs of +Florence abound,--to Settignano, where Michael Angelo was born; to the old +Roman amphitheater in Fiesole; to that somber, haunted summit of San +Miniato, and to Vallombrosa, where he played to Curtis some of the old +Gregorian chants on an organ in the monastery. Afterward, in a +conversation with Longfellow, Mr. Curtis recalled a hymn by Pergolese that +Browning had played for him. + +Tennyson's poem, "The Princess," went into the third edition that winter, +and Mrs. Browning observed that she knew of no poet, having claim _solely_ +through poetry, who had attained so certain a success with so little +delay. Hearing that Tennyson had remarked that the public "hated poetry," +Mrs. Browning commented that, "divine poet as he was, and no laurel being +too leafy for him," he must yet be unreasonable if he were not gratified +with "so immediate and so conspicuous a success." + +Browning's "imprisoned splendor" found expression that winter in several +lyrics, which were included in the new (two volume) edition of his poems. + +Among these were the "Meeting at Night," "Parting at Morning," "A Woman's +Last Word," and "Evelyn Hope." "Love among the Ruins," "Old Pictures in +Florence," "Saul," and his "A Toccata of Galuppi's," all belong to this +group. In that ardent love poem, "A Woman's Last Word," occur the lines: + + "Teach me, only teach, Love! + As I ought + I will speak thy speech, Love, + Think thy thought-- + + "Meet, if thou require it, + Both demands, + Laying flesh and spirit + In thy hands." + + +No lyric that Robert Browning ever wrote is more haunting in its power and +sweetness, or more rich in significance, than "Evelyn Hope," with "that +piece of geranium flower" in the glass beside her beginning to die. The +whole scene is suggested by this one detail, and in characterization of +the young girl are these inimitable lines,-- + + "The good stars met in your horoscope, + Made you of spirit, fire, and dew-- + + * * * * * + + Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, + Either I missed or itself missed me; + + * * * * * + + So, hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep; + See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! + There, that is our secret: go to sleep! + You will wake, and remember, and understand." + + +[Illustration: FRESCO OF DANTE, BY GIOTTO, IN THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE. + + "_.... With a softer brow_ + _Than Giotto drew upon the wall._" + +Casa Guidi Windows.] + + +Mrs. Browning's touching lyric, "A Child's Grave at Florence," was +published in the _Athenæum_ that winter; and in this occur the simple but +appealing stanzas,-- + + "Oh, my own baby on my knees, + My leaping, dimpled treasure, + + * * * * * + + But God gives patience, Love learns strength, + And Faith remembers promise; + + * * * * * + + Still mine! maternal rights serene + Not given to another! + The crystal bars shine faint between + The souls of child and mother." + + +To this day, that little grave in the English cemetery in Florence, with +its "A. A. E. C." is sought out by the visitor. To Mrs. Browning the love +for her own child taught her the love of all mothers. In "Only a Curl" are +the lines: + + "O children! I never lost one,-- + But my arm's round my own little son, + And Love knows the secret of Grief." + + +Florence "bristled with cannon" that winter, but nothing decisive +occurred. The faith of the Italian people in Pio Nono, however, grew less. +Mr. Kirkup, the antiquarian, still carried on his controversy with Bezzi +as to which of them were the more entitled to the glory of discovering the +Dante portrait, and in the spring there occurred the long-deferred +marriage of Mrs. Browning's sister Henrietta to Captain Surtees Cook, the +attitude of Mr. Barrett being precisely the same as on the marriage of his +daughter Elizabeth to Robert Browning. The death of Wordsworth was another +of the events of this spring, leaving vacant the Laureateship. The +_Athenæum_ at once advocated the appointment of Mrs. Browning, as one +"eminently suitable under a female sovereign." Other literary authorities +coincided with this view, it seeming a sort of poetic justice that a woman +poet should be Laureate to a Queen. The _Athenæum_ asserted that "there is +no living poet of either sex who can prefer a higher claim than Elizabeth +Barrett Browning," but the honor was finally conferred upon Tennyson, with +the ardent approbation of the Brownings, who felt that his claim was +rightly paramount. + +In the early summer the Marchese and Marchesa d'Ossoli, with their child, +sailed on that ill-starred voyage whose tragic ending startled the +literary world of that day. Their last evening in Florence was passed with +the Brownings. The Marchesa expressed a fear of the voyage that, after its +fatal termination, was recalled by her friends as being almost prophetic. +Curiously she gave a little Bible to the infant son of the poets as a +presentation from her own little child; and Robert Barrett Browning still +treasures, as a strange relic, the book on whose fly-leaf is written "In +memory of Angelino d'Ossoli." Mrs. Browning had a true regard for the +Marchesa, of whom she spoke as "a very interesting person, thoughtful, +spiritual, in her habitual mode of mind." + +In his poetic creed, Browning deprecated nothing more entirely (to use a +mild term where a stronger would not be inappropriate) than that the poet +should reveal his personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic +character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that +Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" to his readers, and he warns them off +from the use of any fancied latch-key to his own inner citadel. + + "Which of you did I enable + Once to slip inside my breast, + There to catalogue and label + What I like least, what love best?" + +And in another poem the reader will recall how fervently he thanks God +that "even the meanest of His creatures" + + "Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, + One to show a woman when he loves her!" + + +It was the knowledge of this intense and pervading conviction of her +husband's that kept Mrs. Browning so long from showing to him her +exquisitely tender and sacred self-revelation in the "Sonnets from the +Portuguese." Yet it was in that very "One Word More" where Browning thanks +God for the "two soul-sides," that he most simply reveals himself, and +also in "Prospice" and in this "Christmas Eve and Easter Day." This poem, +with its splendor of vision, was published in 1850, with an immediate sale +of two hundred copies, after which for the time the demand ceased. William +Sharp well designates it as a "remarkable Apologia for Christianity," for +it can be almost thought of in connection with Newman's "Apologia pro vita +sua," and as not remote from the train of speculative thought which +Matthew Arnold wrought into his "Literature and Dogma." It is very +impressive to see how the very content of Hegelian Dialectic is the +key-note of Browning's art. "The concrete and material content of a life +of perfected knowledge and volition means one thing, only, love," teaches +Hegelian philosophy. This, too, is the entire message of Browning's +poetry. Man must love God in the imperfect manifestation which is all he +can offer of God. He must relate the imperfect expression to the perfect +aspiration. + + "All I aspired to be + And was not--comforts me." + +In the unfaltering search for the Divine Ideal is the true reward. + + "One great aim, like a guiding star, above-- + Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift + His manhood to the height that takes the prize." + + +Browning conceived and presented the organic idea and ideal of life, in +its fullness, its intensity, as perhaps few poets have ever done. He would +almost place a positive sin above a negative virtue. To live intensely, +even if it be sinfully, was to Browning's vision to be on the upward way, +rather than to be in a state of negative good. The spirit of man is its +own witness of the presence of God. Life cannot be truly lived in any +fantastic isolation. + + "Just when we're safest, there's a sunset touch, + A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, + A chorus ending from Euripides." + + +With Browning, as with Spinoza, there is an impatience, too, with the +perpetual references to death, and they both constantly turn to the +everlasting truth of life. "It is this harping on death that I despise so +much," exclaimed Browning, in the later years of his life, in a +conversation with a friend. "In fiction, in poetry, in art, in literature +this shadow of death, call it what you will,--despair, negation, +indifference,--is upon us. But what fools who talk thus!... Why, death is +life, just as our daily momentarily dying body is none the less alive, and +ever recruiting new forces of existence. Without death, which is our word +for change, for growth, there could be no prolongation of that which we +call life." + +After the completion of "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," Mrs. Browning +questioned her husband about the apparent asceticism of the second part of +the poem, and he replied that he meant it to show only one side of the +matter. "Don't think," she wrote to a friend, "that Robert has taken to +the cilix,--indeed he has not, but it is his way to see things as +passionately as other people feel them." + +Browning teaches in this poem that faith is an adventure of the spirit, +the aspiration felt, even if unnamed. But as to renunciation,-- + + "'Renounce the world!'--Ah, were it done + By merely cutting one by one + Your limbs off, with your wise head last, + How easy were it!" + +The renunciation that the poet sees is not so simple. It is not to put +aside all the allurements of life, but to use them nobly; to persist in +the life of the spirit, to offer love for hatred, truth for falsehood, +generous self-sacrifice rather than to grasp advantages,--to live, not to +forsake the common daily lot. It is, indeed, the philosophy amplified that +is found in the words of Jesus, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them +out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." + +The Brownings remained till late in the summer in their Casa Guidi home, +detained at first by the illness of Mrs. Browning, after which they +decided to postpone going to England until another year. In the late +summer they went for a few weeks to Siena, where, two miles outside the +walls, they found a seven-roomed villa with a garden and vineyard and +olive orchard, and "a magnificent view of a noble sweep of country, +undulating hills and verdure, and on one side the great Maremma extending +to the foot of the Roman mountains." They were located on a little hill +called Poggia dei venti, with all the winds of the heavens, indeed, +blowing about them, and with overflowing quantities of milk and bread and +wine, and a loggia at the top of the villa. Mrs. Browning found herself +rapidly recovering strength, and their comfort was further extended by +finding a library in Siena, where, for three francs a month, they had +access to the limited store of books which seem so luxurious in Italy. The +boy Browning was delighted with his new surroundings, his sole infelicity +being his inability to reach the grapes clustering over the trellises; he +missed the Austrian band that made music (or noise) for his delectation in +Florence, although to compensate for this privation he himself sang +louder than ever. In after years Mr. Browning laughingly related this +anecdote of his son's childhood: "I was one day playing a delicate piece +of Chopin's on the piano, and hearing a loud noise outside, hastily +stopped playing when my little boy ran in, and my wife exclaimed: 'How +could you leave off playing when Penini brought three drums to accompany +you?'" + +For all this bloom and beauty in Siena they paid a little less than +fifteen francs a week. Soon after their arrival they learned of the +shipwreck in which the Marchese and Marchesa d'Ossoli and the little +Angelino all perished, and the tragedy deeply impressed Mrs. Browning. +"The work that the Marchesa was preparing upon Italy would have been more +equal to her faculties than anything she has ever produced," said Mrs. +Browning, "her other writings being curiously inferior to the impression +made by her conversation." + +Before returning to Florence the Brownings passed a week in the town of +Siena to visit the pictures and churches, but they found it pathetic to +leave the villa, and especially harrowing to their sensibilities to part +with the pig. There is consolation, however, for most mortal sorrows, and +the Brownings found it in their intense interest in Sienese art. The +wonderful pulpit of the Duomo, the work of Niccola Pisano; the font of San +Giovanni; the Sodomas, and the Libreria (the work of Pius III, which he +built when he was Cardinal, and in which, at the end of the aisle, is a +picture of his own elevation to the Papal throne, painted after his death) +fascinated their attention. The Brownings found it dazzling to enter this +interior, all gold and color, with the most resplendent decorative +effects. They followed in the footsteps of Saint Catherine, as do all +pilgrims to Siena, and climbed the hill to the Oratorio di Santa Caterina +in Fontebranda, and read that inscription: "Here she stood and touched +that precious vessel and gift of God, blessed Catherine, who in her +life did so many miracles." They lingered, too, in the Cappella Santa +Caterina in San Domenico, where Catherine habitually prayed, where she +beheld visions and received her mystic revelations. They loitered in the +piazza, watching the stars hang over that aerial tower, "Il Mangia," and +drove to San Gimignano, with its picturesque medieval atmosphere. + + +[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE, FLORENCE, + KNOWN AS THE DUOMO. + + "_The most to praise and the best to see_ + _Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised._" + +Old Pictures in Florence.] + + +It was in the autumn of 1850 that Tennyson's "In Memoriam," first +privately and then anonymously printed, was acknowledged by the poet. The +Brownings read extracts from it in the _Examiner_, and they were deeply +moved by it. "Oh, there's a poet!" wrote Mrs. Browning. At last, "by a +sort of miracle," they obtained a copy, and Mrs. Browning was carried away +with its exquisite touch, its truth and earnestness. "The book has gone to +my heart and soul," she says, "I think it full of deep pathos and beauty." + +An interesting visitor dropped in at Casa Guidi in the person of a +grandson of Goethe; and his mission to Florence, to meet the author of +"Paracelsus" and discuss with him the character of the poem, was a tribute +to its power. Mrs. Browning, whose poetic ideals were so high, writing to +a friend of their guest, rambled on into some allusions to poetic art, and +expressed her opinion that all poets should take care to teach the world +that poetry is a divine thing. "Rather perish every verse I ever wrote, +for one," she said, "than help to drag down an inch that standard of +poetry which, for the sake of humanity as well as literature, should be +kept high." + +In "Aurora Leigh" she expresses the same sentiment in the lines: + + "I, who love my art, + Would never wish it lower to suit my stature." + + +Full of affection and interest are Mrs. Browning's letters to her +husband's sister, Sarianna, who, with her father, is now living in +Hatcham, near London. In the spring of 1852, after passing the winter in +Florence, the Brownings set out for England; the plan at first being to go +south to Naples, pause at Rome, and then go northward; but this was +finally abandoned, and they proceeded directly to Venice, where Mrs. +Browning was enchanted with life set in a scenic loveliness of "music and +stars." + +"I have been between heaven and earth since our arrival in Venice," she +writes. "The heaven of it is ineffable. Never have I touched the skirts of +so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of +water between all that gorgeous color and carving, the enchanting silence, +the moonlight, the music, the gondolas,--I mix it all up together...." + +In the divine beauty of Venetian evenings they sat in the white moonlight +in the piazza of San Marco, taking their coffee and the French papers +together. Or they would go to the opera, where for a ridiculously small +sum they had an entire box to themselves. But while Mrs. Browning longed +"to live and die in Venice, and never go away," the climate did not agree +with Mr. Browning, and they journeyed on toward Paris, stopping one night +at Padua and driving out to Arqua for Petrarca's sake. In Milan Mrs. +Browning climbed the three hundred and fifty steps, to the topmost +pinnacle of the glorious cathedral. At Como they abandoned the diligence +for the boat, sailing through that lovely chain of lakes to Flüelen, and +thence to Lucerne, the scenery everywhere impressing Mrs. Browning as +being so sublime that she "felt as if standing in the presence of God." +From Lucerne they made a _détour_ through Germany, pausing at Strasburg, +and arriving in Paris in July. This journey initiated an absence of almost +a year and a half from Italy. They had let their apartment, so they were +quite free to wander, and they were even considering the possibility of +remaining permanently in Paris, whose brilliant intellectual life +appealed to them both. After a brief sojourn in the French capital, they +went on to England, and they had rather an embarrassment of riches in the +number of houses proffered them, for Tennyson begged them to accept the +loan of his house and servants at Twickenham, and Joseph Arnould was +equally urgent that they should occupy his town house. But they took +lodgings, instead, locating in Devonshire Street, and London life proceeds +to swallow them up after its own absorbing fashion. They breakfast with +Rogers, and pass an evening with the Carlyles; Forster gives a +"magnificent dinner" for them; Mrs. Fanny Kemble calls, and sends them +tickets for her reading of "Hamlet"; and the Proctors, Mrs. Jameson, and +other friends abound. They go to New Cross, Hatcham, to visit Mr. +Browning's father and sister, where the little Penini "is taken into +adoration" by his grandfather. Mrs. Browning's sisters show her every +affection, and her brothers come; but her father, in reply to her own and +her husband's letter, simply sends back to her, with their seals unbroken, +all the letters she had written to him from Italy. "So there's the end," +she says; "I cannot, of course, write again. God takes it all into His own +hands, and I wait." The warm affection of her sisters cheered her, Mrs. +Surtees Cook (Henrietta Barrett) coming up from Somersetshire for a week's +visit, and her sister Arabel being invited with her. It was during this +sojourn in London that Bayard Taylor, poet and critic, and afterward +American Minister Plenipotentiary to Germany, called upon the Brownings, +bringing a letter of introduction from Hillard. + +The poet's wife impressed Taylor as almost a spirit figure, with her +pallor and slender grace, and the little Penini, "a blue-eyed, +golden-haired boy, babbling his little sentences in Italian," strayed in +like a sunbeam. While Taylor was with them, Mr. Kenyon called, and after +his departure Browning remarked to his guest: "There goes one of the most +splendid men living,--a man so noble in his friendship, so lavish in his +hospitality, so large-hearted and benevolent, that he deserves to be known +all over the world as Kenyon the Magnificent." + +The poets were overwhelmed with London hospitalities, and as Mrs. Browning +gave her maid, Wilson, leave of absence to visit her own family, the care +of little Pen fell upon her. He was in a state of "deplorable grief" for +his nurse, "and after all," laughed Mrs. Browning, "the place of nursery +maid is more suitable to me than that of poetess (or even poet's wife) in +this obstreperous London." + +In the late September the Brownings crossed to Paris, Carlyle being their +traveling companion, and after an effort to secure an apartment near the +Madeleine, they finally established themselves in the Avenue des Champs +Élysées (No. 128), where they had pretty, sunny rooms, tastefully +furnished, with the usual French lavishness in mirrors and clocks,--all +for two hundred francs a month, which was hardly more than they had paid +for the dreary Grosvenor Street lodgings in London. Mrs. Browning was very +responsive to that indefinable exhilaration of atmosphere that pervades +the French capital, and the little Penini was charmed with the gayety and +brightness. Mrs. Browning enjoyed the restaurant dining, _à la carte_, +"and mixing up one's dinner with heaps of newspapers, and the 'solution' +by Émile de Girardin," who suggested, it seems, "that the next President +of France should be a tailor." Meantime she writes to a friend that "the +'elf' is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf on +each cheek." They found themselves near neighbors of Béranger, and +frequently saw him promenading the avenue in a white hat, and they learned +that he lived very quietly and "kept out of scrapes, poetical and +political." Mrs. Browning notes that they would like to know Béranger, +were the stars propitious, and that no accredited letter of introduction +to him would have been refused, but that they could not make up their +minds to go to his door and introduce themselves as vagrant minstrels. To +George Sand they brought a letter from Mazzini, and although they heard +she "had taken vows against seeing strangers," Mrs. Browning declared she +would not die, if she could help it, without meeting the novelist who had +so captivated her. Mazzini's letter, with one from themselves, was sent to +George Sand through mutual friends, and the following reply came: + + Madame, j'aurai l'honneur de vous recevoir Dimanche prochain, rue + Racine, 3. C'est le seul jour que je puisse passer chez moi; et encore + je n'en suis pas absolument certaine--mais je ferai tellement mon + possible, que ma bonne étoile m'y aidera peut-être un peu. Agréez + mille remerciments de coeur ainsi que Monsieur Browning, que + j'espère voir avec vous, pour la sympathie que vous m'accordez. + + GEORGE SAND. + + PARIS, 12 _fevrier_, 1852. + + +The visit must have been mutually satisfactory, for it was repeated two or +three times, and they found her simple, "without a shade of affectation or +consciousness." Another pleasure they had was in meeting Lamartine, who +took the initiative in asking to be allowed to call on them. After their +arrival in Paris Carlyle passed several evenings with them, and Mrs. +Browning felt, with her husband, that he was one of the most interesting +of men, "highly picturesque" in conversation. Her sympathetic insight gave +her always the key and the clue to character, and perhaps no one ever read +Carlyle more truly than she, when she interpreted his bitterness only as +melancholy, and his scorn as sensibility. + +The Brownings had not been long in Paris before they were invited to a +reception at Lady Elgin's, where they met Madame Mohl, who at once +cordially urged their coming to her "evenings," to meet her French +celebrities. Lady Elgin was domiciled in the old Faubourg Saint Germain, +and received every Monday evening from eight to twelve, _sans façon_, +people being in morning dress, and being served with simple refreshment of +tea and cakes. Lady Elgin expressed the hope that the Brownings would come +to her on every one of these evenings, Mrs. Browning said that she had +expected "to see Balzac's duchesses and _hommes de lettres_ on all sides," +but she found it less notable, though very agreeable. The elder Browning +and his daughter pay a visit to them, greatly to Mrs. Browning's +enjoyment. At this time they half contemplated living permanently in +Paris, if it seemed that Mrs. Browning could endure the climate, and she +records, during the visit of her husband's father and sister, that if they +do remain in Paris they hope to induce these beloved members of the family +to also establish themselves there. As it turned out, the Brownings passed +only this one winter in the French capital, but the next spring Mr. +Browning (_père_) and his daughter Sarianna took up their residence in +Paris, where they remained during the remainder of his life. Mrs. Browning +was always deeply attached to her husband's sister. "Sarianna is full of +accomplishment and admirable sense," she wrote of her, and the visit of +both gave her great pleasure. The _coup d'état_ took place early in +December, but they felt no alarm. Mrs. Browning expressed her great faith +in the French people, and declared the talk about "military despotism" to +be all nonsense. The defect she saw in M. Thiers was "a lack of breadth of +view, which helped to bring the situation to a dead lock, on which the +French had no choice than to sweep the board clean and begin again." + +It was during this early winter, with French politics and French society +and occasional spectacles and processions extending from the Carrousel to +the Arc de l'Étoile, that Browning wrote that essay on Shelley, which his +publisher of that time, Mr. Moxon, had requested to accompany a series of +Shelley letters which had been discovered, but which were afterward found +to be fraudulent. The edition was at once suppressed; but a few copies had +already gone out, and, as Professor Dowden says, "The essay is interesting +as Browning's only considerable piece of prose;... for him the poet of +'Prometheus Unbound' was not that beautiful and ineffectual angel of +Matthew Arnold's fancy, beating in the void his luminous wings. A great +moral purpose looked forth from Shelley's work, as it does from all lofty +works of art." It was "the dream of boyhood," Browning tells us, to render +justice to Shelley; and he availed himself of this opportunity with +alluring eagerness. His interpretation of Shelley is singularly noble and +in accord with all the great spiritual teachings of his own poetic work. +Browning's plea that there is no basis for any adequate estimate of +Shelley, who "died before his youth was ended," cannot but commend its +justice; and he urges that in any measurement of Shelley as a man he must +be contemplated "at his ultimate spiritual stature" and not judged by the +mistakes of ten years before when in his entire immaturity of character. + +How all that infinite greatness of spirit and almost divine breadth of +comprehension that characterize Robert Browning reveal themselves in this +estimate of Shelley. It is seeing human errors and mistakes as God sees +them,--the temporary faults, defects, imperfections of the soul on its +onward way to perfection. This was the attitude of Browning's profoundest +convictions regarding human life. + + "Eternal process moving on; + From state to state the spirit walks." + +This achievement of the divine ideal for man is not within the +possibilities of the brief sojourn on earth, but what does the transition +called death do for man but to + + "Interpose at the difficult moment, snatch Saul, the mistake, + Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,--and bid him awake + From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set + Clear and safe in new light and new life,--a new harmony yet + To be run, and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure! + The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure." + + +Browning's message in its completeness was invariably that which is +imaged, too, in these lines from Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh": + + "And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, + Its shifting fancies and celestial lights." + + +For it is only in this drama of the infinite life that the spiritual man +can be tested. It was from the standpoint of an actor on this celestial +stage that Browning considered Shelley. In the entire range of Browning's +art the spiritual man is imaged as a complex and individualized spark of +the divine force. He is seen for a flitting moment on his way toward a +divine destiny. + +Professor Hall Griffin states as his belief that Browning's paper was to +some degree inspired by that of Joseph Milsand on himself, which appeared +in August, 1851, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in which Milsand commended +Browning's work "as pervaded by an intense belief in the importance of the +individual soul." + +To Browning this winter was enchanted by the initiation of his friendship +with Milsand, the distinguished French scholar and critic, who had already +made a name as a philosophic thinker and had published a book on Ruskin +(_L'Esthétique Anglaise_), and who was a discerner of spirits in poetic +art as well. About the time that "Paracelsus" appeared, Milsand had seen +an extract from the poem that captivated him, and he at once sent for the +volume. He had also read, with the deepest interest, Browning's "Christmas +Eve and Easter Day." He was contributing to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ +two papers on _La Poésie Anglaise depuis Byron_, the first of which, on +Tennyson, had appeared the previous August. Milsand was about completing +the second paper of this series (on Browning), and it happened just at +this time that Miss Mitford's "Recollections of a Literary Life" was +published, in which, writing of the Brownings, she had told the story of +that tragic death of Mrs. Browning's brother Edward, who had been drowned +at Torquay. In these days, when, as Emerson rhymes the fact, + + "Every thought is public, + Every nook is wide, + The gossips spread each whisper + And the gods from side to side," + +it is a little difficult to quite comprehend, even in comprehending Mrs. +Browning's intense sensitiveness and the infinite sacredness of this +grief, why she should have been so grieved at Miss Mitford's tender +allusion to an accident that was, by its very nature, public, and which +must have been reported in the newspapers of the day. Mrs. Browning was +always singularly free from any morbid states, from any tendency to the +_idée fixe_, to which a semi-invalid condition is peculiarly and +pardonably liable; but she said, in an affectionate letter to Miss +Mitford: + + "I have lived heart to heart (for instance) with my husband these five + years: I have never yet spoken out, in a whisper even, what is in me; + never yet could find heart or breath; never yet could bear to hear a + word of reference from his lips." + + +It is said there are no secrets in heaven, and in that respect, at least, +the twentieth century is not unlike the celestial state; and it is almost +as hard a task for the imagination to comprehend the reserve in all +personal matters that characterized the mid-nineteenth century as it +would be to enter into absolute comprehension of the medieval mind; but +Mrs. Browning's own pathetic deprecation of her feelings regarding this is +its own passport to the sympathy of the reader. To Miss Mitford's reply, +full of sympathetic comprehension and regret, Mrs. Browning replied that +she understood, "and I thank you," she added, "and love you, which is +better. Now, let us talk of reasonable things." For Mrs. Browning had that +rare gift and grace of instantly closing the chapter, and turning the +page, and ceasing from all allusion to any subject of regret, after the +inevitable reference of the moment had been made. She had the mental +energy and the moral buoyancy to drop the matter, and this characteristic +reveals how normal she was, and how far from any morbidness. + +Milsand, with a delicacy that Robert Browning never forgot, came to him to +ask his counsel regarding the inclusion of this tragic accident that had +left such traces on his wife's genius and character (traces that are +revealed in immortal expression in her poem, "De Profundis," written some +years later), and Browning was profoundly touched by his consideration. +Grasping both Milsand's hands, he exclaimed, "Only a Frenchman could have +done this!" A friendship initiated under circumstances so unusual, and +with such reverent intuition of Mrs. Browning's feelings, could not but +hold its place apart to them both. + +The Brownings found Paris almost as ineffable in beauty in the early +spring as was their Florence. "It's rather dangerous to let the charm of +Paris work," laughed Mrs. Browning; "the honey will be clogging our feet +soon, and we shall find it difficult to go away." + +They had a delightful winter socially, as well; they went to Ary +Scheffer's and heard Madame Viardot, then in the height of her artistic +fame; George Sand sent them tickets for the _première_ of "Les Vacances de +Pandolphe"; they went to the Vaudeville to see the "Dame aux Camellias," +of which Mrs. Browning said that she did not agree with the common cry +about its immorality. To her it was both moral and human, "but I never +will go to see it again," she says, "for it almost broke my heart. The +exquisite acting, the too literal truth to nature...." They met Paul de +Musset, but missed his brother Alfred that winter, whose poems they both +cared for. + +The elder Browning retained through his life that singular talent for +caricature drawing that had amused and fascinated his son in the poet's +childhood; and during his visit to the Brownings in Paris he had produced +many of these drawings which became the delight of his grandson as well. +The Paris streets furnished him with some inimitable suggestions, and +Robert Barrett Browning, to this day, preserves many of these keen and +humorous and extremely clever drawings of his grandfather. Thierry, the +historian, who was suffering from blindness, sent to the Brownings a +request that they would call on him, with which they immediately complied, +and they were much interested in his views on France. The one +disappointment of that season was in not meeting Victor Hugo, whose fiery +hostility to the new _régime_ caused it to be more expedient for him to +reside quite beyond possible sight of the gilded dome of the Invalides. + +In June the Brownings returned to London, where they domiciled themselves +in Welbeck Street (No. 58), Mrs. Browning's sisters both being near, Mrs. +Surtees Cook having established herself only twenty doors away, and Miss +Arabel Barrett being in close proximity in Wimpole Street. They were +invited to Kenyon's house at Wimbledon, where Landor was a guest, whom +Mrs. Browning found "looking as young as ever, and full of passionate +energy," and who talked with characteristic exaggeration of Louis Napoleon +and of the President of the French nation. Landor "detested" the one and +"loathed" the other; and as he did not accept Talleyrand's ideal of the +use of language, he by no means concealed these sentiments. Mazzini +immediately sought the Brownings, his "pale, spiritual face" shining, and +his "intense eyes full of melancholy illusions." He brought Mrs. Carlyle +with him, Mrs. Browning finding her "full of thought, and feeling, and +character." Miss Mulock, who had then written "The Ogilvies," and had also +read her title clear to some poetic recognition, was in evidence that +season, as were Mr. and Mrs. Monckton Milnes, and Fanny Kemble was also a +brilliant figure in the social life. Nor was the London of that day +apparently without a taste for the sorceress and the soothsayer, for no +less a personage than Lord Stanhope was, it seems, showing to the elect +the "spirits of the sun" in a crystal ball, which Lady Blessington had +bought from an Egyptian magician and had sold again. Lady Blessington +declared she had no understanding of the use of it, but it was on record +that the initiated could therein behold Oremus, Spirit of the Sun. Both +the crystal ball and the seers were immensely sought, notwithstanding the +indignation expressed by Mr. Chorley, who regarded the combination of +social festivities and crystal gazing as eminently scandalous. Which +element he considered the more dangerous is not on the palimpsest that +records the story of these days. Lord Stanhope invited the Brownings to +these occult occasions of intermingled attractions, and Mrs. Browning +writes: "For my part, I endured both luncheon and spiritual phenomena with +great equanimity." An optician of London took advantage of the popular +demand and offered a fine assortment of crystal ball spheres, at prices +which quite restricted their sale to the possessors of comfortable +rent-rolls, and Lord Stanhope asserted that a great number of persons +resorted to these balls to divine the future, without the courage to +confess it. One wonders as to whom "the American Corinna, in yellow silk," +in London, that season, could have been? + +The Brownings were invited to a country house in Farnham, to meet Charles +Kingsley, who impressed them with his genial and tender kindness, and +while they thought some of his social views wild and theoretical, they +loved his earnestness and originality, and believed he could not be +"otherwise than good and noble." It was during this summer (according to +William Michael Rossetti) that Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti first +met, Rossetti coming to call on them in company with William Allingham. On +August 30, from Chapel House, Twickenham, Tennyson wrote to Mrs. Browning +of the birth of his son, Hallam, to which she replied: + + "Thank you and congratulate you from my heart. May God bless you all + three.... Will you say to dear Mrs. Tennyson how deeply I sympathize + in her happiness...." + + +To this letter Browning added a postscript saying: + + "How happy I am in your happiness, and in the assurance that it is + greater than even you can quite know yet. God bless, dear Tennyson, + you and all yours." + + +Tennyson wrote again to Mrs. Browning, saying, "... How very grateful your +little note and Browning's epilogue made me." And he signs himself "Ever +yours and your husband's." There was a brilliant christening luncheon at +the home of Monckton Milnes, "and his baby," notes Mrs. Browning, "was +made to sweep, in India muslin and Brussels lace, among a very large +circle of admiring guests." The Brownings were especially invited to bring +their little Penini with them, "and he behaved like an angel, everybody +said," continued his mother, "and looked very pretty, I said myself; only +he disgraced us all at last by refusing to kiss the baby on the ground of +its being '_troppo grande_.'" + +To Mrs. Tennyson's note of invitation to the Brownings to attend the +christening of their child, Mrs. Browning replied that they had planned to +leave England before that date; "but you offer us an irresistible motive +for staying, in spite of fogs and cold," she continued, "and we would not +miss the christening for the world." At the last, however, Mrs. Browning +was unable to go, so that the poet went alone. After the little ceremony +Browning took the boy in his arms and tossed him, while Tennyson, looking +on, exclaimed: "Ah, that is as good as a glass of champagne for him." + +Florence Nightingale was a not infrequent visitor of the Brownings that +summer, and she always followed her calls by a gift of masses of flowers. +While "Morte d'Arthur" had been written more than ten years previously, +Tennyson was now evolving the entire plan of the "Idylls of the King." +Coventry Patmore, who brought the manuscript copy of his own poems, +published later, for Mr. Browning to read, mentioned to the poets that +Tennyson was writing a collection of poems on Arthur, which were to be +united by their subject, after the manner of "In Memoriam," which project +interested Mrs. Browning greatly. "The work will be full of beauty, I +don't doubt," she said. + +Ruskin invited the Brownings to Denmark Hill to see his Turners, and they +found the pictures "divine." They liked Ruskin very much, finding him +"gentle, yet earnest." + +During this London sojourn Mr. Browning's old friend, William Johnson Fox, +who had first encouraged the young poet by praising "not a little, which +praise comforted me not a little," the verses of his "Incondita"; who had +written a favorable review of "Pauline"; who had found a publisher for +"Paracelsus," and had introduced the poet to Macready, again appears, and +writes to his daughter that he has had "a charming hour" with the +Brownings, and that he is more fascinated than ever with Mrs. Browning. +"She talked lots of George Sand, and so beautifully, and she +silver-electroplated Louis Napoleon!" Mr. Fox adds:[6] "They came in to +their lodgings late at night, and R. B. says that in the morning twilight +he saw three pictures on the bedroom wall, and speculated as to whom they +might be. Light gradually showed the first to be Beatrice Cenci. 'Good,' +said he; 'in a poetic region.' More light; the second, Lord Byron! Who can +the third be? And what think you it was? Your (Fox's) sketch (engraved +chalk portrait) of me?' He made quite a poem and picture of the affair. +She seems much better; and the young Florentine was gracious." + +In November the Brownings again left London for Florence, pausing a week +in Paris on the way, where they witnessed the picturesque pomp of the +reception of Louis Napoleon, the day being brilliant with sunshine, and +the hero of the hour producing an impression by riding entirely alone, +with at least ten paces between himself and the nearest of his escort, +till even Charlotte Cushman, sitting at the side of Mrs. Browning, +watching the spectacle, declared this to be "fine." The "young Florentine" +was in a state of ecstasy, which he expressed in mingled French and +Italian. + +They journeyed to Florence by the Mont Cenis, stopping a week in Genoa, +where Mrs. Browning lay ill on her sofa; but the warmth of the Italian +sunshine soon restored her, and for two days before they left, she was +able to walk all about the beautiful old city. They visited together the +Andrea Doria palace, and enjoyed sauntering in a sunshine that was like +that of June days dropped into the heart of November. They were delighted +to hear the sound of their "dear Italian" again, and proceeded by +diligence to Florence, where they took possession of their Casa Guidi +home, which looked, wrote Mrs. Browning to her sister-in-law, as if they +had only left it yesterday. The little Penini was "in a state of complete +agitation" on entering Florence, through having heard so much talk of it, +and expressed his emotion by repeated caresses and embraces. Mrs. Browning +shared the same amazement at the contrast of climate between Turin and +Genoa that twentieth-century travelers experience; Turin having been so +cold that they were even obliged to have a fire all night, while at Genoa +they were "gasping for breath, with all the windows and doors open, blue +skies burning overhead, and no air stirring." But this very heat was +life-giving to Mrs. Browning as they lingered on the terraces, gazing on +the beautiful bay encircled by its sweep of old marble palaces. She even +climbed half-way up the lighthouse for the view, resting there while +Browning climbed to the top, for that incomparable outlook which every +visitor endeavors to enjoy. In Florence there were the "divine sunsets" +over the Arno, and Penini's Italian nurse rushing in to greet the child, +exclaiming, "_Dio mio, come e bellino!_" They "caught up their ancient +traditions" just where they left them, Mrs. Browning observes, though Mr. +Browning, "demoralized by the boulevards," missed the stir and intensity +of Parisian life. They found Powers, the sculptor, changing his location, +and Mr. Lytton (the future Earl), who was an attaché at the English +Embassy, became a frequent and a welcome visitor. In a letter to Mr. +Kenyon Mrs. Browning mentions that Mr. Lytton is interested in +manifestations of spiritualism, and had informed her that, to his father's +great satisfaction (his father being Sir E. Bulwer Lytton), these +manifestations had occurred at Knebworth, the Lytton home in England. +Tennyson's brother, who had married an Italian lady, was in Florence, +and the American Minister, Mr. Marsh. With young Lytton at this time, +Poetry was an article of faith, and nothing would have seemed to him more +improbable, even had any of his clairvoyants foretold it, than his future +splendid career as Viceroy of India. + + +[Illustration: THE PONTE VECCHIO AND THE ARNO, FLORENCE.] + + +Mrs. Browning was reading Prudhon that winter, and also Swedenborg, +Lamartine, and other of the French writers. Browning was writing from time +to time many of the lyrics that appear in the Collection entitled "Men and +Women," while on Mrs. Browning had already dawned the plan of "Aurora +Leigh." They read the novel of Dumas, _Diane de Lys_, Browning's verdict +on it being that it was clever, but outrageous as to the morals; and Mrs. +Browning rejoiced greatly in Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's +Cabin," saying of Mrs. Stowe, "No woman ever had such a success, such a +fame." All in all, this winter of 1852-1853 was a very happy one to the +poets, what with their work, their friends, playing with the little +Wiedemann (Penini), the names seeming interchangeably used, and their +reading, which included everything from poetry and romance to German +mysticism, social economics, and French criticism. Mrs. Browning found one +of the best apologies for Louis Napoleon in Lamartine's work on the +Revolution of '48; and she read, with equal interest, that of Louis Blanc +on the same period. In April "Colombe's Birthday" was produced at the +Haymarket Theater in London, the role of the heroine being taken by Miss +Helen Faucit, afterward Lady Martin. The author had no financial interest +in this production, which ran for two weeks, and was spoken of by London +critics as holding the house in fascinated attention, with other +appreciative phrases. + +Mrs. Browning watches the drama of Italian politics, and while she +regarded Mazzini as noble, she also felt him to be unwise, a verdict that +time has since justified. "We see a great deal of Frederick Tennyson," +she writes; "Robert is very fond of him, and so am I. He too writes poems, +and prints them, though not for the public." Their mutual love of music +was a strong bond between Browning and Mr. Tennyson, who had a villa on +the Fiesolean slope, with a large hall in which he was reported to "sit in +the midst of his forty fiddlers." + +For the coming summer they had planned a retreat into Giotto's country, +the Casentino, but they finally decided on Bagni di Lucca again, where +they remained from July till October, Mr. Browning writing "In a Balcony" +during this _villeggiatura_. Before leaving Florence they enjoyed an +idyllic day at Pratolina with Mrs. Kinney, the wife of the American +Minister to the Court of Turin, and the mother of Edmund Clarence Stedman. +The royal residences of the old Dukes of Tuscany were numerous, but among +them all, that at Pratolina, so associated with Francesco Primo and Bianca +Capella, is perhaps the most interesting, and here Mrs. Kinney drove her +guests, where they picnicked on a hillside which their hostess called the +Mount of Vision because Mrs. Browning stood on it; Mr. Browning spoke of +the genius of his wife, "losing himself in her glory," said Mrs. Kinney +afterward, while Mrs. Browning lay on the grass and slept. The American +Minister and Mrs. Kinney were favorite guests in Casa Guidi, where they +passed with the Brownings the last evening before the poets set out for +their summer retreat. Mrs. Browning delighted in Mr. Kinney's views of +Italy, and his belief in its progress and its comprehension of liberty. +The youthful Florentine, Penini, was delighted at the thought of the +change, and his devotion to his mother was instanced one night when +Browning playfully refused to give his wife a letter, and Pen, taking the +byplay seriously, fairly smothered her in his clinging embrace, +exclaiming, "Never mind, mine darling Ba!" He had caught up his mother's +pet name, "Ba," and often used it. It was this name to which she refers +in the poem beginning, + + "I have a name, a little name, + Uncadenced for the ear." + + +Beside the Pratolina excursion, Mr. Lytton gave a little reception for +them before the Florentine circle dissolved for the summer, asking a few +friends to meet the Brownings at his villa on Bellosguardo, where they all +sat out on the terrace, and Mrs. Browning made the tea, and they feasted +on nectar and ambrosia in the guise of cream and strawberries. + +"Such a view!" said Mrs. Browning of that evening. "Florence dissolving in +the purple of the hills, and the stars looking on." Mrs. Browning's love +for Florence grew stronger with every year. That it was her son's native +city was to her a deeply significant fact, for playfully as they called +him the "young Florentine," there was behind the light jest a profound +recognition of the child's claim to his native country. Still, with all +this response to the enchantment of Florence, they were planning to live +in Paris, after another winter (which they wished to pass in Rome), as the +elder Browning and his daughter Sarianna were now to live in the French +capital, and Robert Browning was enamored of the brilliant, abounding +life, and the art, and splendor of privilege, and opportunity in Paris. "I +think it too probable that I may not be able to bear two successive +winters in the North," said Mrs. Browning, "but in that case it will be +easy to take a flight for a few winter months into Italy, and we shall +regard Paris, where Robert's father and sister are waiting for us, as our +fixed place of residence." This plan, however, was never carried out, as +Italy came to lay over them a still deeper spell, which it was impossible +to break. Mr. Lytton, with whom Mrs. Browning talked of all these plans +and dreams that evening on his terrace, had just privately printed his +drama, "Clytemnestra," which Mrs. Browning found "full of promise," +although "too ambitious" because after Æschylus. But this young poet, +afterward to be so widely known in the realm of poetry as "Owen Meredith," +and as Lord Lytton in the realm of diplomacy and statesmanship, impressed +her at the time as possessing an incontestable "faculty" in poetry, that +made her expect a great deal from him in the future. She invited him to +visit them in their sylvan retreat that summer at Bagni di Lucca, an +invitation that he joyously accepted. Some great _savant_, who was "strong +in veritable Chinese," found his way to Casa Guidi, as most of the +wandering minstrels of the time did, and "nearly assassinated" the +mistress of the _ménage_ with an interminable analysis of a Japanese +novel. Mr. Lytton, who was present, declared she grew paler and paler +every moment, which she afterward asserted was not because of sympathy +with the heroine of this complex tale! But this formidable scholar had a +passport to Mrs. Browning's consideration by bringing her a little black +profile of her beloved Isa, which gave "the air of her head," and then, +said Mrs. Browning, laughingly, "how could I complain of a man who rather +flattered me than otherwise, and compared me to Isaiah?" + +But at last, after the middle of July, what with poets, and sunsets from +terraces, and savants, and stars, they really left their Florence +"dissolving in her purple hills" behind them, and bestowed themselves in +Casa Tolomei, at the Baths, where a row of plane trees stood before the +door, in which the cicale sang all day, and solemn, mysterious mountains +kept watch all day and night. There was a garden, lighted by the fireflies +at night, and Penini mistook the place for Eden. His happiness overflowed +in his prayers, and he thriftily united the petition that God would "mate +him dood" with the supplication that God would also "tate him on a +dontey," thus uniting all possible spiritual and temporal aspirations. The +little fellow was wild with happiness in this enchanted glade, where the +poets were "safe among mountains, shut in with a row of seven plane-trees +joined at top." Mr. Browning was still working on his lyrics, of which his +wife had seen very few. "We neither of us show our work to the other till +it is finished," she said. She recognized that an artist must work in +solitude until the actual result is achieved. + + +[Illustration: CASA GUIDI + + "_I heard last night a little child go singing_ + _'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church._" + +Casa Guidi Windows.] + + +It seems that Mr. Chorley in London had fallen into depressed spirits that +summer, indulging in the melancholy meditations that none of his friends +loved him, beyond seeing in him a "creature to be eaten," and that, having +furnished them with a banquet, their attentions to him were over (a most +regrettable state of mind, one may observe, _en passant_, and one of those +spiritual pitfalls which not only Mr. Chorley in particular, but all of us +in general would do particularly well to avoid). The letter that Mrs. +Browning wrote to him wonderfully reveals her all-comprehending sympathy +and her spiritual buoyancy and intellectual poise. "You are very wrong," +she says to him, "and I am very right to upbraid you. I take the pen from +Robert--he would take it if I did not. We scramble a little for the pen +which is to tell you this, and be dull in the reiteration, rather than not +to instruct you properly.... I quite understand how a whole life may seem +rumpled and creased--torn for the moment; only you will live it smooth +again, dear Mr. Chorley, take courage. You have time and strength and good +aims; and human beings have been happy with much less.... I think we +belied ourselves to you in England. If you knew how, at that time, Robert +was vexed and worn! why, he was not the same, even to me!... But then and +now believe that he loved and loves you. Set him down as a friend, as +somebody to rest on, after all; and don't fancy that because we are away +here in the wilderness (which blossoms as the rose, to one of us, at +least) we may not be full of affectionate thoughts and feelings toward you +in your different sort of life in London." The lovely spirit goes on to +remind Mr. Chorley that they have a spare bedroom "which opens of itself +at the thought of you," and that if he can trust himself so far from home, +she begs him to try it for their sakes. "Come and look in our faces, and +learn us more by heart, and see whether we are not two friends?" + +Surely, that life was rich, whatever else it might be denied, that had +Elizabeth Browning for a friend. Her genius for friendship was not less +marvelous, nor less to be considered, than her genius as a poet. Indeed, +truly speaking, the one, in its ideal fullness and completeness, +comprehends the other. + +The summer days among the beautiful hills, and by the green, rushing +river, were made aboundingly happy to the Brownings by the presence of +their friends, the Storys, who shared these vast solitudes. The Storys had +a villa perched on the top of the hill, just above the Brownings', the +terrace shaded with vines, and the great mountains towering all around +them, while a swift mountain brook swept by under an arched bridge, its +force turning picturesque mills far down the valley. Under the shadow of +the chestnut trees fringing its banks, Shelley had once pushed his boat. +"Of society," wrote Story to Lowell, "there is none we care to meet but +the Brownings, and with them we have constant and delightful intercourse, +interchanging long evenings, two or three times a week, and driving and +walking whenever we meet. They are so simple, unaffected, and sympathetic. +Both are busily engaged in writing, he on a volume of lyrics, and she on a +tale or novel in verse." + +This "tale" must have been "Aurora Leigh." The wives of the poet and the +sculptor held hilarious intercourse while going back and forth between +each other's houses on donkey-back, with an enjoyment hardly eclipsed by +that of Penini himself, whose prayer that God would let him ride on +"dontey-back" was so aboundingly granted that the child might well believe +in the lavishness of divine mercies. Browning and Story walked beside and +obediently held the reins of their wives' steeds, that no mishap might +occur. How the picture of these Arcadian days, in those vast leafy +solitudes, peopled only by gods and muses, the attendant "elementals" of +these choice spirits, flashes out through more than the half century that +has passed since those days of their joyous intercourse. There was a night +when Story went alone to take tea with the Brownings, staying till nearly +midnight, and Browning accompanied him home in the mystic moonlight. Mrs. +Browning, who apparently shared her little son's predilections for the +donkey as a means of transportation, would go for a morning ride, Browning +walking beside her as slowly as possible, to keep pace with the donkey's +degree of speed. + +Into this Arcady came, by some untraced dispensation of the gods, a French +master of recitations, who had taught Rachel, and had otherwise allied +himself with the great. M. Alexandre brought his welcome with him, in his +delightful recitations from the poets. Mr. Lytton, having accepted Mrs. +Browning's invitation given to him on his Bellosguardo terrace, now +appeared; and the Storys and the Brownings organized a _festa_, in true +Italian spirit, in an excursion they should all make to Prato Fiortito. + +Prato Fiortito is six miles from Bagni di Lucca, perpendicularly up and +down, "but such a vision of divine scenery," said Mrs. Browning. High +among the mountains, Bagni di Lucca is yet surrounded by higher peaks of +the Apennines. The journey to Prato Fiortito is like going up and down a +wall, the only path for the donkeys being in the beds of the torrents that +cut their way down in the spring. + +Here, after "glorious climbing," in which Mrs. Browning distinguished +herself no less than the others, they arrived at the little old church, +set amid majestic limestone mountains and embowered in purple shade. Here +they feasted, Penini overcome with delight, and on shawls spread under the +great chestnut trees Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Story were made luxuriously +comfortable, while they all talked and read, M. Alexandre reciting from +the French dramatists, and Lytton reading from his "Clytemnestra." The +luncheon was adorned by a mass of wild strawberries, picked on the spot, +by Browning, Story, Lytton, and Alexandre, while the ladies co-operated in +the industry at this honestly earned feast by assisting to hull the +berries. The bottle of cream and package of sugar tucked away in the +picnic basket added all that heart could desire to this ambrosial +luncheon. Mrs. Story, whom Mrs. Browning described as "a sympathetic, +graceful woman, fresh and innocent in face and thought," was a most +agreeable companion; and she and Mrs. Browning frequently exchanged +feminine gossip over basins of strawberries and milk in each other's +houses, for strawberries abounded in these hills. "If a tree is felled in +the forests," said Mrs. Browning, "strawberries spring up just as +mushrooms might, and the peasants sell them for just nothing." + +One night when the Brownings were having tea with the Storys, the talk +turned on Hawthorne. Story, of course, knew the great romancer, whom the +Brownings had not then met and about whom they were curious. "Hawthorne is +a man who talks with a pen," said Story; "he does not open socially to his +intimate friends any more than he does to strangers. It isn't his way to +converse." Mrs. Browning had then just been reading the "Blithedale +Romance," in which she had sought unavailingly, it seems, for some more +personal clue to the inner life of its author. + +On a brilliant August day the Brownings and the Storys fared forth on a +grand excursion on donkey-back, to Benabbia, a hilltown, perched on one +of the peaks. Above it on the rocks is a colossal cross, traced by some +thunder-bolt of the gods, cut in the solid stone. From this excursion they +all returned after dark, in terror of their lives lest the donkeys slip +down the sheer precipices; but the scenery was "exquisite, past all +beauty." Mrs. Browning was spell-bound with its marvelous sublimity, as +they looked around "on the world of innumerable mountains bound faintly +with the gray sea, and not a human habitation." + +Mrs. Browning was then reading the poems of Coventry Patmore, just +published, of which Browning had read the manuscript in London in the +previous year. The poems of Alexander Smith had also appeared at this +time, and in him Mrs. Browning found "an opulence of imagery," but a +defect as to the intellectual part of poetry. With her characteristic +tolerance, she instanced his youth in plea of this defect, and said that +his images were "flowers thrown to him by the gods, gods beautiful and +fragrant, but having no root either in Etna or Olympus." Enamored, as +ever, of novels, she was also reading "Vilette," which she thought a +strong story, though lacking charm, and Mrs. Gaskell's "Ruth," which +pleased her greatly. + +With no dread of death, Mrs. Browning had a horror of the "rust of age," +the touch of age "which is the thickening of the mortal mask between +souls. Why talk of age," she would say, "when we are all young in soul and +heart?... Be sure that it's highly moral to be young as long as possible. +Women who dress 'suitably to their years' (that is, as hideously as +possible) are a disgrace to their sex, aren't they now?" she would +laughingly declare. + +This summer in the Apennines at Bagni di Lucca had been a fruitful one to +Browning in his poetic work. It became one of constant development, and, +as Edmund Gosse points out, "of clarification and increasing selection." +He had already written many of his finest lyrics, "Any Wife to Any +Husband," "The Guardian Angel," and "Saul"; and in these and succeeding +months he produced that miracle of beauty, the poem called "The Flight of +the Duchess"; and "A Grammarian's Funeral," "The Statue and the Bust," +"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," "Fra Lippo Lippi," and "Andrea del +Sarto." To Milsand, Browning wrote that he was at work on lyrics "with +more music and painting than before." + +The idyllic summer among the grand chestnut trees came to an end, as +summers always do, and October found the Brownings again in Casa Guidi, +though preparing to pass the winter in Rome. Verdi had just completed his +opera of "Trovatore," which was performed at the Pergola in Florence, and +the poets found it "very passionate and dramatic." + +In November they fared forth for Rome, "an exquisite journey of eight +days," chronicled Mrs. Browning, "seeing the great monastery and triple +church of Assisi, and that wonderful passion of waters at Terni." + +It was the picturesque Rome of the popes that still remained in that +winter, and the Eternal City was aglow with splendid festivals and +processions and with artistic interest. The Brownings caught something of +its spirit, even as they came within view of the colossal dome of St. +Peter's, and they entered the city in the highest spirits, "Robert and +Penini singing," related Mrs. Browning, "actually, for the child was +radiant and flushed with the continual change of air and scene." The +Storys had engaged an apartment for them, and they found "lighted fires +and lamps," and all comfort. + + +[Illustration: THE CLASPED HANDS OF ROBERT AND ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +Cast in bronze from the model taken by Harriet Hosmer in Rome, 1853. + +The original is in the possession of the author.] + + +That winter of 1853-1854 still stands out in the Roman panorama as one of +exceptional brilliancy. There was a galaxy of artists,--Story, who had +already won fame on two continents; William Page, who believed he had +discovered the secret of Titian's coloring; Crawford, and "young +Leighton," as Mrs. Browning called the future president of the Royal +Academy; Gibson, and his brilliant pupil, Harriet Hosmer; Fisher, who +painted a portrait of Browning, and also of Penini, for his own use to +exhibit in London. It was during this winter that Miss Hosmer took the +cast of the "Clasped Hands" of the Brownings, which was put into bronze, +and which must always remain a work of the most tender interest. Mrs. +Browning was very fond of "Hatty," as she called her, and in a letter to +her Isa she described a pretty scene when Lady Marian Alford, the daughter +of the Duke of Northampton, knelt before the girl sculptor and placed on +her finger a ring of diamonds surrounding a ruby. Browning's early friend, +M. de Ripert-Monclar, to whom he had dedicated his "Paracelsus," and +Lockhart, were also in Rome; and Leighton was completing his great canvas +of Cimabue's Madonna carried in procession through the streets of +Florence. + +The Brownings were domiciled in the Bocca di Leone, while the Storys were +in the Piazza di Spagna; Thackeray and his two daughters were close at +hand, in and out at the Brownings', with his "talk of glittering dust +swept out of salons." There were Hans Christian Andersen, and Fanny +Kemble, with her sister, Mrs. Sartoris, and Lady Oswald, a sister of Lord +Elgin. Thackeray's daughter, Miss Anne Thackeray (now Lady Ritchie), still +finds vivid her girlish memory of Mrs. Browning,--"a slight figure in a +thin black gown and the unpretentious implements of her magic," by her +sofa, on a little table. Lady Ritchie turns back to her diary of that +winter to find in it another of her early impressions of Mrs. Browning, +"in soft, falling flounces of black silk, with her heavy curls drooping, +and a thin gold chain around her neck." This chain held a tiny locket of +crystal set in coils of gold, which she had worn from childhood, not at +all as an ornament, but as a little souvenir. On her death Mr. Browning +put into it some of her hair, and gave the treasured relic to Kate Field, +from whom it came later into the possession of the writer of this book. +Lady Ritchie recalls one memorable evening that season in the salon of +Mrs. Sartoris, when the guests assembled in the lofty Roman drawing-room, +full of "flowers and light, of comfort and color." She recalls how the +swinging lamps were lighted, shedding a soft glow; how the grand piano +stood open, and there was music, and "tables piled with books," and +flowers everywhere. The hostess was in a pearl satin gown with flowing +train, and sat by a round table reading aloud from poems of Mr. Browning, +when the poet himself was announced, "and as she read, in her wonderful +muse-like way, he walked in." All the lively company were half laughing +and half protesting, and Mrs. Kemble, with her regal air, called him to +her side, to submit to him some disputed point, which he evaded. Mrs. +Sartoris had a story, with which she amused her guests, of a luncheon with +the Brownings, somewhere in Italy, where, when she rose to go, and +remarked how delightful it had been, and the other guests joined in their +expressions of enjoyment, Mr. Browning impulsively exclaimed: "Come back +and sup with us, do!" And Mrs. Browning, with the dismay of the housewife, +cried: "Oh, Robert, there is no supper, nothing but the remains of the +pie." To which the poet rejoined: "Then come back and finish the pie." + +Mrs. Browning was deeply attached to Fanny Kemble. She describes her, at +this time, as "looking magnificent, with her black hair and radiant smile. +A very noble creature, indeed," added Mrs. Browning; "somewhat unelastic, +attached to the old modes of thought and convention, but noble in +qualities and defects.... Mrs. Sartoris is genial and generous ... and her +house has the best society in Rome, and exquisite music, of course." + +Mrs. Browning often joined her husband in excursions to galleries, +villas, and ruins; and when in the Sistine Chapel, on a memorable +festival, they heard "the wrong Miserere," she yet found it "very fine, +right or wrong, and overcoming in its pathos." M. Goltz, the Austrian +Minister, was an acquaintance whom the Brownings found "witty and +agreeable," and Mrs. Browning called the city "a palimpsest Rome," with +its records written all over the antique. + +The sorrow of the Storys over the death of a little son shadowed Mrs. +Browning, and she feared for her own Penini, but as the winter went on she +joyfully wrote of him that he "had not dropped a single rose-leaf from his +cheeks," and with her sweet tenderness of motherly love she adds that he +is "a poetical child, really, and in the best sense. He is full of +sweetness and vivacity together, of imagination and grace," and she +pictures his "blue, far-reaching eyes, and the innocent face framed in +golden ringlets." Mrs. Kemble came to them two or three times a week, and +they had long talks, "we three together," records Mrs. Browning. Mr. Page +occupied the apartment just over that of the Brownings, and they saw much +of him. "His portrait of Miss Cushman is a miracle," exclaimed Mrs. +Browning. Page begged to paint a portrait of the poet, of which Mrs. +Browning said that he "painted a picture of Robert like an Italian, and +then presented it to me like a prince." The coloring was Venetian, and the +picture was at first considered remarkable, but its color has entirely +vanished now, so that it seems its painter was not successful in +surprising the secret of Titian. In the spring of 1910 Mr. Barrett +Browning showed this picture to some friends in his villa near Florence, +and its thick, opaque surface hardly retained even a suggestion of color. + +Not the least of Mrs. Browning's enjoyment of that winter was the pleasure +that Rome gave to her little son. "Penini is overwhelmed with attentions +and gifts of all kinds," she wrote, and she described a children's party +given for him by Mrs. Page, who decorated the table with a huge cake, +bearing "Penini" in sugar letters, where he sat at the head and did the +honors. Browning all this time was writing, although the social +allurements made sad havoc on his time. They wandered under the great ilex +trees of the Pincio, and gazed at the Monte Mario pine. Then, as now, +every one drove in that circular route on the Pincian hill, where +carriages meet each other in passing every five minutes. With the Storys +and other friends they often went for long drives and frequent picnics on +the wonderful Campagna, that vast green sea that surrounds Rome, the +Campagna Mystica. On one day Mr. Browning met "Hatty" Hosmer on the +Spanish Steps, and said to her: "Next Saturday Ba and I are going to +Albano on a picnic till Monday, and you and Leighton are to go with us." +"Why this extravagance?" laughingly questioned Miss Hosmer. "On account of +a cheque, a _buona grazia_, that Ticknor and Fields of Boston have +sent--one they were not in the least obliged to send," replied the poet. + +In those days there was no international copyright, but Mr. Browning's +Boston publishers needed no legal constraint to act with ideal honor. So +on the appointed morning, a _partie carré_ of artists--two poets, one +sculptor, one painter--drove gayly through the Porta San Giovanni, on that +road to Albano, with its wonderful views of the Claudian aqueducts in the +distance, through whose arches the blue sky is bluer, and beyond which are +the violet-hued Alban hills. Then, as now, the road led by the Casa dei +Spirite, with its haunting associations, and its strange mural decorations +of specters and wraiths. Past that overhanging cliff, with its tragic +legend, they drove, encountering the long procession of wine carts, with +their tinkling bells, and the dogs guarding the sleeping padrones. Passing +the night in Albano, the next day they mounted donkeys for their excursion +into the Alban hills, past lonely monasteries, up the heights of Rocca +di Papa, where the traveler comes on the ancient camping-ground of +Hannibal, and where they see the padres and acolytes sunning themselves on +the slopes of Monte Cavo; on again, to the rocky terraces from which one +looks down on Alba Longa and the depths of Lago di Nemi, beneath whose +waters is still supposed to be the barque of Caligula, and across the +expanse of the green Campagna to where Æneas landed. + + +[Illustration: THE CAMPAGNA AND RUINS OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCTS, ROME. + + "_There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,_ + _Some old tomb's ruin...._" + +Two in the Campagna. ] + + +Miss Hosmer is the authority on this poetic pilgrimage, and she related +that they all talked of art, of the difficulties of art,--those +encountered by the poet, the sculptor, and the painter,--each regarding +his own medium of expression as the most difficult. Mrs. Browning's +"Hatty" had bestowed in her bag a volume of Mr. Browning's, and on the +homeward journey from Albano to Rome he read aloud to them his "Saul." At +the half-way house on the Campagna, the Torre di Mezza, they paused, to +gaze at the "weird watcher of the Roman Campagna," the monument to +Apuleia, whose ruins are said to have assumed her features. + +Nothing in all the classic atmosphere of Rome, filled with the most +impressive associations of its mighty past, appealed more strongly to the +Brownings than the glorious Campagna, with its apparently infinite open +space, brilliant with myriads of flowers, and the vast billowing slopes +that break like green waves against the purple hills, in their changeful +panorama of clouds and mists and snow-crowned heights dazzling under a +glowing sun. + +Fascinating as this winter in Rome had been to them, rich in friendships +and in art, the Brownings were yet glad to return to their Florence with +the May days, to give diligence and devotion to their poetic work, which +nowhere proceeded so felicitously as in Casa Guidi. + +Browning was now definitely engaged on the poems that were to make up the +"Men and Women." Mrs. Browning was equally absorbed in "Aurora Leigh." +Each morning after their Arcadian repast of coffee and fruit, he went to +his study, and she to the _salotto_, whose windows opened on the terrace +looking out on old gray San Felice where she always wrote, to devote +themselves to serious work. "Aurora Leigh" proceeded rapidly some +mornings, and again its progress would remind her of the web of Penelope. +During this summer Browning completed "In a Balcony," and wrote the "Holy +Cross Day," the "Epistle of Karnish," and "Ben Karshook's Wisdom." Like +his wife, Browning held poetry to be above all other earthly interests; he +was a poet by nature and by grace, and his vast range of scholarship, his +"British-Museum-Library memory," and his artistic feeling and taste, all +conserved to this one end. But poetry to him was not outside, but +inclusive of the very fullest human life. Mrs. Browning's lines, + + "... No perfect artist is developed here + From any imperfect woman,..." + +embodied his convictions as well, for man and woman alike. He had that +royal gift of life in its fullness, an almost boundless capacity of +enjoyment, and to him life meant the completest development and exercise +of all its powers. + +The Brownings found their Florentine circle all in evidence. Mr. Lytton, a +favorite and familiar visitor at Casa Guidi; Frederick Tennyson (and +perhaps his "forty fiddlers" as well), and the Trollopes, Isa Blagden, and +various wandering minstrels. They passed evenings with Mr. Lytton in his +villa, and would walk home "to the song of nightingales by starlight and +firefly light." To Mrs. Browning Florence looked more beautiful than ever +after Rome. "I love the very stones of it," she said. Limitations of +finance kept them in Florence all that summer. "A ship was to have brought +us in something, and brought us in nothing," she explained to a friend in +England, "and the nothing had a discount, beside." But she took comfort in +the fact that Penini was quite as well and almost as rosy as ever, despite +the intense heat; and the starlight and the song of the nightingales were +not without consolation. A letter from Milsand ("one of the noblest and +most intellectual men," says Mrs. Browning of him) came, and they were +interested in his arraignment of the paralysis of imagination in +literature. In September she hears from Miss Mitford of her failing +health, and tenderly writes: "May the divine love in the face of our Lord +Jesus Christ shine upon you day and night, with His ineffable tenderness." +Mrs. Browning's religious feeling was always of that perfect reliance on +the Divine Love that is the practical support of life. "For my own part," +she continues, "I have been long convinced that what we call death is a +mere incident in life.... I believe that the body of flesh is a mere husk +that drops off at death, while the spiritual body emerges in glorious +resurrection at once. Swedenborg says some people do not immediately +realize that they have passed death, which seems to me highly probable. It +is curious that Frederick Denison Maurice takes this precise view of the +resurrection, with apparent unconsciousness of what Swedenborg has stated, +and that I, too, long before I had ever read Swedenborg, or had even heard +the name of Maurice, came to the same conclusion.... I believe in an +active, human life, beyond death, as before it, an uninterrupted life." +Mrs. Browning would have found herself in harmony with that spiritual +genius, Dr. William James, who said: "And if our needs outrun the visible +universe, why may not that be a sign that the invisible universe is there? +Often our faith in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the +result come true." Faith is the divine vision, and no one ever more +absolutely realized this truth than Elizabeth Browning. + + "Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! + My spirit beats her mortal bars, + As down dark tides the glory slides, + And star-like mingles with the stars." + +At another time Mrs. Browning remarked that she should fear for a revealed +religion incapable of expansion, according to the needs of man; while Dr. +James has said, "Believe what is in the line of your needs." Many +similarities of expression reveal to how wonderful a degree Mrs. Browning +had intuitively grasped phases of truth that became the recognized +philosophy of a succeeding generation, and which were stamped by the +brilliant and profound genius of William James, the greatest psychologist +of the nineteenth century. "What comes from God has life in it," said Mrs. +Browning, "and certainly from the growth of all living things, spiritual +growth cannot be excepted." + +The summer passed "among our own nightingales and fireflies," playfully +said Mrs. Browning, and in the autumn Mrs. Sartoris stopped to see them, +on her way to Rome, "singing passionately and talking eloquently." + +Notwithstanding some illness, Mrs. Browning completed four thousand lines +of "Aurora Leigh" before the new year of 1855, in which were expressed all +her largest philosophic thought, and her deepest insight into the problems +of life. Fogazzaro, whose recent death has deprived Italy of her greatest +literary inspirer since Carducci, said of "Aurora Leigh" that he wished +the youth of Italy might study this great poem,--"those who desire poetic +fame that they might gain a high conception of poetry; the weak, in that +they might find stimulus for strength; the sad and discouraged, in that +they might find comfort and encouragement." It was this eminent Italian +novelist and Senator (the King of Italy naming a man as Senator, not in +the least because of any political reasons, but to confer on him the honor +of recognition of his genius in Literature, Science, or Art, and a very +inconvenient, however highly prized, honor he often finds it),--Senator +Antonio Fogazzaro, who contributed, to an Italian biography[7] of the +Brownings by Fanny Zampini, Contessa Salazar, an "Introduction" which is a +notable piece of critical appreciation of the wedded poets from the +Italian standpoint. The Senator records himself as believing that few +poets can be read "with so much intellectual pleasure and spiritual good; +for if the works of Robert and Elizabeth Browning surprise us by the +vigorous originality of their thought," he continues, "they also show us a +rare and salutary spectacle,--two souls as great in their moral character +as in their poetic imagination. 'Aurora Leigh' I esteem Mrs. Browning's +masterpiece.... The ideal poet is a prophet, inspired by God to proclaim +eternal truth...." + +The student of Italian literature will find a number of critical +appreciations of the Brownings, written within the past forty or fifty +years, some of which offer no little interest. "Every man has two +countries, his own and Italy," and the land they had made their own in +love and devotion returned this devotion in measure overflowing. + +Robert and Elizabeth Browning would have been great,--even immortally +great, as man and woman, if they had not been great poets. They both +lived, in a simple, natural way, the essential life of the spirit, the +life of scholarship and noble culture, of the profound significance of +thought, of creative energy, of wide interest in all the important +movements of the day, and of beautiful and sincere friendships. + + "O life, O poetry, + Which means life in life," + +wrote Mrs. Browning. + +The character of Mrs. Browning has been so often portrayed as that of some +abnormal being, half-nervous invalid, half-angel, as if she were a +special creation of nature with no particular relation to the great active +world of men and women, that it is quite time to do away with the category +of nonsense and literary hallucination. One does not become less than +woman by being more. Mrs. Browning fulfilled every sweetest relation in +life as daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother; and her life was not +the less normal in that it was one of exceptional power and exaltation. +She saw in Art the most potent factor for high service, and she held that +it existed for Love's sake, for the sake of human co-operation with the +purposes of God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +1855-1861 + + "Inward evermore + To outward,--so in life, and so in art + Which still is life." + + "... I love thee with the breath, + Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, + I shall but love thee better after death." + + +LONDON LIFE--AN INTERLUDE IN PARIS--"AURORA LEIGH"--FLORENTINE DAYS--"MEN + AND WOMEN"--THE HAWTHORNES--"THE OLD YELLOW BOOK"--A SUMMER IN + NORMANDY--THE ETERNAL CITY--THE STORYS AND OTHER FRIENDS--LILIES OF + FLORENCE--"IT IS BEAUTIFUL!" + + +The Florentine winter is by no means an uninterrupted dream of sunshine +and roses; the tramontana sweeps down from the encircling Apennines, with +its peculiarly piercing cold that penetrates the entire system with the +unerring precision of the Röentgen ray; torrents of icy rains fall; and +the purple hills, on whose crest St. Domenico met St. Benedict, are +shrouded in clouds and mist. All the loveliness of Florence seems to be +utterly effaced, till one questions if it existed except as a mirage; but +when the storm ceases, and the sun shines again, there is an instantaneous +transformation. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the spell of +enchantment resumes its sway over the Flower Town, and all is forgiven and +forgotten. + +The winter of 1855 was bitterly cold, and by January the Brownings fairly +barricaded themselves in two rooms which could best be heated, and in +these fires were kept up by day as well as night. In April, however, the +divine days came again, and the green hillslope from the Palazzo Pitti to +the Boboli Gardens was gay with flowers. Mr. Browning gave four hours +every day to dictating his poems to a friend who was transcribing them for +him. Mrs. Browning had completed some seven thousand lines of "Aurora +Leigh," but not one of these had yet been copied for publication. Various +hindrances beset them, but finally in June they left for England, their +most important impedimenta being sixteen thousand lines of poetry, almost +equally divided between them, comprising his manuscript for "Men and +Women," and hers for "Aurora Leigh," complete, save for the last three +books. The change was by no means unalloyed joy. To give up, even +temporarily, their "dream-life of Florence," leaving the old tapestries +and pre-Giotto pictures, for London lodgings, was not exhilarating; but +after a week in Paris they found themselves in an apartment in No. 13 +Dorset Street, Manchester Square, where they remained until October, every +hour filled with engagements or work. Proof-sheets were coming in at all +hours; likewise friends, with the usual contingent of the "devastators of +a day," and all that fatigue and interruption and turmoil that lies in +wait for the pilgrim returning to his former home, beset and entangled +them. Mrs. Browning's youngest brother, Alfred Barrett, was married that +summer to his cousin Lizzie, the "pretty cousin" to whom allusion has +already been made as the original of Mrs. Browning's poem, "A Portrait." +They were married in Paris at the English Embassy, and passed the summer +on the Continent. Mrs. Browning's sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook) was +unable to come up to London, so that the hoped-for pleasure of seeing this +brother and sister was denied her; but Miss Arabel Barrett was close at +hand in the Wimpole Street home, and the sisters were much together. Mr. +Barrett had never changed his mental attitude regarding the marriage of +his daughter Elizabeth, nor that of any of his children, and while this +was a constant and never-forgotten grief with Mrs. Browning, there seems +no necessity for prolonged allusion to it. The matter can only be +relegated to the realms of non-comprehension as the idiosyncrasy of an +otherwise good man, of intelligence and much nobility of nature. + +The Brownings were invited to Knebworth, to visit Lord Lytton, but they +were unable to avail themselves of the pleasure because of proof-sheets +and contingent demands which only writers with books in press can +understand. Proof-sheets are unquestionably endowed with some super-human +power of volition, and invariably arrive at the psychological moment when, +if their author were being married or buried, the ceremony would have to +be postponed until they were corrected. But the poets were not without +pleasant interludes, either; as when Tennyson came from the Isle of Wight +to London for three or four days, two of which he passed with the +Brownings. He "dined, smoked, and opened his heart" to them; and concluded +this memorable visit at the witching hour of half-past two in the morning, +after reading "Maud" aloud the evening before from the proof-sheets. The +date of this event is established by an inscription affixed to the back of +a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, made on that night by Dante Gabriel +Rossetti, and which is now in the possession of Robert Barrett Browning. +This inscription, written by Robert Browning, reads: "Tennyson read his +poem 'Maud' to E. B. B., R. B., Arabel, and Rossetti, on the evening of +Sept. 27th, 1855, at 13, Dorset Street. Rossetti made this sketch of +Tennyson, as he sat, reading, on one end of the sofa, E. B. B. being on +the other end." And this is signed, "R. B. March 6th, 1874 ... 19, Warwick +Crescent." As the date is Mrs. Browning's birthday, it is easy to realize +how, in that March of 1874, he was recalling tender and beloved memories. +On the drawing itself Mrs. Browning had, at the time of the reading, +copied the first two lines of "Maud." Tennyson replied to a question from +William Sharp, who in 1882 wrote to the Laureate to ask about this night, +that he had "not the slightest recollection" of Rossetti's presence; but +the inscription on the picture establishes the fact. William Michael +Rossetti was also one of the group, and a record that he made quite +supports the fact of Tennyson's unconsciousness of his brother's presence, +for he says: "So far as I remember the Poet-Laureate neither saw what my +brother was doing nor knew of it afterward." And as if every one of this +gifted group present that night left on record some impression, Dante +Gabriel Rossetti has noted that, after Tennyson's reading, Browning read +his "Fra Lippo Lippi," and "with as much sprightly variation as there was +in Tennyson of sustained continuity." In a letter to Allingham, Rossetti +also alluded to this night, and infused a mild reproach to Mrs. Browning +in that her attention was diverted by "two not very exciting ladies"; and +in a letter to Mrs. Tennyson, Mrs. Browning speaks of being "interrupted +by some women friends whom I loved, but yet could not help wishing a +little further just then, that I might sit in the smoke, and listen to the +talk," after the reading. So, from putting together, mosaic fashion, all +the allusions made by the cloud of witnesses, the reader constructs a +rather accurate picture of that night of the gods. Mrs. Browning, who "was +born to poet-uses," like the suitor of her own "Lady Geraldine," was in a +rapture of pleasure that evening, and of "Maud" she wrote: "The close is +magnificent, full of power, and there are beautiful, thrilling lines all +through. If I had a heart to spare, the Laureate would have won mine." +Tennyson's voice she found "like an organ, music rather than speech," and +she was "captivated" by his _naïveté_, as he stopped every now and then +to say, "There's a wonderful touch!" Mrs. Browning writes to Mrs. Tennyson +of "the deep pleasure we had in Mr. Tennyson's visit to us." She adds: + + "He didn't come back, as he said he would, to teach me the 'Brook' + (which I persist, nevertheless, in fancying I understand a little), + but he did so much and left such a voice (both him 'and a voice!') + crying out 'Maud' to us, and helping the effect of the poem by the + personality, that it's an increase of joy and life to us ever." + + +[Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN, FILIPPO LIPPI. + +IN THE ACCADEMIA DI BELLE ARTI, FLORENCE. + + "_Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,_ + _Lilies and vestments and white faces...._" + +Fra Lippo Lippi] + + +Deciding to pass the ensuing winter in Paris, the Brownings found +themselves anxious to make the change, that they might feel settled for +the time, as she needed entire freedom from demands that she might proceed +with her "Aurora Leigh." He had conceived the idea of revising and +recasting "Sordello." They passed an evening with Ruskin, however, and +presented "young Leighton" to him. They met Carlyle at Forster's, finding +him "in great force"--of denunciations. They met Kinglake, and were at the +Proctors, and of the young poet, Anne Adelaide Proctor, Mrs. Browning +says, "How I like Adelaide's face!" Mrs. Sartoris and Mrs. Kemble were +briefly in London, and Kenyon, the beloved friend, vanished to the Isle of +Wight. To Penini's great delight, Wilson, the maid, married a Florentine, +one Ferdinando Romagnoli, who captivated the boy by his talk of Florence, +and Penini caught up his pretty Italian enthusiasms, and discoursed of +Florentine skies, and the glories of the Cascine, to any one whom he could +waylay. + +In Paris they first established themselves in the Rue de Grenelle, in the +old Faubourg San Germain, a location they soon exchanged for a more +comfortable apartment in the Rue de Colisée, just off the Champs Élysées. +Here they renewed their intercourse with Lady Elgin (now an invalid) and +with her daughter, Lady Augusta Bruce, Madame Mohl, and with other +friends. Mrs. Browning was absorbed in her great poem, which she was able +to complete, however, only after their return to London the next June, and +never did an important literary work proceed with less visible craft. She +lay on her sofa, half supported by cushions, writing with pencil on little +scraps of paper, which she would slip under the pillows if any chance +visitor came in. "Elizabeth is lying on the sofa, writing like a spirit," +Browning wrote to Harriet Hosmer. To Mrs. Browning Ruskin wrote, praising +her husband's poems, which gratified her deeply, and she replied, in part, +that when he wrote to praise her poems, of course she had to bear it. "I +couldn't turn around and say, 'Well, and why don't you praise him, who is +worth twenty of me?' One's forced," she continued, "to be rather decent +and modest for one's husband as well as for one's self, even if it's +harder. I couldn't pull at your coat to read 'Pippa Passes,' for +instance.... But you have put him on your shelf, so we have both taken +courage to send you his new volumes, 'Men and Women,'... that you may +accept them as a sign of the esteem and admiration of both of us." Mrs. +Browning considered these poems beyond any of his previous work, save +"Paracelsus," but there is no visible record left of what she must have +felt regarding that tender and exquisite dedication to her, that "One Word +More ... To E. B. B.," which must have been to her + + "The heart's sweet Scripture to be read at night." + +These lines are, indeed, a fitting companion-piece to her "Sonnets from +the Portuguese." For all these poems, his "fifty men and women," were for +her,--his "moon of poets." + + "There they are, my fifty men and women + Naming me the fifty poems finished! + Take them, Love, the book and me together; + Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. + + * * * * * + + I shall never, in the years remaining, + Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, + Make you music that should all-express me; + + * * * * * + + Verse and nothing else have I to give you. + Other heights in other lives, God willing; + All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!" + +So he wrote to his "one angel,--borne, see, on my bosom!" For her alone +were the + + "Silent, silver lights and darks undreamed of," + +and while there was one side to face the world with, he thanked God that +there was another,-- + + "One to show a woman when he loves her!" + + +It was Rossetti, however, who was the true interpreter of Browning to +Ruskin,--for if it requires a god to recognize a god, so likewise in +poetic recognitions. To Rossetti the poems comprised in "Men and Women" +were the "elixir of life." The moving drama of Browning's poetry +fascinated him. Some years before he had chanced upon "Pauline" in the +British Museum, and being unable to procure the book, had copied every +line of it. The "high seriousness" which Aristotle claims to be one of the +high virtues of poetry, impressed Rossetti in Browning. What a drama of +the soul universal was revealed in that "fifty men and women"! What art, +what music, coming down the ages, from Italy, from Germany, and what +pictures from dim frescoes, and long-forgotten paintings hid in niche and +cloister, were interpreted in these poems! How one follows "poor brother +Lippo" in his escapade: + + "... I could not paint all night-- + Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. + There came a hurry of feet and little feet, + A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song,-- + _Flower o' the broom,_ + _Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!_ + _Flower o' the quince,_ + _I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?_" + +And in "Andrea del Sarto" what passionate pathos of an ideal missed! + + "But all the play, the insight and the stretch-- + Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? + Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, + We might have risen to Rafael, I and you! + + * * * * * + + Had you ... but brought a mind! + Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged + 'God and the glory! never care for gain. + The present by the future, what is that? + Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! + Rafael is waiting; up to God, all three!' + I might have done it for you...." + +And that exquisite idyl of "the love of wedded souls" in "By the +Fire-side." It requires no diviner to discover from whose image he drew +the line, + + "My perfect wife, my Leonor." + +How Browning's art fused poetic truth and poetic beauty in all these +poems, vital with keen and shrewd observation, deep with significance, and +pervaded by the perpetual recognition of a higher range of achievements +than are realized on earth. + + "A man's grasp should exceed his reach, + Or what's a heaven for?" + +In all these poems can be traced the magic of Italy and happiness. (Are +the two more than half synonymous?) The perfect sympathy, the delicate +divination and intuitive comprehension with which Browning was surrounded +by his wife, were the supreme source of the stimulus and development of +his powers as a poet. + + +[Illustration: ANDREA DEL SARTO. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AND HIS WIFE. + +IN THE PITTI GALLERY, FLORENCE. + +"_You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?_" + +Andrea del Sarto.] + + +The Parisian winter was full of movement and interest. No +twentieth-century prophet had then arisen to instruct the populace how to +live on twenty-four hours a day, but the Brownings captured what time they +could rescue from the devouring elements, rose early, breakfasted at nine, +and gave the next hour and a half to Penini's lessons,--"the darling, +idle, distracted child," who was "blossoming like a rose" all this time; +who "learned everything by magnetism," and, however "idle," was still able +in seven weeks to read French "quite surprisingly." Mrs. Browning had +already finished and transcribed some six thousand lines (making five +books) of "Aurora Leigh "; but she planned at least two more books to +complete the poem, which must needs be ready by June; and when, by the +author's calendar, it is February, by some necromancy June is apt to come +in the next morning. The Brownings made it an invariable rule to receive +no visitors till after four, but the days had still a trick of vanishing +like the fleet angel who departs before he leaves his blessing. At all +events, the last days of May came before "Aurora Leigh" was completed, and +its author half despairingly realized that two weeks more were needed for +the transcription of her little slips to the pages ready for the press. + +Meantime Browning had occupied himself for a time in an attempt to revise +"Sordello," an effort soon abandoned, as he saw that, for good or ill, the +work must stand as first written. + +Madame Mohl's "evenings" continued to attract Browning, where he met a +most congenial and brilliant circle, and while his wife was unable to +accompany him to these mild festivities, she insisted that he should avail +himself of these opportunities for intercourse with French society. With +Lady Monson he went to see Ristori in "Medea," finding her great, but +not, in his impression, surpassing Rachel. Monckton Milnes comes over to +Paris, and a Frenchman of letters gives a dinner for him, at which +Browning meets George Sand and Cavour. + +The success of "Men and Women" was by this time assured. Browning stood in +the full light of recognition on both sides the ocean. For America--or +rather, perhaps, one should say, Boston, for American recognition focused +in Boston (which was then, at all events, incontestably the center of all +"sweetness and light")--discerned the greatness of Robert Browning as +swiftly as any transatlantic dwellers on the watch-tower. + +Rossetti, who from the days that he copied "Pauline" in the British Museum +Library, not knowing the author, was an ardent admirer of Browning, found +himself in Paris, and he and Browning passed long mornings in the Louvre. +The painter declared that Browning's knowledge of early Italian art was +beyond that of any one whom he had met, Ruskin not excepted. + +Ruskin was a standard of artistic measurement in those days to a degree +hardly conceivable now; not that much of his judgment does not stand the +test of time, but that authoritative criticism has so many embodiments. +Mrs. Browning, to whom Ruskin was one of the nearest of her circle, +considered him a critic who was half a poet as well, and her clear insight +discerned what is now universally recognized, that he was "encumbered by a +burning imagination." She told him that he was apt to light up any object +he looked upon, "just as we, when we carried torches into the Vatican, +were not clear as to how much we brought to that wonderful Demosthenes, +folding the marble round him in its thousand folds," and questioned as to +where was the dividing line between the sculptor and the torch-bearer. +This fairly clairvoyant insight of Mrs. Browning into character, the +ability to discern defects as well as virtues where she loved, and to +love where she discerned defects, is still further illustrated by a letter +of hers to Ruskin on the death of Miss Mitford. "But no, her 'judgment' +was not 'unerring,'" wrote Mrs. Browning. "She was too intensely +sympathetic not to err often ... if she loved a person it was enough.... +And yet ... her judgment could be fine and discriminating, especially upon +subjects connected with life and society and manners." + +Again, to a friend who had met a great bereavement she also wrote in these +Paris days: + + "We get knowledge in losing what we hoped for, and liberty by losing + what we love. This world is a fragment, or, rather, a segment, and it + will be rounded presently. Not to doubt that is the greatest blessing + it gives now. The common impression of death is as false as it is + absurd. A mere change of circumstances,--what more? And how near these + spirits are, how conscious of us, how full of active energy, of tender + reminiscence and interest in us? Who shall dare to doubt? For myself, + I do not doubt at all." + + +In that latest collection of Browning's poems, no one excited more +discussion at the time than "The Statue and the Bust." There being then no +Browning Societies to authoritatively decide the poet's real meaning on +any disputed point, the controversy assumed formidable proportions. Did +Browning mean this poem to be an _apologia_ for illegal love? was asked +with bated breath. + +The statue of Fernandino di Medici, in the Piazza dell' Annunziata, in +Florence,--that magnificent equestrian group by Giovanni da Bologna,--is +one of the first monuments that the visitor who has a fancy for tracing +out poetic legends fares forth to see. As an example of plastic art, +alone, it is well worth a pilgrimage; but as touched by the magic of the +poet's art, it is magnetic with life. Dating back to 1608, it was left for +Robert Browning to invest it with immortality. + + "There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well + And a statue watches it from the square." + + +In the poem Mr. Browning alludes to the cornice, "where now is the empty +shrine"; but his son believes that there never was any bust in this niche, +the bust being simply the poet's creation. The statue of the Grand Duke is +remarkable enough to inspire any story; and the Florentine noble may well +take pride in the manner that "John of Douay" has presented him, if he +still "contrives" to see it, and still "laughs in his tomb" at the +perpetual pilgrimage that is made to the scene of the legend, as well as +to the royal Villa Petraja, also immortalized in Browning's poem. + +June came, the closing books of "Aurora Leigh" had been written, and under +the roof of her dear friend and cousin, Kenyon, who had begged the +Brownings to accept the loan of his house in Devonshire Place, the last +pages were transcribed, and the dedication made to the generous friend who +was the appointed good angel of their lives. They were saddened by +Kenyon's illness, which imprisoned him for that summer on the Isle of +Wight, and after seeing "Aurora Leigh" through the press, they passed a +little time with him at Cowes, and also visited Mrs. Browning's sister +Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook), before setting out for Italy. No one in +London missed them more than Dante Gabriel Rossetti. "With them has gone +one of my delights," he said; "an evening resort where I never felt +unhappy." + + +[Illustration: EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF FERDINANDO DE' MEDICI, + +BY GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA. + +IN THE PIAZZA DELL' ANNUNZIATA, FLORENCE. + + "_There's a palace in Florence the world knows well,_ + _And a statue watches it from the square._" + + The Ring and the Book.] + + +The success of "Aurora Leigh" was immediate, a second edition being called +for within a fortnight, and edition after edition followed. This work, of +which, twelve years before, she had a dim foreshadowing, as of a novel in +verse, has the twofold interest of a great dramatic poem and of a +philosophic commentary on art and life. To estimate it only as a social +treatise is to recognize but one element in its kaleidoscopic interest. +Yet the narrative, it must be confessed, is fantastic and unreal. When +the conception of the work first dawned upon her, she said she preferred +making her story to choosing that of any legend, for the theme; but the +plot is its one defect, and is only saved from being a serious defect by +the richness and splendor of thought with which it is invested. The poem +is to some degree a spiritual autobiography; its narrative part having no +foundation in reality, but on this foundation she has recorded her highest +convictions on the philosophy of life. Love, Art, Ethics, the Christianity +of Christ,--all are here, in this almost inexhaustible mine of +intellectual and spiritual wealth. It is a poem peculiarly calculated to +kindle and inspire. What a passage is this: + + "... I can live + At least my soul's life, without alms from men, + And if it be in heaven instead of earth, + Let heaven look to it,--I am not afraid." + +A profound occult truth is embodied in the following: + + "Whate'er our state we must have made it first; + And though the thing displease us,--aye, perhaps, + Displease us warrantably, never doubt + That other states, though possible once, and then + Rejected by the instinct of our lives, + If then adopted had displeased us more. + + * * * * * + + What we choose may not be good; + But that we choose it, proves it good for us." + +No Oriental savant could more forcibly present his doctrine of karma than +has Mrs. Browning in these lines. Her recognition of the power of poetry +is here expressed: + + + "And plant a poet's word even deep enough + In any man's breast, looking presently + For offshoots, you have done more for the man + Than if you dressed him in a broadcloth coat, + And warmed his Sunday pottage at your fire." + +Poetry was to her as serious a thing as life itself. "There has been no +playing at skittles for me in either poetry, or life," she said; "I never +mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour +of the poet." + +In the success of "Aurora Leigh" she was herself surprised. Private +letters from strangers filled with the warmest, even if sometimes +indiscriminate, praises, rained down upon her, and she found the press +"astonishing in its good will." That her "golden-hearted Robert" was "in +ecstasies about it, far more than as if it had been a book of his own," +was apparently her most precious reward. Milsand, who she had fancied +would hardly like this poem, wrote a critique of it for the _Revue_ which +touched her with its "extraordinary kindness." He asked and obtained +permission to translate it into French, and in a letter to Miss Sarianna +Browning she speaks of her happiness that he should thus distinguish the +poem. + +Soon after their arrival in Florence came the saddest of news, that of the +death of John Kenyon, their beloved friend, whose last thoughtful kindness +was to endow them with a legacy insuring to them that freedom from +material care which is so indispensable to the best achievements in art. +During his life he had given to them one hundred pounds a year, and in his +will he left them ten thousand guineas,--the largest of the many legacies +that his generous will contained. + +The carnival, always gay in Florence, was exceedingly so that year, and +Penini, whose ardor for a blue domino was gratified, and who thought of +nothing else for the time being, seemed to communicate his raptures, so +that Browning proposed taking a box at the opera ball, and entertaining +some invited friends with gallantina and champagne. Suddenly the air grew +very mild, and he decided that his wife might and must go; she sent out +hastily to buy a mask and domino (he had already a beautiful black silk +one, which she later transmuted into a black silk gown for herself), and +while her endurance and amusement kept her till two o'clock in the +morning, the poet and his friends remained till after four. The Italian +carnival, however wild and free it may be (and is), yet never degenerates +into rudeness. The inborn delicacy and gentle refinement of the people +render this impossible. Yet for the time being there is perfect social +equality, and at this ball the Grand Duke and Wilson's husband, +Ferdinando, were on terms of fellowship. + +In the early April of that spring the summer suddenly dawned upon lovely +Florence like a transformation scene on a stage. The trees in the Cascine +were all a "green mist." Everywhere was that ethereal enchantment of the +Flower City, with her gleaming towers and domes, her encircling purple +hills and picturesque streets. And how, indeed, could any one who has +watched the loveliness of a Florentine springtime ever escape its haunting +spell? The dweller in Italy may see a thousand things to desire,--better +public privileges, more facilities for comfort, but the day comes when, if +he has learned to love the Italian atmosphere so intensely that all the +glories of earth could not begin to compensate for it, he would give every +conceivable achievement of modern art and progress for one hour among +those purple hills, for one hour with the sunset splendors over the +towers, and the olive-crowned heights of Fiesole and Bellosguardo; or to +hear again the impassioned strains of street singers ring out in pathetic +intensity in the bewildering moonlight. _La Bella Firenze_, lying +dream-enchanted among her amethyst hills, would draw her lover from the +wilds of Siberia, for even one of those etherial evenings, when the stars +blaze in a splendor over San Miniato, or one rose-crowned morning, when +the golden sunshine gilds the tower of the old cathedral on Fiesole. + +In that spring Mrs. Stowe visited Florence, and the Brownings liked her +and rejoiced that she had moved the world for good. To Mrs. Jameson Mrs. +Browning wrote that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a "sign of the times." She +read Victor Hugo's "Contemplations," finding some of the personal poems +"overcoming in their pathos"; they went to tea on the terrace at +Bellosguardo, in April evenings, gazing over Florence veiled in +transparent blue haze in the valley below. + +In this April Mrs. Browning's father died; she had never ceased to hope +for reconciliation, and her sorrow was great, but, as usual, she was +gently serene, "not despondingly calm," she said. Mrs. Jameson again came +to Florence, and there were more teas on overhanging terraces, and +enjoyments of the divine sunsets. + +In August they went with Miss Blagden, Mr. Lytton, and one or two others +to again make _villeggiatura_ at Bagni di Lucca, where Mrs. Browning rose +every morning at six to bathe in the rapid little mountain +stream,--finding herself strengthened by this heroic practice,--and Penini +flourished "like a rose possessed by a fairy." + +The succeeding winter was passed in Florence, Mrs. Browning instructing +her little son in German, and herself reveled in French and German +romances. Her rest was always gained in lying on the sofa and reading +novels; Browning, who cared little for fiction, found his relaxation in +drawing. He taught Penini on the piano, and the boy read French, German, +and Italian every day, and played in the open air under the very shadow of +the Palazzo Pitti. + + +[Illustration: VILLA PETRAJA, NEAR FLORENCE. + + "_... Try if Petraja, cool and green._ + _Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers._" + + The Statue and the Bust.] + + +The Hawthornes, who had met the Brownings in London at a breakfast given +by Lord Houghton, came up from Rome, and Mrs. Hawthorne declared that the +grasp of Browning's hand "gives a new value to life." They passed an +evening at Casa Guidi, and Mrs. Hawthorne recorded that in the corridor, +as they entered, was a little boy who answered in the affirmative as to +whether he were "Penini," and who "looked like a waif of poetry, +lovelier still in the bright light of the drawing-room." Mr. Browning +instantly appeared with his cordial welcome, leading them into the salon +that looked out on the terrace, filled with growing plants. From San +Felice there came the chanting of music, and the flowers, the melody, the +stars hanging low in the sky, all ablaze over San Miniato, with the poet +and his child, all conspired to entrance the sensitive and poetic Mrs. +Hawthorne. Then Mrs. Browning came in, "delicate, like a spirit, the +ethereal poet-wife, with a cloud of curls half concealing her face, and +with the fairy fingers that gave a warm, human pressure,--a very +embodiment of heart and intellect." Mrs. Hawthorne had brought her a +branch of pink roses, which Mrs. Browning pinned on her black velvet gown. + +They were taken into the drawing-room, a lofty, spacious apartment where +Gobelin tapestries, richly carved furniture, pictures, and _vertu_ all +enchanted Mrs. Hawthorne, and they talked "on no very noteworthy topics," +Hawthorne afterward recorded, though he added that he wondered that the +conversation of Browning should be so clear and so much to the purpose, +considering that in his poetry one ran "into the high grass of obscure +allusion." The poet Bryant and his daughter were present that evening, a +little to the regret of Mrs. Hawthorne, and there were tea and +strawberries, Mrs. Browning presiding at the tray, and Penini, "graceful +as Ganymede," passing the cake. + +The Brownings left Florence soon after this evening. The summer of 1858 +was passed in Normandy, in company with Mr. Browning's father and his +sister Sarianna, all of them occupying together a house on the shore of +the Channel, near Havre. They confessed themselves in a heavenly state of +mind, equally appreciative of the French people,--manners, cooking, +cutlets, and costumes, all regarded with perpetual admiration. Penini, +too, was by no means behind in his pretty, childish enthusiasms. He was +now nine years of age, reading easily French and German, as well as the +two languages, English and Italian--each of which was as much his native +tongue as the other--and with much proficiency at the piano. Browning +already played duets with his little son, while the happy mother looked +smilingly on. Mrs. Browning was one who lived daily her real life. For +there is much truth in the Oriental truism that our real life is that +which we do _not_ live,--in our present environment, at least. She always +gave of her best because she herself dwelt in the perpetual atmosphere of +high thought. Full of glancing humor and playfulness of expression, never +scorning homely conditions, she yet lived constantly in the realm of +nobleness. + + "Poets become such + By scorning nothing," + +she has said. + +The following winter found them again in Rome, where Mrs. Browning was +much occupied with Italian politics. Her two deepest convictions were +faith in the honest purposes of Louis Napoleon, and her enthusiasm for +Italian liberty and unity. In her poem, "A Tale of Villafranca," she +expressed her convictions and feelings. One of their nearer friends in +Rome was Massimo d'Azeglio, the Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1849 to +1852, one of the purest of Italian patriots, who was full of hope for +Italy. The English Minister Plenipotentiary to Rome at that time was Lord +Odo Russell, and when the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) arrived +in Rome, the Minister (later Lord Ampthill) invited (through Colonel +Bruce) several gentlemen to meet him, Colonel Bruce said to Browning that +he knew it "would gratify the Queen that the Prince should make the +acquaintance of Mr. Browning." Mrs. Browning spoke of "the little prince" +in one of her letters to Isa Blagden as "a gentle, refined boy," and she +notes how Massimo d'Azeglio came to see them, and talked nobly, and +confesses herself more proud of his visit "than of another personal +distinction, though I don't pretend to have been insensible to that," she +adds, evidently referring to the meeting with the young prince. + +Mrs. Browning's love for novels seemed to have been inherited by her son, +for this winter he was reading an Italian translation of "Monte Cristo" +with such enthusiasm as to resolve to devote his life to fiction. "Dear +Mama," he gravely remarked, "for the future I mean to read novels. I shall +read all Dumas's to begin." + +On their return to Florence in the spring, Mrs. Browning gives William +Page a letter of introduction to Ruskin, commending Mr. Page "as a man +earnest, simple and noble, who "has not been successful in life, and when +I say life I include art, which is life to him. You will recognize in this +name _Page_," she continues, "the painter of Robert's portrait which you +praised for its Venetian color, and criticised in other respects," she +concluded. And she desires Ruskin to know the "wonder and light and color +and space and air" that Page had put into his "Venus Rising from the Sea," +which the Paris salon of that summer had refused on the ground of its +nudity,--a scruple that certainly widely differentiates the Salon of 1858 +from that of 1911. + +Salvini, even then already recognized as a great artist, was playing in a +theater in Florence that spring, and the Brownings saw with great +enjoyment and admiration his impersonations of Hamlet and Othello. + +On a glowing June morning Browning was crossing the Piazza San Lorenzo, +when the market-folk had all their curious wares of odds and ends spread +about on tables. At one of these he chanced on "the square old yellow +book" which held the story of the Franceschini tragedy, which the poet's +art transmuted into his greatest poem, "The Ring and the Book." No other +single work of Browning's can rival this in scope and power. It would seem +as if he had, at the moment, almost a prescience of the incalculable value +of this crumpled and dilapidated volume; as if he intuitively recognized +what he afterward referred to as "the predestination." On his way homeward +he opened the book; + + "... through street and street, + At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge; + Till, by the time I stood at home again + In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, + + * * * * * + + I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth." + +In this brief time he had comprehended the entire story of the trial and +execution of Count Guido Franceschino, Nobleman of Arezzo, for the murder +of his wife, Pompilia, and apparently much of the conception of his great +work of future years, "The Ring and the Book," took possession of him at +once. But it was like the seed that must germinate and grow. Little indeed +did he dream that in this chance purchase he had been led to the material +for the supreme achievement of his art. + +One evening before leaving Florence for Siena, where the Brownings had +taken the Villa Alberti for the summer, they had Walter Savage Landor to +tea, and also Miss Blagden and Kate Field, then a young girl, studying +music in Florence, who was under Miss Blagden's charge. Just as the tea +was placed on the table, Browning turned to his honored guest, and thanked +him for his defense of old songs; and opening Landor's latest book, "Last +Fruit," he read in a clear, vibrant voice from the "Idylls of Theocritus." +The chivalrous deference touched the aged poet. "Ah, you are kind," said +he; "you always find out the best bits in my books." + + +[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN MINIATO, NEAR FLORENCE. + + "_Came she, our new crescent of a hair's breadth._ + _Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato._" + +One Word More.] + + +The loyal homage rendered by the younger poet, in all the glow of his +power, to the "old master," was lovely to see. As will be recalled, Landor +had been one of the first to recognize the genius of Browning when his +youthful poem, "Paracelsus," appeared. Landor had then written to Southey: +"God grant that Robert Browning live to be much greater, high as he now +stands among most of the living." + +It was one noon soon after this evening that Landor came to Casa Guidi, +desolate and distraught, declaring he had left his villa on the Fiesolean +slope never to return, because of his domestic difficulties. The Brownings +were about leaving for Siena and Mr. Browning decided to engage an +apartment for the venerable poet, when the Storys, who were making +_villeggiatura_ in the strange old medieval city, invited Landor to be +their guest. The villa where the Storys were domiciled was near the +Brownings, and Landor was much in both households. "He made us a long +visit," wrote Mrs. Story, "and was our honored and cherished guest. His +courtesy and high breeding never failed him." Landor would often be seen +astir in the early dawn, sitting under the olive trees in the garden, +writing Latin verses. To Kate Field, who had become a great favorite with +the Brownings, Mr. Browning wrote with some bit of verse of Landor's: + + SIENA, VILLA ALBERTI, July 18. + + DEAR MISS FIELD:--I have only a minute to say that Mr. Landor wrote + these really pretty lines in your honor the other day,--you remember + on what circumstances they turn. I know somebody who is ready to + versify to double the extent at the same cost to you, and do his best, + too, and you also know. + + Yours Affectionately Ever, + + R. B. + + The servant waits for this and stops the expansion of soul! + + P. S. ... What do you mean by pretending that we are not the obliged, + the grateful people? Your stay had made us so happy, come and make us + happy again, says (or would say were she not asleep) my wife, and + yours also,-- + + R. B. + + +Of Landor, while they were in Siena, Mrs. Browning wrote to a friend that +Robert always said he owed more to him than any other contemporary, and +that Landor's genius insured him the gratitude of all artists. In these +idyllic days Mr. Story's young daughter, Edith, (now the Marchesa Peruzzi +di Medici, of Florence,) had a birthday, which the poetic group all united +to celebrate. In honor of the occasion Landor not only wrote a Latin poem +for the charming girl, but he appeared in a wonderful flowered waistcoat, +one that dated back to the days of Lady Blessington, to the amusement of +all the group. From Isa Blagden, who remained in her villa on +Bellosguardo, came almost daily letters to Mrs. Browning, who constantly +gained strength in the life-giving air of Siena, where they looked afar +over a panorama of purple hills, with scarlet sunsets flaming in the west, +the wind blowing nearly every day, as now. The Cave of the Winds, as +celebrated by Virgil, might well have been located in Siena. + +Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Story would go back and forth to visit each other, +mounted on donkeys, their husbands walking beside, as they had done in the +Arcadian days at Bagni di Lucca. Odo Russell passed two days with the +Brownings on his way from Rome to London, to their great enjoyment. +Landor's health and peace of mind became so far restored that he was able +to "write awful Latin alcaics." Penini, happy in his great friends, the +Story children, Julian, Waldo, and Edith, and hardly less so with the +_contadini_, whom he helped to herd the sheep and drive in the +grape-carts, galloped through lanes on his own pony, insisted on reading +to his _contadini_ from the poems of Dall' Ongaro, and grew apace in +happiness and stature. For two hours every day his father taught him +music, and the lad already played Beethoven sonatas, and music of +difficult execution from German composers. + +The Brownings and the Storys passed many evenings together, "sitting on +the lawn under the ilexes and the cypresses, with tea and talk, until the +moon had made the circuit of the quarter of the sky." Mrs. Browning's +health grew better, and Story writes to Charles Eliot Norton that +"Browning is in good spirits about her, and Pen is well, and as I write," +he continues, "I hear him laughing and playing with my boys and Edith on +the terrace below." + +It was late in October before they returned to Florence, and then only for +a sojourn of six weeks before going to Rome for the winter. The Siena +summer had been a period of unalloyed delight to Mrs. Browning, whose +health was much improved, and not the least of the happiness of both had +been due to the congenial companionship of the Storys, and to their +delicate courtesies, which Mrs. Browning wrote to Mrs. Jameson that she +could never forget. Browning wrote to Mrs. Story saying to her that she +surely did not need to be told how entirely they owed "the delightful +summer" to her own and Mr. Story's kindness. "Ba is hardly so well," he +adds, "as when she was let thrive in that dear old villa and the pleasant +country it hardly shut out." + +Mrs. Browning's small book, the "Poems before Congress," only eight in +all, was published in this early spring of 1860, and met with no cheering +reception. She felt this keenly, but said, "If I were ambitious of any +thing it would be to be wronged where, for instance, Cavour is wronged." +With Mrs. Browning a political question was equally a moral question. Her +devotion to Italy, and faith in the regeneration of the country, were +vital matters to her. She was deeply touched by the American attitude +toward her poem, "A Curse for a Nation," for the Americans, she noted, +rendered thanks to the reprover of ill deeds, "understanding the pure love +of the motive." These very "Poems before Congress" brought to her praises, +and the offer of high prices as well, and of this nation she said it was +generous. + +A letter from Robert Browning written to Kate Field, who was then in +Florence with Miss Blagden, and which has never before been published, is +as follows: + + ROME, VIA DEL TRITONE, 28, + + March 29th, 1860. + + DEAR MISS FIELD,--Do you really care to have the little photograph? + Here it is with all my heart. I wonder I dare be so frank this + morning, however, for a note just rec'd from Isa mentions an instance + of your acuteness, that strikes me with a certain awe. "Kate," she + says, "persists that the 'Curse for a Nation' is for America, and not + England." You persist, do you? No doubt against the combined + intelligence of our friends who show such hunger and thirst for a new + poem of Ba's--and, when they get it, digest the same as you see. + "Write a nation's curse for me," quoth the antislavery society five + years ago, "and send it over the Western sea." "Not so," replied poor + little Ba, "for my heart is sore for my own lands' sins, which are + thus and thus,--what curse assign to another land when heavy for the + sins of mine?" "Write it for that very reason," rejoined Ba's cheerer, + "because thou hast strength to see and hate a foul thing done within + thy gate," and so, after a little more dallying, she wrote and sent + over the Western seas what all may read, but it appears only Kate + Field, out of all Florence, can understand. It seems incredible. How + did you find out, beside, the meaning of all these puzzling passages + which I quote in the exact words of the poem? In short, you are not + only the delightful Kate Field which I always knew you to be, but the + sole understander of Ba in all Florence. I can't get over it.... + + Browning, the husband, means to try increasingly and somewhat + intelligibly to explain to all his intimates at Florence, with the + sole exception of Kate Field; to whose comprehension he will rather + endeavor to rise, than to stoop, henceforth. And so, with true love + from Ba to Kate Field, and our united explanation to all other + friends, that the subject matter of the present letter is by no means + the annexation of Savoy and Nice, she will believe me, + + Hers very faithfully + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +To Kate Field Mrs. Browning wrote, the letter undated, but evidently about +this time, apparently in reply to some request of Miss Field's to be +permitted to write about them for publication: + + MY DEAR KATE,--I can't put a seal on your lips when I know them to be + so brave and true. Take out your license, then, to name me as you + please, only remembering, dear, that even kind words are not always + best spoken. Here is the permission, then, to say nothing about your + friends except that they are your friends, which they will always be + glad to have said and believed. I had a letter from America to-day, + from somebody who, hearing I was in ill health, desired to inform me + that he wouldn't weep for me, were it not for Robert Browning and + Penini! No, don't repeat that. It was kindly meant, and you are + better, my dear Kate, and happier, and we are all thanking God for + Italy. Love us here a little, and believe that we all love and think + of you. + + Yours ever affectionately, + + E. B. B. + + +The American appreciation of Mrs. Browning constantly increased, and +editors offered her an hundred dollars each for any poem, long or short, +that might pass through their publications on its way to final destiny. + +Theodore Parker had passed that winter in Rome, and Mrs. Browning felt +that he was "high and noble." Early in May he left for Florence, where his +death occurred before the return of the Brownings. + +The education of Penini during these months was conducted by an old Abbé, +who was also the instructor of Mr. Story's only daughter, Edith, and the +two often shared their lessons, the lad going to Palazzo Barberini to join +Miss Edith in this pursuit of knowledge. Certain traditions of the +venerable Abbé have drifted down the years, indicating that his breviary +and meditations on ecclesiastical problems did not exclusively occupy his +mind, for the present Marchesa Peruzzi has more than one laughing +reminiscence of this saintly father, who at one time challenged his pupil +to hop around the large table on one foot. The hilarity of the festivity +was not lessened when the Reverendo himself joined in the frolic, his +robes flapping around him, as they all contributed to the merriment. The +Marchesa has many a dainty note written to her by Penini's mother. Once it +is as Pen's amanuensis that she serves, praying the loan of a "'Family +Robinson,' by Mayne Reid," to solace the boy in some indisposition. "I +doubt the connection between Mayne Reid and Robinson," says Mrs. Browning, +"but speak as I am bidden." And another note was to tell "Dearest Edith" +that Pen's papa wanted him for his music, and that there were lessons, +beside; and "thank dear Edith for her goodness," and "another day, with +less obstacles." The intercourse between the Brownings and the Storys was +always so full of mutual comprehension and perfect sympathy and delicate, +lovely recognition on both sides, that no life of either the sculptor or +the wedded poets could be presented that did not include these constant +amenities of familiar, affectionate intercourse. + +Many English friends of the Brownings came and went that winter, and among +others was Lady Annabella Nöel, a granddaughter of Lord Byron, and a great +admirer of Mr. Browning. A new acquaintance of the Brownings was Lady +Marion Alford, a daughter of the Earl of Northampton, "very eager about +literature, and art, and Robert," laughed Mrs. Browning, and Lady Marion +and "Hatty" (Miss Hosmer) were, it seems, mutually captivated. + + +[Illustration: THE PALAZZO BARBERINI, VIA QUATTRO FONTANE, ROME. + +The home of William Wetmore Story and his family for nearly forty years.] + + +Some of the English artists came to Rome, Burne-Jones and Val Prinsep +among them, and they with Browning wandered about the classic byways of +the city and drove to see the Coliseum by moonlight. + +In June the Brownings left Rome, by way of Orvieto and Chiusi. They +crossed that dead, mystic Campagna that flows, like a sea, all around +Rome--a sea of silence and mystery; with its splendid ruins of the old +aqueducts and tombs, its vast stretches of space that were all aglow, in +those June days, with scarlet poppies. They stopped one night at Viterbo, +the little city made famous since those days by Richard Bagot's tragic +novel, "Temptation," and where the convent is interesting from its +associations with Vittoria Colonna, who in 1541 made here a retreat for +meditation and prayer. + +In Orvieto they rested for a day and night, and Mrs. Browning was able to +go with her husband into the marvelous cathedral, with its "jeweled and +golden façade" and its aerial Gothic construction. Mr. Browning, with his +little son, drove over to the wild, curious town of Bagnorgio, which, +though near Orvieto, is very little known. But this was the birthplace of +Giovanni da Fidenza, the "Seraphic Doctor," who was canonized as St. +Buonaventura, from the exclamation of San Francesco, who, on awakening +from a dream communion with Giovanni da Fidenza, exclaimed, "_O buona +ventura!_" Dante introduces this saint into the _Divina Commedia_, as +chanting the praises of San Domenico in Paradise: + + "_Io san vita di Bonaventura_ + _Du Bagnorgio, che ne grandi uffici,_ + _Sempre posposi la sinistra cura._" + +Bagnorgio is, indeed, the heart of poetic legend and sacred story, but it +is so inaccessible, perched on its high hill, with deep chasms, evidently +the work of earthquakes, separating it from the route of travel, that from +a distance it seems impossible that any conveyance save an airship could +ever reach the town. + +By either route, through the Umbrian region, by way of Assisi and Perugia, +or by way of Orvieto and Siena, the journey between Rome and Florence is +as beautiful as a dream. The Brownings paused for one night's rest at Lake +Thrasymene, the scenes of the battlefield of Hannibal and Flaminius, with +the town on a height overlooking the lake. "Beautiful scenery, interesting +pictures and tombs," said Mrs. Browning of this journey, "but a fatiguing +experience." She confessed to not feeling as strong as she had the +previous summer, but still they were planning their _villeggiatura_ in +Siena, taking the same villa they had occupied the previous season, where +Penini should keep tryst with the old Abbé, who was to come with the +Storys and with his Latin. + +They found Landor well and fairly amenable to the new conditions of his +life. Domiciled with Isa Blagden was Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who was +drawn to Florence that spring largely to meet Theodore Parker, with whom +she had long corresponded. Mr. and Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) were in +Florence that spring of 1860, the great novelist making her studies for +"Romola." They were the guests of the Thomas Adolphus Trollopes. + +Landor, too, came frequently to take tea with Miss Blagden and Miss Cobbe +on their terrace, and discuss art with Browning. Dall' Ongaro and Thomas +Adolphus Trollope were frequently among the little coterie. His visits to +Casa Guidi and his talks with Mrs. Browning were among the most treasured +experiences of Mr. Trollope. "I was conscious, even then," he afterward +wrote in his reminiscences of this lovely Florentine life, "of coming +away from Casa Guidi a better man, with higher views and aims. The effect +was not produced by any talk of the nature of preaching, but simply by the +perception and appreciation of what Elizabeth Browning was: of the purity +of the spiritual atmosphere in which she habitually dwelt." + +Miss Hosmer came, too, that spring, as the guest of Miss Blagden, and she +often walked down the hill to breakfast with her friends in Casa Guidi. +Browning, who was fond of an early walk, sometimes went out to meet her, +and on one occasion they had an escapade which "Hatty" related afterward +with great glee. It was on one of these morning encounters that Miss +Hosmer confessed to the poet that the one longing of her soul was to ride +behind Caretta, the donkey, and Browning replied that nothing could be +easier, as Girolamo, Caretta's owner, was the purveyor of vegetables to +Casa Guidi, and that they would appropriate his cart for a turn up Poggia +Imperiale. "_Di gustibus non_," began Browning. "Better let go Latin and +hold on to the cart," sagely advised the young sculptor. In the midst of +their disasters from the surprising actions of Caretta, they met her +owner. "_Dio mio_" exclaimed Girolamo, "it is Signor Browning. San +Antonio!" Girolamo launched forth into an enumeration of all the +diabolical powers possessed by Caretta, and called on all the saints to +witness that she was a disgrace to nature. Meantime the poet, the +sculptor, the vegetables, and the donkey were largely combined into one +hopeless mass, and Browning's narration and re-enactment of the tragedy, +after they reached Casa Guidi, threw Mrs. Browning into peals of laughter. + +Again the Brownings sought their favorite Siena, where Miss Blagden joined +them, finding a rude stone villino, of two or three rooms only, the home +of some _contadini_, within fifteen minutes' walk of Mrs. Browning, and +taking it to be near her friend. But for the serious illness of Mrs. +Browning's sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook) the summer would have been +all balm and sunshine. The Storys were very near, and Mr. Landor had been +comfortably housed not far from his friends, who gave the aged scholar the +companionship he best loved. Browning took long rides on horseback, +exploring all the romantic regions around Siena, such rides that he might +almost have exclaimed with his own hero, the Grand Duke Ferdinand,-- + + "For I ride--what should I do but ride?" + + +Penini, too, galloped through the lanes on his pony, his curls flying in +the wind, and read Latin with the old Abbé. The lessons under this genial +tutor were again shared with Miss Edith Story, one of whose earliest +childish recollections is of sitting on a low hassock, leaning against +Mrs. Browning, while Penini sat on the other side, and his mother talked +with both the children. Mr. Story's two sons, the future painter and +sculptor respectively, were less interested at this time in canvas and +clay than they were in their pranks and sports. The Storys and Brownings, +Miss Blagden and Landor, all loaned each other their books and newspapers, +and discussed the news and literature of the day. The poet was much +occupied in modeling, and passed long mornings in Mr. Story's improvised +studio, where he copied two busts, the "Young Augustus" and the "Psyche," +with notable success. + +In the October of that year both the Brownings and the Storys returned to +Rome, the poets finding a new apartment in the Via Felice. Mrs. Browning's +sister Henrietta died that autumn, and in her grief she said that one of +the first things that did her good was a letter from Mrs. Stowe. She notes +her feeling that "how mere a line it is to overstep between the living and +the dead." Her spiritual insight never failed her, and of herself she +said: "I wish to live just so long, and no longer, than to grow in the +spirit." + +In the days of inevitable sadness after her sister's death, whatever the +consolations and reassurances of faith and philosophy, Mrs. Browning wrote +to a friend of the tender way in which her husband shielded her, and "for +the rest," she said, "I ought to have comfort, for I believe that love, in +its most human relations, is an eternal thing." She added: "One must live; +and the only way is to look away from one's self into the larger and +higher circle of life in which the merely personal grief or joy forgets +itself." + +Penini and his friend, Miss Edith, continued their studies under the old +Abbé; his mother heard him read a little German daily, and his father +"sees to his music, and the getting up of arithmetic," noted Mrs. +Browning. The lad rode on his pony over Monte Pincio, and occasionally +cantered out on the Campagna with his father. But Mrs. Browning had come +to know that her stay on earth was to be very brief, and to her dear Isa +she wrote that for the first time she had pain in looking into her little +son's face--"which you will understand," she adds, but to her husband she +did not speak of this premonition. She urged him to go out into the great +world, for Rome was socially resplendent that winter. Among other notable +festivities there was a great ball given by Mrs. Hooker, where princes and +cardinals were present, and where the old Roman custom of attending the +princes of the church up and down the grand staircase with flaming torches +was observed. The beautiful Princess Rospoli was a guest that night, +appearing in the tri-color. Commenting on the Civil War that was +threatening America, Mrs. Browning said she "believed the unity of the +country should be asserted with a strong hand." + +Val Prinsep, in Rome that winter, was impressed by Mr. Browning into the +long walks in which they both delighted, and they traversed Rome on both +sides the Tiber. The poet was not writing regularly in those days, though +his wife "gently wrangled" with him to give more attention to his art, +and held before him the alluring example of the Laureate who shut himself +up daily for prescribed work. Browning had "an enormous superfluity of +vital energy," which he had to work off in long walks, in modeling, and in +conversations. "I wanted his poems done this winter very much," said Mrs. +Browning; "and here was a bright room with three windows consecrated to +use.... There has been little poetry done since last winter." But in later +years Browning became one of the most regular of workers, and considered +that day lost on which he had not written at least some lines of poetry. +At this time the poet was fascinated by his modeling. "Nothing but clay +does he care for, poor, lost soul," laughed Mrs. Browning. Her "Hatty" ran +in one day with a sketch of a charming design for a fountain for Lady +Marion Alford. "The imagination is unfolding its wings in Hatty," said +Mrs. Browning. + +In days when Mrs. Browning felt able to receive visitors, there were many +to avail themselves of the privilege. On one day came Lady Juliana Knox, +bringing Miss Sewell (Amy Herbert); and M. Carl Grun, a friend of the +poet, Dall' Ongaro, came with a letter from the latter, who wished to +translate into Italian some of the poems of Mrs. Browning. Lady Juliana +had that day been presented to the Holy Father, and she related to Mrs. +Browning how deeply touched she had been by his adding to the benediction +he gave her, "_Priez pour le pape._" + +Penini had a choice diversion in that the Duchesse de Grammont, of the +French Embassy, gave a "_matinée d'enfants_," to which he received a card, +and went, resplendent in a crimson velvet blouse, and was presented to +small Italian princes of the Colonna, the Doria, Piombiono, and others, +and played leap-frog with his titled companions. + +Mrs. Browning reads with eager interest a long speech of their dear +friend, Milsand, which filled seventeen columns of the _Moniteur_, a copy +of which his French friend sent to Browning. + +The Brownings had planned to join the poet's father and sister in Paris +that summer, but a severe attack of illness in which for a few days her +life was despaired of made Mrs. Browning fear that she would be unable to +take the journey. Characteristically, her only thought was for the others, +never for herself, and she writes to Miss Browning how sad she is in the +thought of her husband's not seeing his father, and "If it were possible +for Robert to go with Pen," she continues, "he should, but he wouldn't go +without me." + +When she had sufficiently recovered to start for Florence, they set out on +June 4, resting each night on the way, and reaching Siena four days later, +where they lingered. From there Mr. Browning wrote to the Storys that they +had traveled through exquisite scenery, and that Ba had borne the journey +fairly well. But on arriving in Florence and opening their apartment again +in Casa Guidi, it was apparent that the poet had decided rightly that +there was to be no attempt made to visit Paris. During these closing days +of Mrs. Browning's stay on earth, her constant aim was "to keep quiet, and +try not to give cause for trouble on my account, to be patient and live on +God's daily bread from day to day." + + "_O beauty of holiness,_ + _Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!_" + + +It is difficult to read unmoved her last words written to Miss Sarianna +Browning. "Don't fancy, dear," she said, "that this is the fault of my +will," and she adds: + + "Robert always a little exaggerates the difficulties of traveling, and + there's no denying that I have less strength than is usual to me.... + What does vex me is that the dearest nonno should not see his Peni + this year, and that you, dear, should be disappointed, _on my account + again_. That's hard on us all. We came home into a cloud here. I can + scarcely command voice or hand to name _Cavour_. That great soul, + which meditated and made Italy, has gone to the diviner country. If + tears or blood could have saved him to us, he should have had mine. I + feel yet as if I could scarcely comprehend the greatness of the + vacancy." + + +For a week previous to her transition to that diviner world in which she +always dwelt, even on earth, she was unable to leave her couch; but she +smilingly assured them each day that she was better, and in the last +afternoon she received a visit from her beloved Isa, to whom she spoke +with somewhat of her old fire of generous enthusiasm of the new Premier, +who was devoted to the ideals of Cavour, and in whose influence she saw +renewed hope for Italy. The Storys were then at Leghorn, having left Rome +soon after the departure of the Brownings, and they were hesitating +between Switzerland for the summer, or going again to Siena, where they +and the Brownings might be together. The poet had been intending to meet +the Storys at Leghorn that night, but he felt that he could not leave his +wife, though with no prescience of the impending change. She was weak, but +they talked over their summer plans, decided they would soon go to Siena, +and agreed that they would give up Casa Guidi that year, and take a villa +in Florence, instead. They were endeavoring to secure an apartment in +Palazzo Barberini for the winter, the Storys being most anxious that they +should be thus near together, and Mrs. Browning discussed with him the +furnishing of the rooms in case they decided upon the Palazzo. Only that +morning Mr. Lytton had called, and while Mrs. Browning did not see him, +her husband talked with him nearly all the morning. Late in the evening +she seemed a little wandering, but soon she slept, waking again about +four, when they talked together, and she seemed to almost pass into a +state of ecstasy, expressing to him in the most ardent and tender words +her love and her happiness. The glow of the luminous Florentine dawn +brightened in the room, and with the words "It is beautiful!" she passed +into that realm of life and light and loveliness in which she had always +seemed to dwell. + + "And half we deemed she needed not + The changing of her sphere, + To give to heaven a Shining One, + Who walked an angel here." + + +[Illustration: THE ENGLISH CEMETERY, FLORENCE, IN WHICH MRS. BROWNING IS +BURIED.] + + +Curiously, Miss Blagden had not slept at all that night. After her return +from her visit to Mrs. Browning the previous afternoon, "every trace of +fatigue vanished," she wrote to a friend, "and all my faculties seemed +singularly alert. I was unable to sleep, and sat writing letters till +dawn, when a cabman came to tell me '_La Signora della Casa Guidi e +morte!_'" + +The Storys came immediately from Leghorn, and Miss Blagden took Edith +Story and Penini to her villa. It was touching to see his little friend's +endeavor to comfort the motherless boy. Mr. and Mrs. Story stayed with +Browning in the rooms where everything spoke of her presence: the table, +strewn with her letters and books; her little chair, a deep armchair of +dark green velvet, which her son now holds sacred among his treasures, was +drawn by the table just as she had left it, and in her portfolio was a +half-finished letter to Madame Mario, speaking of Cavour, and her noble +aspirations for Italy. + +In the late afternoon of July 1, 1861, a group of English and American, +with many Italian friends gathered about the little casket in the lovely +cypress-shaded English cemetery of Florence, and as the sun was sinking +below the purple hills it was tenderly laid away, while the amethyst +mountains hid their faces in a misty veil. + + "What would we give to our beloved? + The hero's heart to be unmoved, + The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep. + + * * * * * + + God strikes a silence through you all, + And giveth His beloved, sleep." + + +Almost could the friends gathered there hear her poet-voice saying: + + "And friends, dear friends, when it shall be + That this low breath is gone from me, + And round my bier ye come to weep, + Let One, most loving of you all, + Say 'Not a tear must o'er her fall! + He giveth His beloved, sleep.'" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +1861-1869 + + "Think, when our one soul understands + The great Word which makes all things new, + When earth breaks up and heaven expands, + How will the change strike me and you + In the house not made with hands? + + "Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, + Your heart anticipate my heart, + You must be just before, in fine, + See and make me see, for your part, + New depths of the divine!" + + +THE COMPLETED CYCLE--LETTERS TO FRIENDS--BROWNING'S DEVOTION TO HIS SON-- + WARWICK CRESCENT--"DRAMATIS PERSONÆ"--LONDON LIFE--DEATH OF THE POET'S + FATHER--SARIANNA BROWNING--OXFORD HONORS THE POET--DEATH OF ARABEL + BARRETT--AUDIERNE--"THE RING AND THE BOOK." + + +"The cycle is complete," said Browning to the Storys, as they all stood in +those desolate rooms and gazed about. The salon was just as she had left +it; the table covered with books and magazines, her little chair drawn up +to it, the long windows open to the terrace, and the faint chant of nuns, +"made for midsummer nights," in San Felice, on the air. "Here we came +fifteen years ago," continued Mr. Browning; "here Ba wrote her poems for +Italy; here Pen was born; here we used to walk up and down this terrace on +summer evenings." The poet lingered over many tender reminiscences, and +after the Storys had taken leave, he and his son yielded to the +entreaties of Isa Blagden to stay with her in her villa on Bellosguardo +during the time that he was preparing to leave Florence, which he never +looked upon again. + +When all matters of detail were concluded, Miss Blagden, "perfect in all +kindness," accompanied them to Paris, continuing her own journey to +England, while Browning with his son, his father, and sister, proceeded to +St. Enogat, near St. Malo, on the Normandy coast. Before Mrs. Browning's +illness there had been a plan that all the Brownings and Mr. and Mrs. W. +J. Stillman should pass the summer together at Fontainebleau. + +There was something about St. Enogat singularly restful to Browning, the +sea, the solitude, the "unspoiled, fresh, and picturesque place," as he +described it in a letter to Madame Du Quaire. The mystic enchantment of it +wrought its spell, and Penini had his pony and was well and cheerful, and +Browning realized too well that the change called death is but the passing +through "the gates of new life," to be despairing in his sorrow. The +spirit of one + + "... who never turned his back, but marched breast forward," + +breathes through all the letters that he wrote at this time to friends. +"Don't fancy I am prostrated," he wrote to Leighton; "I have enough to do +for myself and the boy, in carrying out her wishes." Somewhat later he +expressed his wish that Mr. (later Sir Frederick) Leighton should design +the memorial tomb, in that little Florence cemetery, for his wife; and the +marble with only "E. B. B." inscribed on it, visited constantly by all +travelers in Florence and rarely found without flowers, is the one Sir +Frederick designed. + + +[Illustration: TOMB OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING IN THE ENGLISH CEMETERY, +FLORENCE + +Designed by Sir Frederick Leighton, R.A.] + + +In a letter to his boyhood's friend, Miss Haworth, Browning alluded to the +future, when Penini would so need the help of "the wisdom, the genius, the +piety" of his mother; and the poet adds: "I have had everything, and +shall not forget." In reply to a letter of sympathy from Kate Field, he +wrote: + + "DEAR FRIEND,--God bless you for all your kindness which I shall never + forget. I cannot write now except to say this, and beside, that I have + had great comfort from the beginning." + + +In the early autumn Browning took his son to London. The parting of the +ways had come, and already he dimly perceived that the future would not +copy fair the past. There are "reincarnations," in all practical effect, +that are realized in this life as well as, speculatively, hereafter; and +his days of Italian terraces and oleander blooms, of enchanting hours on +Bellosguardo, and lingerings in old palaces and galleries, and saunterings +down narrow streets crowded with _contadini_,--these days were as entirely +past as if he had been transported to another planet. + + "Not death; we do not call it so, + Yet scarcely more with dying breath + Do we forego; + We pass an unseen line, + And lo! another zone." + +The sea and the sands and the sky prefigured themselves in those days to +Browning as all indistinguishably blended in an unreal world, from which +the past had receded and on which the Future had not yet dawned. + + "Gray rocks and grayer sea, + And surf along the shore; + And in my heart a name + My lips shall speak no more." + + +To Story he wrote with assurances of affection, but saying, "I can't speak +about anything. I could, perhaps, if we were together, but to write +freezes me." Miss Blagden, in London, had taken rooms in Upper Westbourne +Terrace, and when in the late autumn Browning and his son went on to +England, he took an apartment in Chichester Road, almost opposite the +house where Miss Blagden was staying. But she had lived too long in +enchanted Florence to be content elsewhere, and she soon returned to her +villa on the heights of Bellosguardo, from which the view is one of the +most beautiful in all Europe. Browning soon took the house, No. 19 Warwick +Crescent, which for nearly all the rest of his life continued to be his +home. Here he was near Mrs. Browning's sister, Arabel Barrett, of whom he +was very fond, and whose love for her sister's little son was most +grateful to them both. Mr. Browning had his old tapestries, pictures, and +furniture of old Florentine carving, some of it black with age, sent on +from Casa Guidi, and he proceeded to transform a prim London house into an +interior of singular charm. He lined the staircase with Italian pictures; +books overflowed in all the rooms, and the glimpse of water in the canal +near reflected the green trees of the Crescent, giving the place a hint of +sylvan Arcadias. There was the grand piano on which Penini practiced, and +a tutor was engaged to prepare the lad for the university. The poet felt +that this was the critical time to give his son "the English stamp," in +"whatever it is good for," he added. But as a matter of fact the young +Florentine had little affinity with English ways. He was the child of +poets; a linguist from his infancy, an omnivorous reader, and with marked +talent for art, distinguishing himself later in both painting and +sculpture, but he had little inclination for the exact sciences. + +In his London home Browning was soon again launched on a tide of +work,--the dearest of which was in preparing the "Last Poems" of his wife +for publication. He gave it a dedication to "Grateful Florence, and +Tommaseo, her spokesman." He was also preparing a new edition of his own +works to be issued in three volumes. The tutor he had secured for his son +was considered skillful in "grammatical niceties," which, he said, "was +much more to my mind than to Pen's." But he, as well as the boy, was +homesick for Italy, and he wrote to Story that his particular reward would +be "just to go back to Italy, to Rome"; and he adds: + + "Why should I not trust to you what I know you will keep to + yourselves, but which will certainly amuse you as nothing else I could + write is like to do? What good in our loving each other unless I do + such a thing? So, O Story, O Emelyn, (dare I say, for the solemnity's + sake?) and O Edie, the editorship has, under the circumstances, been + offered to me: me! I really take it as a compliment because I am, by + your indulgence, a bit of a poet, if you like, but a man of the world + and able editor hardly!"[8] + +The editorship in question was that of _Cornhill_, left vacant by the +death of Thackeray. + +Browning was too great of spirit to sink into the recluse, and first +beguiled into Rossetti's studio, he soon met Millais, and by degrees he +responded again to friends and friendships, and life called to him with +many voices. In the late summer of 1862 the poet and his son were at +"green, pleasant little Cambo," and then at Biarritz. He was absorbed in +Euripides; and the supreme work of his life, "The Ring and the Book," the +Roman murder story, as he then called it, was constantly in his thought +and beginning to take shape. The sudden and intense impression that the +Franceschini tragedy had made on him, on first reading it, rushed back and +held him as under a spell. But the "Dramatis Personæ" and "In a Balcony" +were to be completed before the inauguration of this great work. + +For more than four years the thrilling tragedy had lain in his mind, +impressing that subconscious realm of mental action where all great work +in art acquires its creative vitality. It is said that episodes of crime +had a great fascination for Browning, _père_, who would write out long +imaginary conversations regarding the facts, representing various persons +in discussion, the individual views of each being brought out. The analogy +of this to the treatment of the Franceschini tragedy in his son's great +poem is rather interesting to contemplate. With the poet it was less +dramatic interest in the crime, _per se_, than it was that the +complexities of crime afforded the basis from which to work out his +central and controlling purpose, his abiding and profound conviction that +life here is simply the experimental and preparatory stage for the life to +come; that all its events, even its lapses from the right, its fall into +terrible evil, are-- + + "Machinery just meant + To give thy soul its bent," + +a part of the mechanism to "try the soul's stuff on"; that man lives in an +environment of spiritual influences which act upon him in just that degree +to which he can recognize and respond to them; and that he must sometimes +learn the ineffable blessedness of the right through tragic experiences of +the wrong. In the very realities of man's imperfection Browning sees his +possibilities of + + "Progress, man's distinctive work alone." + +When Browning asks: + + "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence + For the fullness of the days?..." + +he condenses in these lines his philosophy of life. + +Many of the poems appearing in the "Dramatis Personæ" had already been +written: "Gold Hair" and "James Lee's Wife" at Pornic, and others at green +Cambo. In the splendor and power of "Abt Vogler," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," and +"A Death in the Desert," the poet expressed a philosophy that again +suggests his intuitive agreement with the Hegelian. "Rabbi Ben Ezra" holds +in absolute solution the Vedanta philosophy. To the question as to what +all this enigma of life means, the poet answers: + + "Thence shall I pass, approved + A man, for aye removed + From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. + + * * * * * + + He fixed thee 'mid this dance + Of plastic circumstance, + This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest." + +How keen the sense of humor and of the sharp contrasts of life in "Fra +Lippo Lippi," and what power of character analysis. The intellectual vigor +and the keen insight into the play of mental action in "Bishop Blougram's +Apology"--a poem that occasioned great discussion on its appearance (from +a real or fancied resemblance of the "Bishop" to Cardinal Wiseman)--are +almost unsurpassed in poetic literature. Many of the poems in the +"Dramatis Personæ" are aglow with the romance of life, as in the "Eurydice +to Orpheus," and "A Face," which refers to Emily Patmore. There are studio +traces as well in these, and in the "Deaf and Dumb," suggested by a group +of Woolner. The crowning power of all is revealed in the noble faith and +the exquisite tenderness of "Prospice," especially in those closing lines +when all of fear and pain and darkness and cold,-- + + "Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, + Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest!" + +The references to his wife in this poem, in the enthralling "One Word +More," and in the dedication to "The Ring and the Book," as well as those +to be divined in his character drawing of "Pompilia," are incomparable in +their impressiveness and beauty, and must live so long as poetry is +enshrined in life. The vital drama, the splendor of movement, the color, +the impassioned exaltation of feeling, the pictorial vividness that are in +these poems grouped under "Dramatic Romances" and "Dramatis Personæ," give +them claim to the first rank in the poet's creations. Curiously, during +this period, the change in Browning's habits of work, which his wife used +to urge upon him, seemed to gradually take possession of him, so that he +came to count that day lost in which he had not written some lines of +poetry. Did he, perchance in dreams, catch something of "the rustling of +her vesture" that influenced his mind to the change? To Elizabeth Browning +poetry was not only a serious calling, but its "own exceeding great +reward," always. + +Another change came to Browning, which redeemed him from the growing +tendency to become a recluse, and made him a familiar figure in the great +world. He seemed to become aware that there was something morbid and +unworthy in the avoidance of the world of men and women. Browning's +divinely commissioned work had to do with life, in its most absolute +actualities as well as its great spiritual realities, because the life +eternal in its nature was the theme on which he played his poetic +variations, and no revelation of human nature came amiss to him. + +He had already supervised the publication of Mrs. Browning's essay on "The +Greek Christian Poets" and "The Book of the Poets," and "nothing," he +said, "that ought to be published, shall be kept back." He had also lent +Story considerable assistance in arranging with Blackwood for the serial +publication of "Roba di Roma." + +For two or three summers Browning with his father, his sister, and his +son, passed the summers at St. Marie, near Pornic, from where in the +August of 1863 he wrote to Leighton that he was living on fruit and milk, +and that each day he completed some work, read a little with Pen, and +somewhat more by himself. St. Marie was a "wild little place" in Brittany, +on the very edge of the sea, a hamlet of hardly more than a dozen houses, +of which the Brownings had the privilege of occupying that of the mayor, +whose chief attraction, apparently, was that, though bare, it was clean. +The poet liked it all, and it was there that he wrote "In the Doorway" in +"James Lee's Wife," with the sea, the field, and the fig-tree visible from +his window. + +In the late summer the Brownings are all again at St. Marie in Brittany, +and the poet writes to Isa Blagden that he supposes what she "calls fame +within these four years" has come somewhat from his going about and +showing himself alive, "but," he adds, "I was in London from the time that +I published 'Paracelsus' till I ended the writing of plays with +'Luria,'--and I used to go out then, and see far more of merely literary +people, critics, etc., than I do now,--but what came of it?" If in the +lines following there is a hint of sadness, who can blame him? + +During this summer he revised "Sordello" for re-publication, not, however, +as he had once contemplated, making in it any significant changes. In the +dedication to his friend Milsand, he incorporated so clear an exposition +of his idea in the poem that this dedication will always be read with +special interest. In London again the next winter, Browning wrote to Isa +Blagden that he "felt comfort in doing the best he could with the object +of his life,--poetry. I hope to do much more yet," he continued; "and that +the flower of it will be put into _Her_ hand somehow." + +The London spring found the poet much engaged, taking his son to studios, +and to the Royal Academy, to concerts, and for long walks, and in a letter +to Kate Field not heretofore published is indicated something of the +general trend of the days: + + LONDON, 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, + + UPPER WESTBOURNE TERRACE, May 5th, 1864. + + DEAR KATE FIELD, (so let me call you, please, in regard to old times + when I might have done it, and did not,) I know well enough that there + is great stupidity in this way of mine, this putting off a thing + because I hope to compass some other thing, as here, for had you not + asked for some photographs which I supposed I could soon find time and + inclination to get, I should have thanked you at once; as I do now, + indeed, and with all my heart, but the review article is wavering and + indistinct in my mind now, and though it is inside a drawer of this + table where I write, I cannot bring myself to look at it again,--not + from a motive which is disparaging to you, as I am sure you + understand; the general impression is enough for me, also, if you care + in the least how I feel toward you. The boy has certainly the likeness + to which you refer, and an absolute sameness, almost, in feature as + well as in look, with certain old portraits of hers,--here, older and + younger; there is not a trace of me in him, thank God! I know that + dear, teasing Isa, and how she won't answer your questions, but + sometimes, for compensation, she tells you what you never asked for, + and though I always, or very often, ask about you, yet I think it may + have been in reply to curiosity about the price of Italian stock, that + she lately described to me a photograph of you, yourself, and how you + were: what? even that's over. And moreover, how you were your old self + with additions, which, to be sure, I don't require. + + Give my true regard to your mother, and thank her for her goodness in + understanding me. But I write only to have a pleasant chat with you, + in a balcony, looking for fire-flies in the garden, wider between us + than the slanting Pitti façade, now that it's warm and Maylike in + Florence. + + Always yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +[Illustration: KATE FIELD + +From a portrait painted by Elihu Vedder, Florence, 1860.] + + +Mr. Browning had now begun to think of placing his son, who had passed his +sixteenth birthday, in Oxford. In quest of this desire the poet sought the +acquaintance of Dr. Jowett, afterward Master of Balliol College. This +initiated a friendship between Browning and Jowett that lasted all the +poet's life, and that has insured to Balliol many priceless treasures of +association with both Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Up to that time +Jowett had not been an admirer of Browning's poetry. But his keen interest +in the theme then engaging Browning was aroused, and he wrote to a friend: + + "I thought I was getting too old to make new friends, but I believe + that I have made one,--Mr. Browning, the poet, who has been staying + with me during the past few days. It is impossible to speak without + enthusiasm of his open, generous nature, and his great ability and + knowledge. I had no idea that there was a perfectly sensible poet in + the world, entirely free from vanity, jealousy, or any other + littleness, and thinking no more of himself than if he were an + ordinary man. His great energy is very remarkable, as is his + determination to make the most of the remainder of life. Of personal + objects he seems to have none, except the education of his son, in + which I hope in some degree to help him."[9] + + +After returning to London, Browning writes to Tennyson, in thanks for a +book received from the Laureate:[10] + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W., Oct. 10, 1865. + + MY DEAR TENNYSON,--When I came back last year from my holiday I found + a gift from you, a book; this time I find only the blue and gold thing + which, such as it is, I send you, you are to take from me. I could not + even put in what I pleased but I have said all about it in the word or + two of preface, as also that I beg leave to stick the bunch in your + buttonhole. May I beg that Mrs. Tennyson will kindly remember me? + + Ever Affectionately Yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + +Tennyson wrote in reply that the nosegay was very welcome. "I stick it in +my buttonhole ... and feel ----'s cork heels added to my boots," he added. + +Volumes of selections from the poems of both Browning and his wife were +now being demanded for the "Golden Treasury"; and to Miss Blagden Browning +says further that he will certainly do the utmost to make the most of +himself before he dies, "for one reason that I may help Pen the better." + +Browning complies with his publisher's request to prepare a new selection +of his wife's poems. "How I have done it, I can hardly say," he noted, +"but it is one dear delight that the work of her goes on more effectually +than ever--her books are more and more read,"--and a new edition of her +"Aurora Leigh" was exhausted within a few months. + +The winter was a very full and engaging one. On one evening he dined at +the deanery of St. Paul's, Sir John Lubbock and Tennyson being also +guests, but the Stanleys, who were invited, were not present. At another +dinner the poets met, Tennyson recording: "Mr. Browning gave me an +affectionate greeting after all these years," and Browning writing to a +friend: "... I have enjoyed nothing so much as a dinner last week with +Tennyson, who with his wife and one son is staying in town for a few +weeks, and she is just what she was and always will be, very sweet and +dear: he seems to me better than ever. I met him at a large party ... also +at Carlyle's...." + +In May of 1866 Browning's father was in poor health, and on June 14 he +died, at his home in Paris, his son having arrived three days before. +Although nearly eighty-five years of age, the elder Browning had retained +all his clearness of mind, and only just before he passed away he had +responded to some question of his son regarding a disputed point in +medieval history with "a regular book-full of notes and extracts." His son +speaks of the aged man's "strange sweetness of soul," apparently a +transmitted trait, for the poet shared it, and has left it in liberal +heritage to his son, Robert Barrett Browning, the "Pen" of all these +pages. Of his father the poet said: + + "He was worthy of being Ba's father,--out of the whole world, only he, + so far as my experience goes. She loved him, and he said very + recently, while gazing at her portrait, that only that picture had put + into his head that there might be such a thing as the worship of the + images of saints." + + +Miss Browning came henceforth to live with her brother, and for the +remainder of his life she was his constant companion. She was a woman of +delightful qualities,--of poise, cheerfulness, of great intelligence and +of liberal culture. She was a very discriminating reader, and was +peculiarly gifted with that sympathetic comprehension that makes an ideal +companionship. Her presence now transformed the London house into a home. + +The next summer they passed at Le Croisic, where Browning wrote "Hervé +Riel," in "the most delicious and peculiar old house," and he and his +sister, both very fond of the open air, walked once to Guerande, the old +capital of Bretagne, some nine miles from their house. + +Browning had received his first academic honors that summer, Oxford having +conferred on him her degree of M.A. The next October Browning was made +Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, a distinction that he greatly prized. + +During this summer Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks (later Bishop of +Massachusetts) was in London, and visited Browning once or twice. To a +Boston friend who asked for his impressions of the great poet, Dr. Brooks +wrote:[11] + + "... I can't say anything now except that he is one of the nicest + people to pass an evening with in London. He is a clear-headed and + particularly clear-eyed man of the world, devoted to society, one of + the greatest diners-out in London, cordial and hearty, shakes your + hand as if he were really glad to see you.... As to his talk it wasn't + 'Sordello,' and it wasn't as fine as 'Paracelsus,' but nobody ever + talked more nobly, truly, and cheerily than he. I went home and slept + after hearing him as one does after a fresh starlight walk with a good + cool breeze on his face." + + +In 1863, on July 19, a little more than two years after the death of Mrs. +Browning, Arabel Barrett had a dream, in which she was speaking with her +sister Elizabeth, and asked, "When shall I be with you?" "Dearest, in five +years," was the reply. She told this dream to Mr. Browning, who recorded +it at the time. In June of 1868 Miss Barrett died, the time lacking one +month only of being the five years. "Only a coincidence, but noticeable," +Mr. Browning wrote to Isa Blagden. But in the larger knowledge that we now +have of the nature of life and the phenomena of sleep, that the ethereal +body is temporarily released from the physical (sleep being the same as +death, save that in the latter the magnetic cord is severed, and the +separation is final)--in the light of this larger knowledge it is easy to +realize that the two sisters actually met in the ethereal realm, and that +the question was asked and answered according to Miss Barrett's +impression. The event was sudden, its immediate cause being rheumatic +affection of the heart, and she died in Browning's arms, as did his wife. +Her companionship had been a great comfort to him, and Mr. Gosse notes +that for many years after her death he could not bear to pass Delamere +Terrace. + +The late summer of that year was devoted to traveling from Cannes about +the coast, and they finally decided on Audierne for a sojourn. "Sarianna +and I have just returned from a four hours' walk," he writes to a friend +from this place; but here, as everywhere, he was haunted by Florentine +memories, and by intense longings for his vanished paradise. To Isa +Blagden he wrote: + + "I feel as if I should immensely like to glide along for a summer day + through the streets and between the old stone walls, unseen come and + unheard go,--perhaps by some miracle I shall do so ... Oh, me! to find + myself some late sunshiny afternoon with my face turned toward + Florence...." + + +While at Audierne, Browning put the final touches to the new six-volume +edition of his works that was about to appear from the house of Smith, +Elder, and Company, on the title-page of which he signs himself as M.A., +Honorary Fellow of Balliol College. Mr. Nettleship's volume of essays on +Browning's poems was published that season, indicating a strong interest +in the poet; and another very gratifying experience to him was the +interest in his work manifested by the undergraduates of both Oxford and +Cambridge. Undoubtedly the pleasant glow of this appreciation stimulated +his energy in the great poem on which he was now definitely at work, "The +Ring and the Book." Publishers were making him offers for its publication, +"the R. B. who for six months once did not sell a single copy of his +poems," he exclaimed in a letter to a friend, to whom he announced that he +should "ask two hundred pounds for the sheets to America, and get it!" +with an evident conviction that this was a high price for his work. The +increasing recognition of the poet was further indicated by a request from +Tauchnitz for the volumes of selections which Browning dedicated to the +Laureate in these graceful words: "To Alfred Tennyson. In +Poetry--illustrious and consummate; In Friendship--noble and sincere." + +The publication of "The Ring and the Book" was the great literary event of +1869. Two numbers had appeared in the previous autumn, but when offered in +its completeness the poem was found to embody the most remarkable +interpretation of transfigured human life to be found in all the +literature of poetry. The fame of the poet rose to splendor. This work was +the inauguration of an epoch, of a period from which his work was to be +read, studied, discussed, to a degree that would have been incredible to +him, had any Cassandra of previous years lifted the veil of the future. +The great reviews united in a very choral pean of praise; the +_Fortnightly_, the _Quarterly_, the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Revue des +Deux Mondes_, and others were practically unanimous in their recognition +of a work which was at once felt to be the very epitome of the art and +life of Robert Browning. The poem is, indeed, a vast treasure into which +the poet poured all his searching, relentless analysis of character, and +grasp of motive; all his compassion, his sensitive susceptibility to human +emotion; all his gift of brilliant movement; all his heroic enthusiasms, +and his power of luminous perception. But all this wealth of feeling and +thought had been passed through the crucible of his critical creation; it +had been fused and recast by the alchemy of genius. He transmuted fact +into truth. + + "Do you see this Ring? + 'T is Rome-work made to match + (By Castellani's imitative craft) + Etrurian circlets.... + + * * * * * + + I fused my live soul and that inert stuff, + Before attempting smithcraft...." + +The "square old yellow book" which Browning had chanced upon in the +market-place of San Lorenzo, in that June of 1860, was not a volume, but a +"lawyer's file of documents and pamphlets." In relating how he found +the book Browning says, in the poem: + + "... I found this book, + Gave a _lira_ for it, eightpence English just, + (Mark the predestination!) when a Hand, + Always above my shoulder, pushed me once, + + * * * * * + + Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths." + + +He stepped out on the narrow terrace, built + + "Over the street and opposite the church, + + * * * * * + + Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones + Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights--" + +and making his own the story. + + +[Illustration: THE PALAZZO RICCARDI, FLORENCE. + +ERECTED BY MICHELOZZO ABOUT 1435. + + "_....Riccardi where they lived_ + _His race........_" + +The Ring and the Book.] + + +In 1908 Dr. Charles W. Hodell was enabled by the courtesy of Balliol +College, to whom Browning left the "Old Yellow Book," to make a +photographic reproduction of the original documents, to which Dr. Hodell +added a complete and masterly translation, and a noble essay entitled "On +the Making of a Great Poem," the most marvelous analysis and commentary on +"The Ring and the Book" that has ever been produced. The photographed +pages of the original documents, the translation, and this essay were +published by the Carnegie Institution, in a large volume entitled "The Old +Yellow Book." In his preface Professor Hodell records that he was drawn to +the special study of this poem by Professor Hiram Corson, Litt.D., LL.D., +to whom he reverently refers as "my Master." Of "The Ring and the Book" +Dr. Hodell says: + + "In the wide range of the work of Robert Browning no single poem can + rival 'The Ring and the Book,' in scope and manifold power. The + subject had fallen to his hands at the very fulness of his maturity, + by 'predestination,' as it seemed to him. In the poem, as he planned + his treatment, there was opportunity for every phase of his peculiar + genius.... so that the completed masterpiece becomes the macrocosm of + his work.... Without doubt it may be held to be the greatest poetic + work, in a long poem, of the nineteenth century. It is a drama of + profound spiritual realities. + + 'So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, + Suffice the eye, and save the soul beside.' + + Browning was the only important poet of the Victorian age who did not + draw upon the Morte d'Arthur legends; and the rich mythology of the + Greeks tempted him as little. The motive that always appealed to him + most was that of the activity of the human spirit, its power to + dominate all material barriers to transcend every temporary limit, by + the very power of its own energy." + + +In his historic researches Professor Hodell found reason to believe that +the Pope, in "The Ring and the Book," was Stephen VI, and not VII; and +writing to Robert Barrett Browning to inquire regarding this point, he +received from the poet's son the following interesting letter, which, by +Dr. Hodell's generous courtesy, is permitted to appear in this book. + + LA TORRE ALL' ANTELLA, FLORENCE, Jan. 6, 1904. + + MY DEAR SIR,--I wish I were able to give you the information you ask + me for, but my father's books are in Venice, and I have not any here + touching on the matter to refer to. + + If Pope Stephen was, as you say, the Sixth and not the Seventh, of + course the mistake is obvious and perhaps attributable to an + unconscious slip of the memory, which with my father was not at its + best in dates and figures. It is not likely that such an error should + have appeared in any old work, such as he would have consulted; and + certainly it was not caused by carelessness, for he was painstaking to + a degree, and had a proper horror of blundering, which is the word he + would have used. I can only account for such a mistake as this--which + he would have been the first to pronounce unpardonable--by his + absent-mindedness, his attention being at the moment absorbed by + something else. Absent-mindedness was one of his characteristics, over + instances of which he used to laugh most heartily. My father's + intention, I know, was to be scrupulously accurate about the facts in + this poem. I may tell you as an instance that, wishing to be sure that + there was moonlight on a particular night, he got a distinguished + mathematician to make the necessary calculation. The description of + the finding of the book is without doubt true in every detail. Indeed, + to this day the market at San Lorenzo is very much what it was then + and as I can remember it. Not long ago, I myself bought an old volume + there off a barrow. + + The "Yellow Book" was probably picked up in June of 1860 before going + to Rome for the winter--the last my father passed in Italy. As it had + always been understood that the Book should be presented to Balliol, I + went soon after my father's death to stay a few days with Jowett, and + gave it to him. + + In the portrait that hangs in Balliol Hall I painted my father as he + sat to me with the Book in his hands. + + Nothing would have gratified him more than what you tell me about the + interest with which his works are studied in America, and I need not + say how much pleasure this gives me. + + Believe me with many thanks for your kind letter, + + Yours Very Sincerely, + + R. BARRETT BROWNING. + + +A very curious discovery was made in Rome, in the winter of 1900, by +Signer Giorgi, the Librarian of the Royal Casanatense Library, in an +ancient manuscript account of curious legal trials, among which were those +of Beatrice Cenci, of Miguel de Molinos (in 1686), and of the trial and +sentence of Guido Franceschini. The fact that taxes credulity in regard to +this manuscript, of whose existence, even, no one in modern times had ever +dreamed, is that the three points of view, as presented by Browning in +the "Half Rome," "The Other Half Rome," and "Tertium Quid," are in accord +with those given in this strange document, which for more than a century +had lain undisturbed in the archives. + +In a little explanation regarding the significance of the closing lines of +"The Ring and the Book," also kindly given by Robert Barrett Browning, it +seems that his mother habitually wore a ring of Etruscan gold, wrought by +Castellani, with the letters "A. E. I." on it; and that after her death +the poet always wore it on his watch-chain, as does now his son. In the +tablet placed on Casa Guidi to the memory of Mrs. Browning (the +inscription of which was written by the Italian poet, Tommaseo) the source +of the other allusion, of the linking Italy and England, is found. As the +reader will recall, the lines run: + + "And save the soul! If this intent save mine,-- + If the rough ore be rounded to a ring, + Render all duty which good ring should do, + And, failing grace, succeed in guardianship,-- + Might mine but lie outside thine, Lyric Love, + Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) + Linking our England to his Italy!" + + +Dr. Corson especially notes Browning's opening invocation to his wife, +praying her aid and benediction in the work he has undertaken. "This +passage," says Dr. Corson, "has a remarkable movement, the unobtrusive but +distinctly felt alliteration contributing to the effect." + + "O lyric Love, half angel and half bird + And all a wonder and a wild desire,-- + Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, + Took sanctuary within the holier blue." + + +That Browning could never have created the character of Pompilia, save for +that all-enfolding influence of the character of his wife, all the +greater critics of "The Ring and the Book" agree. To Dr. Corson, Browning +said of her: + + "I am not sorry, now, to have lived so long after she went away, but I + confess to you that all my types of women were beautiful and blessed + by my perfect knowledge of one woman's pure soul. Had I never known + Elizabeth, I never could have written 'The Ring and the Book.'" + + +Of Pompilia Dr. Hodell also says: + + "... But there is another influence in the creation of this ideal + character beside that of the Madonna, it was the Madonna of his home, + the mother of his own child, whose spiritual nature was as noteworthy + as her intellect. And before this spiritual nature the poet bowed in + humble reverence." + + +Mrs. Orr, too, has written: + + "Mrs. Browning's spiritual presence was more than a presiding memory + in the heart. I am convinced that it entered largely into the + conception of Pompilia. + + "It takes, however, both the throbbing humanity of Balaustion and the + saintly glory of Pompilia to express fully the nature of Elizabeth + Barrett Browning as she appeared to her husband." + + +Dr. Dowden, Brooke, Corson, Herford, Hodell, Chesterton, and other +authoritative critics allude to their recognition of Mrs. Browning in the +character of Pompilia; and no reader of this immortal masterpiece of +poetic art can ever fail to find his pulses thrilling with those +incomparable lines, spoken in her last hour on earth by Pompilia: + + "O lover of my life, O soldier-saint, + No work begun shall ever pause for death! + Love will be helpful to me more and more + I' the coming course, the new path I must tread-- + + * * * * * + + Tell him that if I seem without him now, + That's the world's insight! Oh, he understands! + + * * * * * + + So let him wait God's instant men call years; + Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, + Do out the duty!..." + + +In the entire range of Browning's heroines Pompilia is the most exalted +and beautiful character. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +1869-1880 + + "I am strong in the spirit, deep-thoughted, clear-eyed; + I could walk, step for step, with an angel beside, + On the heaven-heights of truth. + Oh, the soul keeps its youth + + * * * * * + + "'Twixt the heavens and the earth _can_ a poet despond? + O Life, O Beyond, + Thou art strange, thou art sweet!" + + +IN SCOTLAND WITH THE STORYS--BROWNING'S CONVERSATION--AN AMUSING + INCIDENT--WITH MILSAND AT ST. AUBIN'S--"RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP + COUNTRY"--ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING'S GIFT FOR ART--ALFRED DOMETT + ("WARING")--"BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE"--BROWNING AND TENNYSON-- + "PACCHIAROTTO"--VISITS JOWETT AT OXFORD--DECLINES LORD RECTORSHIP OF + ST. ANDREWS--"LA SAISIAZ"--ITALY REVISITED--THE DREAM OF ASOLO-- + "IVANOVITCH"--PRIDE IN HIS SON'S SUCCESS--"DRAMATIC IDYLLS." + + +In the summer of 1869 the Storys, with their daughter, came from Rome and +joined Browning with his sister and his son, for a holiday in Scotland. +They passed some time at a little inn on Loch Achnault, where Lady Marian +Alford also came, and there are still vivid reminiscences of picnic +lunches on the heather, and of readings by the poet from "The Ring and the +Book." Chapters from "Rob Roy" also contributed to the enjoyment of +evenings when the three ladies of the party--Mrs. Story, Lady Marian, and +the lovely young girl, Miss Edith Story--were glad to draw a little nearer +to the blazing fire which, even in August, is not infrequently to be +desired in Scotland. Lord Dufferin was also a friend of those days, and +for the tower he had built at Clandeboye in the memory of his mother, +Helen, Countess of Gifford, Browning wrote, soon after, his poem entitled +"Helen's Tower." Mrs. Orr speaks of this poem as little known, and not +included in his published works; but it is now to be found in all the +complete editions of Browning. After this Arcadian sojourn Browning and +his son, with Miss Browning, were the guests of Lady Ashburton at Loch +Luichart Lodge. + +For two or three years after the publication of "The Ring and the Book," +Browning wrote little. The demands of friends and of an always enormous +correspondence occupied much time; his son was growing into young manhood, +and already manifesting his intense love of art, and his gifts as both +painter and sculptor. + +Browning's conversation was always fascinating. It was full of glancing +allusion, wit, sparkle, and with that constant undertone of significance +that may be serious or gay, but which always lingers with a certain +impressiveness to haunt the mind of the listener. Dr. Hiram Corson, who +may perhaps be regarded as Browning's greatest interpreter, speaks of one +of his visits to the poet, in London, where the conversation turned from +Shelley to Shakespeare. "He spoke with regret of the strangely limited +reading of the Plays, even by those who believe themselves habitual and +devoted readers," says Dr. Corson. + + "At luncheon," continues Dr. Corson, "his talk was, as usual with him, + rapid and off-hand. He gave but a _coup d'oeil_ to every subject + that came up. In all subsequent talks with him, I never got the + slightest impression from him of pride of intellect, though his was + certainly one of the subtlest and most comprehensive intellects of his + time. He was absolutely free from it; was saved from it by his + spiritual vitality. His intellectual and his spiritual nature jointly + operated. Nor did he ever show to me any pride of authorship; never + made any independent allusion to his poetry. One might have supposed + that his poetry, great and extensive as it was, was a parergon, a + by-work, with him. + + "I have no recollection of any saying of his, such as might be + recorded for its wisdom or profundity. Never a brilliant thought + crystallized in a single sentence. His talk was especially + characterized by its cordiality and rapid flow. The 'member of + society' and the poet seemed to be quite distinct. + + "One day when Mrs. Corson and I were lunching with him in Warwick + Crescent," said Dr. Corson, "he told us a most amusing incident. On + that morning Browning was particularly 'an embodied joy.' He told + several good stories, one of which showed that the enigmatical + character attributed to his poetry by some of his critics was to him a + good joke. I have no doubt he must have enjoyed the Douglas Jerrold + story, that Jerrold, in endeavoring to read 'Sordello,' thought he had + lost his mind. + + "But to Browning's story. He said, 'I was visited by the Chinese + minister and his attachés, without having been previously informed of + their coming. Before they entered, I had noticed from my window a + crowd in the street, which had been attracted by the celestials in + their national rigs, who were just then getting out of their + carriages, I not knowing then what manner of visitors I was to have. + Soon the interpreter announced at the drawing-room door, "His + Excellency, the Chinese Minister and his attachés." As they entered, + the interpreter presented them, individually, first, of course, his + Excellency, the Minister, and then the rest in order of rank. It was + quite an impressive occasion. Recovering myself, I said to the + interpreter: "To what am I indebted for this great honor?" He replied: + "You are a distinguished poet in your country, and so is his + Excellency in his." We did obeisance to each other. I then asked the + character of his Excellency's poetry. The interpreter replied, + "Chiefly poetical enigmas." Grasping his Excellency's hand, I said, "I + salute you as a brother."' + + "Browning told this story while walking up and down the room. When he + said, 'I salute you as a brother,' he made the motion of a most hearty + hand-shake." + + +Mrs. Arthur Bronson, than whom Mr. Browning never had a more sympathetic +and all-comprehending friend, said that if she tried to recall Robert +Browning's words it was as though she had talked to a being apart from +other men. "My feeling may seem exaggerated," she smiled, "but it was only +natural, when considering my vivid sense of his moral and intellectual +greatness. His talk was not abstruse and intricate, like some of his +writings. Far from it. As a rule he seemed rather to avoid deep and +serious subjects. There was no loss, for everything he chose to say was +well said. A familiar story, grave or gay, when clothed with his words, +and accentuated by his expressive gestures and the mobility of his +countenance, had all the charm of novelty; while a comic anecdote from his +lips sparkled with wit, born of his own keen sense of humor. I found in +him that most rare combination of a powerful personality united to a +nature tenderly sympathetic." + +Another who knew him well perpetrated the _mot_ that "Tennyson hides +behind his laurels, and Browning behind the man of the world." Henry +James, whose gift of subtle analysis was never more felicitously revealed +than in his expressions about Browning, declared that the poet had two +personalities: one, the man of the world, who walked abroad, talked, did +his duty; the other, the Poet,--"an inscrutable personage,--who sat at +home and knew, as well he might, in what quarters of that sphere to look +for suitable company. The poet and the man of the world were disassociated +in him as they can rarely elsewhere have been." + +For three or four summers after this sojourn in Scotland the Brownings +were at St. Aubin, in Brittany, where they had a cottage "not two steps +away" from that of his friend Milsand. In the early mornings Browning +would be seen pacing the sands, reading from his little Greek copy of +Homer; and in the late afternoons the two friends would stroll on the +Normandy beach with their arms around each other's shoulders. They are +described as very different in appearance,--Browning vigorous and buoyant, +Milsand nervous, thin, reserved,--but akin in a certain delicate +sensitiveness, a swift susceptibility to impressions. Of Browning Milsand +said that what he really valued most was his kindness, his simple, open, +radiant goodness. "All the chords of sympathy vibrated in his strong +voice," added Milsand. The French critic was very fond of the poet's son, +and in reference to him he once said: "The father has reason to be happy +that in walking before he has opened a path for his son, instead of making +him stumble." As has been seen, in Mrs. Browning's letters, she always +shared her husband's enthusiasm for Milsand, and the latter had said that +he felt in her "that shining superiority always concealing itself under +her unconscious goodness and lovely simplicity." + +On Sundays at St. Aubin's, Browning frequently accompanied Milsand to the +little chapel of Château-Blagny, for Protestant worshipers. From his +cottage Browning could gaze across the bay to the lighthouse at Havre, and +he "saw with a thrill" the spot where he once passed a summer with his +wife. + +Italian recollections sometimes rose before his inner vision. To Isa +Blagden, who had gone to Siena, he wrote that he could "see the fig-tree +under which Ba sat, reading and writing, poor old Landor's oak opposite." + +Of Milsand he wrote to a friend: "I never knew or shall know his like +among men," and to Milsand, who had assisted him in some proof-reading, he +wrote acknowledging his "invaluable assistance," and said: + + "The fact is, in the case of a writer with my peculiarities and + habits, somebody quite ignorant of what I may have meant to write, and + only occupied with what is really written, ought to supervise the + thing produced. I won't attempt to thank you, dearest friend.... The + poem will reach you in about a fortnight. I look forward with all + confidence and such delight to finding us all together again in the + autumn. All love to your wife and daughter. R. B." + + +Milsand, writing of Browning in the _Revue_, revealed his high +appreciation of the poet when he said: "Browning suggests a power even +greater than his achievement. He speaks like a spirit who is able to do +that which to past centuries has been almost impossible." + +It was St. Aubin that furnished Browning with material for his poem, "Red +Cotton Night-cap Country," the title of which was suggested by Miss +Thackeray (now Lady Ritchie) who had a cottage there one summer, near +those of Browning and Milsand. Browning and his sister occupied one of the +most primitive of cottages, but the location was beautiful, perched on the +cliff of St. Aubin, and commanded a changeful panorama of sea and sky. +"The sitting-room door opened to the garden and the sea beyond--a +fresh-swept bare floor, a table, three straw chairs, one book upon the +table,--the only book he had with him. The bedrooms were as bare as the +sitting-room, but there was a little dumb piano standing in a corner, on +which he used to practice in the early morning. Mr. Browning declared they +were perfectly satisfied with their little house; that his brains, +squeezed as dry as a sponge, were only ready for fresh air."[12] As all +Browning readers will remember, "Red Cotton Night-cap Country" is +dedicated to Miss Thackeray. + +In the succeeding autumn Browning passed some weeks at Fontainebleau, +where he was absorbed in reading Æschylus, and in making an especial study +of the great dramatist. It was perhaps at this time that he conceived the +idea of translating the Agamemnon, which, he says in his preface, "was +commanded of me by my venerated friend Thomas Carlyle, and rewarded it +will be if I am permitted to dignify it by the prefatory insertion of his +dear and noble name." + + +[Illustration: BUST OF ROBERT BROWNING, BY HIS SON, + +ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING. + +In the possession of the sculptor at his villa near Florence.] + + +Before the close of this year Browning had also complied with a request +from Tauchnitz to prepare for publication a selection from the poems of +Mrs. Browning. This Tauchnitz Edition of Mrs. Browning will always retain +its interest as representing her husband's favorites among her poems. "The +Rhyme of the Duchess May," with its artistic symmetry and exquisite +execution, was of course included. This poem may be said to exhibit all +Mrs. Browning's poetic characteristics. + +Encouraged by Millais, Robert Barrett Browning had seriously entered on +the study of painting, his first master being M. Heyermans in Antwerp. In +1875 Frederick Lehmann had expressed high appreciation of a work of the +young artist, the study of a monk absorbed in reading a book,--a picture +that he liked so well as subsequently to purchase it. Another picture by +Barrett Browning was entitled "The Armorer," and found a place in the +Royal Academy of that year, and was purchased by a Member of Parliament +who was also something of a connoisseur in art. In this season was +inaugurated the annual "private view" of the paintings of the poet's son, +which were exhibited in a house in Queen's Gate Gardens and attracted much +attention. In his son's success Browning took great pride and pleasure. On +the sale of the picture to the M. P., Browning wrote to Millais: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, May 10, 1878. + + MY BELOVED MILLAIS,--You will be gladdened in the kind heart of you to + learn that Pen's picture has been bought by Mr. Fielder, a perfect + stranger to both of us. You know what your share has been in his + success, and it cannot but do a world of good to a young fellow whose + fault was never that of being insensible to an obligation. + + Ever Affectionately Yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING.[13] + + +In 1871 Browning had been appointed Life Governor of the University of +London, an honor that he particularly appreciated as indicating the +interest of students in his poetry. In the late winter of 1872, after an +absence of thirty years, Alfred Domett again appeared. He had vanished + + "like a ghost at break of day," + +and like a ghost he returned, calling at once on his friend in Warwick +Crescent. A letter from Miss Browning to Domett explains itself: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, + + UPPER WESTBOURNE TERRACE, Feb. 1872. + + MY DEAR MR. DOMETT,--My brother was so sorry to miss you yesterday; he + is a man of many engagements, and unfortunately is engaged every + evening next week, or I would ask you to join our family dinner as + soon as possible--but meanwhile, as he is impatient to see you, will + you be very kind and come to lunch with us on Monday at one o'clock? + We shall be delighted to meet you. If you cannot come on Monday, name + some other morning. + + Always Yours Truly, + + SARIANNA BROWNING. + + +The old friendship between Browning and Domett was renewed with constant +intercourse and interchange of delightful letters. Milsand was in the +habit of passing a part of every spring with Browning in his home in +Warwick Crescent, and with the arrival of Domett a warm and sincere +friendship united all three. + +Once, in Scotland, as the guest of Ernest Benzon, when Browning missed +part of a visit from Milsand, the poet said: "No words can express the +love I have for Milsand, increasingly precious as he is." The Benzons were +at that time in the hills above Loch Tummel, where Jowett was staying, +Swinburne also with the Master of Balliol. Had there been a phonograph to +register the conversation of such a trio as Jowett, Browning, and +Swinburne, its records would be eagerly sought. + +A fragmentary record, indeed, remains in a note made by Edwin Harrison, +who was with Jowett at this time. In his diary Mr. Harrison recorded: + + "R. B. was in the neighborhood, staying at Little Milton, above Loch + Tummel, where he was perpetrating 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau' at the + rate of so many lines a day, neither more nor less. He walked over to + see Jowett one afternoon, very keen about a fanciful rendering he had + imagined for lines in the Alcestis. A few evenings later we met him + and his son at dinner at Altaine House, by the foot of the loch. You + may be sure that where Jowett and Browning were, the conversation was + animated and interesting." + + +In "Balaustion's Adventure" the poet seemed to take captive the popular +appreciation of the day, for more than three thousand copies had been sold +within the first six months, and his sister told Domett that she regarded +it as the most swiftly appreciated poem of all her brother's works. +Certainly it is one of the most alluring of Browning's works,--this +delightful treatment of the interwoven life of mortals and of the immortal +gods. + +The June of 1872 brought to Browning the sad news of the death of his +wife's dearest friend, Isa Blagden. "A little volume of Isabella Blagden's +poems was published after her death," writes Thomas Adolphus Trollope. +"They are not such as would take the world by storm, but it is impossible +to read them without perceiving how choice a spirit their author must +have been, and understanding how she was especially honored with the +friendship of Mrs. Browning."[14] + +On the publication of "Red Cotton Night-cap Country," Browning sent a +first copy to Tennyson, and the Laureate's son says of it: "Among the +lines which my father liked were + + 'Palatial, gloomy chambers for parade, + And passage lengths of lost significance'; + +and he praised the simile about the man with his dead comrade in the +lighthouse. He wrote to Mr. Browning: 'My wife has just cut the leaves. I +have yet again to thank you, and feel rather ashamed that I have nothing +of my own to send you back.'" + +An entry in Tennyson's diary in the following December notes: "Mr. +Browning dined with us. He was very affectionate and delightful. It was a +great pleasure to hear his words,--that he had not had so happy a time for +a long while as since we have been in town." + +Tennyson's "Queen Mary" was published in 1875, and on receiving a copy +from the author Browning wrote expressing thanks for the gift, and even +more for "Queen Mary the poem." He found it "astonishingly fine"; and he +adds: "What a joy that such a poem should be, and be yours." The relations +between the two great poets of the Victorian age were always ideally +beautiful, in their cordial friendship and their warm mutual appreciation. + +In a note dated in the Christmas days of 1876 Browning writes: + + MY DEAR TENNYSON,--True thanks again, this time for the best of + Christmas presents, another great work, wise, good, and beautiful. The + scene where Harold is overborne to take the oath is perfect, for one + instance. What a fine new ray of light you are entwining with your + many-colored wreath!... + + All happiness befall you and yours this good season and ever.[15] + + +The present Lord Tennyson, in his biography of his father, makes many +interesting allusions to the friendship and the pleasant intercourse +between the poets. "Browning frequently dined with us," he says, "and the +_tête-à-tête_ conversations between him and my father on every imaginable +topic were the best talk I have ever heard, so full of repartee, epigram, +anecdote, depth, and wisdom, too brilliant to be possible to reproduce. +These brother poets were two of the most widely read men of their time, +absolutely without a touch of jealousy, and reveling, as it were, in each +other's power.... Browning had a faculty for absurd and abstruse rhymes, +and I recall a dinner where Jebb, Miss Thackeray, and Browning were all +present, and Browning said he could make a rhyme for every word in the +language. We proposed rhinoceros, and without pause he said, + + 'O, if you should see a rhinoceros + And a tree be in sight, + Climb quick, for his might + Is a match for the gods,--he can toss Eros.'" + + +A London friend relates that on one occasion Browning chanced upon a +literal translation some one had made from the Norwegian: + + "The soul where love abideth not resembles + A house by night, without a fire or torch," + +and remarked how easy it would be to put this into rhyme; and immediately +transmuted it into the couplet, + + "What seems the soul when love's outside the porch? + A house by night, without a fire or torch." + + +When Browning's "Inn Album" appeared, and he sent a copy to Tennyson, the +Laureate responded: + + "MY DEAR BROWNING,--You are the most brotherly of poets, and your + brother in the muses thanks you with the affection of a brother. She + would thank you too, if she could put hand to pen." + + +Tennyson once remarked to his son, Hallam, that he wished he had written +Browning's lines: + + "The little more, and how much it is, + The little less, and what worlds away." + + +There was an interval of twelve years between the appearance of the +"Dramatis Personæ" (in 1864) and the publication of "Pacchiarotto." In +this collection Browning's amusing play of rhyme is much in evidence. +Among Mr. Browning's most enjoyable experiences were his frequent visits +to Oxford and Cambridge, in both of which he was an honored guest. In the +spring of 1877 he had an especially delightful stay at Oxford, the +pleasure even beginning on the train, "full of men, all my friends," he +wrote of it; and continued: "I was welcomed on arrival by a Fellow who +installed me in my rooms--then came the pleasant meeting with Jowett, who +at once took me to tea with his other guests, the Archbishop of +Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Dean of Westminster, Lord Airlie, +and others." + +There was a banquet and much postprandial eloquence that night, and +Browning mentions among the speakers Lord Coleridge, Professor Smith, Mr. +Green (on science and literature with a most complimentary appreciation of +Browning), and "a more rightly-directed one," says the poet, "on Arnold, +Swinburne, and the old pride of Balliol, Clough, which was cleverly and +almost touchingly answered by dear Matthew Arnold." The Dean of +Westminster responded to the toast of "The Fellows and the Scholars," and +the entire affair lasted over six hours. "But the whole thing," said +Browning, "was brilliant, genial, and there was a warmth, earnestness, and +refinement about it which I never experienced in any previous public +dinner." + +The profound impression that Browning made both by his personality and his +poetic work is further attested by his being again chosen Lord Rector of +the University of Glasgow. Dr. William Knight, the Professor of Moral +Philosophy at St. Andrews, urges Browning's acceptance of this office, and +begs the poet to realize "how the thoughtful youth of Scotland" estimate +his work. Professor Knight closes by saying that his own obligations to +Browning, "and to the author of 'Aurora Leigh' are such that of them +silence is golden." While Mr. Browning was deeply touched by this +testimonial of esteem, he still, for the second time, declined the honor. + +Many readers and lovers of Robert Browning's poem "La Saisiaz" little +dream of the singular story connected with it. "La Saisiaz" is a chalet +above Geneva, high up in the Savoyard mountains, looking down on Geneva +and Lake Leman. It is a tall, white house, with a red roof that attracted +the lovers of beauty, solitude, and seclusion. Among the few habitués for +many years were Robert Browning and his sister, Sarianna, and their +friend, Miss Egerton-Smith. It was the bond of music that especially +united Browning and this lady, and in London they were apt to frequent +concerts together. "La Saisiaz" is surrounded by tall poplar trees, but +the balcony from a third-floor window, which was Browning's room, looked +through a space in the trees out on the blue lake, and on this balcony he +would draw out his chair and writing desk. Back of the chalet a steep +path ran up the mountains, where the three friends often climbed, to enjoy +a gorgeous and unrivaled sunset spectacle. + +In 1877 they were all there as usual in August, and one evening had +planned that the next day they would start early in the morning and pass +the day on the mountain, going by carriage, a servant accompanying them +carrying the basket of luncheon. In the early evening Browning and Miss +Egerton-Smith were out, pacing up and down the "grass-grown path," and +talking of the infinite life which includes death and that which is beyond +death. The next morning she did not appear, and Browning and his sister +waited for her. They sat out on the terrace after having morning coffee, +expecting to see the "tall white figure," and finally Miss Browning went +to her room to ask if she were ill, and she lay dead on the floor. Miss +Egerton-Smith was buried in the neighboring cemetery of Collonge, where +her grave, over which a wonderful willow tree bends, is still seen--a +place of frequent pilgrimage to visitors in this region. Five days after +her death Browning made the excursion up the mountain alone, + + "But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung 'Even so + Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!'" + + +La Salève, the mountain overlooking the Arve and the Rhone Valley, is one +of the most wildly picturesque points in all the Alpine region. The chalet +of "La Saisiaz" was perched on this mountain spur, about half-way up the +mountain, on a shelving terrace, with vast and threatening rocks rising +behind. The poem called "La Saisiaz" is one of Browning's greatest. It is +full of mystical questioning and of his positive and radiant assertions of +faith; it abounds in vivid and exquisite scenic effects, and it has the +personal touches of tenderness. The morning after her death is thus +pictured: + + "No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the + wreaths, + Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes." + + +Browning and Miss Egerton-Smith had first met in Florence. She was an +English lady of means (being part proprietor of the _Liverpool Mercury_) +and of a reserve of temperament which kept her aloof from people in +general. With the poet and his sister she was seen in all that cordial +sweetness of her nature which her sensitive reserve veiled from strangers. + +Italy again! A sapphire sky bending over hills and peaks and terraces +swimming in violet shadows; villas, and sudden views, and arching +_pianterreni_, and winding roads between low stone walls hidden in their +riotous overgrowth of roses! And the soft air, the tall black cypresses +against the sky, the sunsets and the stars, and golden lights, and dear +Italian phrases! The trailing ivy vines all in a tangle; the wayside +shrine, the vast white monastery perched on an isolated mountain top; the +flaming scarlet of the poppies in the grass, the castles and battlements +dimly caught on the far horizon,--the poetry, the loveliness, the +ineffable beauty of Italy! Seventeen years had passed since that midsummer +day when the dear form of his "Lyric Love" had been laid under the +Florentine lilies, when Browning, in the spring of 1878, returned to his +Italy. What dreams and associations thronged upon him! + + "Places are too much, + Or else too little for immortal man,-- + + * * * * * + + ... thinking how two hands before + Had held up what is left to only one." + +Seventeen years had passed, but Venice, the ethereal city, the mystic +dream of sea and sky, was unchanged, and, however unconsciously, the poet +was now to initiate another era, another new "state" in his life. He +never again went farther south than Venice; he could never see Florence +or Rome again, where _she_ had lived beside him; but the dream city now +became for him a second and dearer home. With his sister Sarianna, he +broke the journey by lingering in a hotel on the summit of the Splügen, +where he indulged himself in those long walks which he loved, Miss +Browning often accompanying him down the Via Cala Mala, or to the summit +where they could look down into Lombardy. Browning was at work on his +"Dramatic Idyls," and not only "Ivan Ivanovitch," but several others were +written on the Splügen. Pausing at Lago di Como, and a day in Verona, they +made their way to Asolo, "my very own of all Italian cities," the poet +would say of it. Asolo, which from its rocky hilltop, has an outlook over +all Veneto,--over all Italy, it would almost seem, for the towers and +domes of Venice are visible on a clear day,--gave its full measure of joy +to Browning, and when they descended into Venice they were domiciled in +the Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, on the Grand Canal, near the Accademia. In +Venice he met a Russian lady whom he consulted about some of the names he +was giving to the characters in his "Ivan Ivanovitch." + +The success of his son in the Paris Salon and other exhibitions was a +continual happiness to Mr. Browning. Both in Paris and in London the +pictures of Barrett Browning were accorded an honorable place "on the +line"; he received a medal from the Salon, and there was not wanting, +either, that commercial side of success that sustains its theory. The +young artist had now seriously entered on sculpture, under Rodin, with +much prestige and promise. + +The first series of "Dramatic Idyls" was published in the autumn of 1872, +closely following "La Saisiaz" and the "Two Poets of Croisic." The devoted +student of Browning could hardly fail to be impressed by one feature of +his poetry which, though a prominent one, has received little attention +from the critics. This feature is his doctrine of the sub-self, as the +source of man's highest spiritual knowledge. He has given his fullest +expression of this belief in his "Paracelsus," and it appears in +"Sordello" (especially in the fifth book), in "A Death in the Desert," in +"Fifine," and in "Christopher Smart," and is largely developed in "The +Ring and the Book." Again, in "Beatrice Signorini," contained in +"Asolando," published only on the day of his death, this theory is again +apparent, and these instances are only partial out of the many in which +the doctrine is touched or elaborated, showing how vital it was with him +from the earliest to the latest period of his work. Another striking +quality in Browning is that of the homogeneous spirit of his entire poetic +expression. It is the great unity in an equally great variety. It is +always clear as to the direction in which Browning is moving, and as to +the supreme message of his philosophy of life. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +1880-1888 + + "Moreover something is or seems, + That touches me with mystic gleams, + Like shadows of forgotten dreams." + + "Alas! our memories may retrace + Each circumstance of time and place, + Season and change come back again, + And outward things unchanged remain; + The rest we cannot re-instate; + Ourselves we cannot re-create; + Nor set our souls to the same key + Of the remembered harmony!" + + +"LES CHARMETTES"--VENETIAN DAYS--DR. HIRAM CORSON--THE BROWNING SOCIETY-- + OXFORD HONORS BROWNING--KATHERINE DEKAY BRONSON--HONORS FROM + EDINBURGH--VISIT TO PROFESSOR MASSON--ITALIAN RECOGNITION--NANCIONI-- + THE GOLDONI SONNET--AT ST. MORITZ--IN PALAZZO GIUSTINIANI-- + "FERISHTAH'S FANCIES"--COMPANIONSHIP WITH HIS SON--DEATH OF MILSAND-- + LETTERS TO MRS. BRONSON--DEVERE GARDENS--PALAZZO REZZONICO--SUNSETS + FROM THE LIDO--ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING'S GIFT IN PORTRAITURE. + + +Twenty-five years after Robert Browning had visited the famous haunts of +Rousseau with his wife, he again made a little sojourn with his sister in +lovely Chambéry, making various excursions in all the picturesque region +about, and again visiting "Les Charmettes," which Miss Browning had not +before seen; as before, Browning sat down to the old harpsichord, +attempting to play "Rousseau's Dream," but only two notes of the antique +instrument responded to his touch. Through all the wonderful scenery of +the Mont Cenis pass they proceeded to Turin and thence to Venice, where +they arrived in the midst of the festivities of the Congress Carnival in +September of 1881. The Storys, whom Browning had anticipated meeting in +Venice, had gone to Vallombrosa, where their daughter (the Marchesa +Peruzzi di' Medici) had a villa, to which the family retired in summer +from their stately old palace in Florence. Mr. Story's two sons, the +painter and the sculptor, both had studios in Venice at this time, and Mr. +Browning often strolled into these. Among other friends Browning and his +sister visited the Countess Mocenigo, who was ensconced in the same palace +that Byron had occupied. She showed her guests through all the rooms with +their classic associations, and Browning sat down to the desk at which +Byron had written the last canto of "Childe Harold." To the satisfaction +of the Brownings, Venice soon regained her usual quiet,--that wonderful +silence broken only by the plash of water against marble steps, and the +cries of the gondoliers,--and he resumed his long walks, often accompanied +by Miss Browning, exploring every curious haunt and lingering in shops and +squares. The poet familiarized himself with the enchanting dream city, as +no tours in gondolas alone could ever do. To him Venice came to be dear +beyond words, and soon after he made all arrangements to purchase the +Palazzo Manzoni, an ancient Venetian palace of the fifteenth century, +whose façade was a faint glow of color from its medallions of colored +marbles, and whose balconies and arched windows seemed especially designed +for a poet's habitation. But the ancient structure was found to be in a +too perilous condition, and Browning, with never-failing regret, resigned +the prospect; nor was he ever consoled, it is said, until, some years +later, his son became the owner of the noble Palazzo Rezzonico. + +Every day the poet saw Venice transformed into new splendor. "To see these +divine sunsets is the joy of life," he would say, as a city, flushed with +rose, reflected itself in pale green waters, and the golden sunset filled +with liquid light every narrow street and passage, contrasting sharply +with the dense black shadows. Browning had a love of the sky that made its +glorious panorama one of the delights of his life. + +One of the crowning honors of the poet's life invested these days for him +with renewed vitality of interest,--that of the formation of the Browning +Society in London for the study and promulgation of his poetic work. This +was, indeed, a contrast to the public attitude of thirty years before. +Once, in a letter to Mrs. Millais (dated January 7, 1867) he had described +himself to her as "the most unpopular poet that ever was." The Browning +Society was due, in its first inception, to Dr. Furnivall and to Miss +Emily Hickey, and its founding was entirely without Browning's knowledge. +Although the poet avowed himself as "quite other than a Browningite," he +could not fail to be touched and gratified by such a mark of interest and +appreciation. + +Dr. Hiram Corson, Professor of Literature at Cornell University, had, +however, formed a Browning Club, composed of professors and their wives +and many eminent scholars, some four or five years before the formation of +the Browning Society in London, and the notable Browning readings which +Professor Corson had given continually in many of the large cities and +before universities, had been of incalculable aid in making Robert +Browning's poetry known and understood in the United States. As an +interpreter of Browning, Dr. Corson stood unrivaled. His aim was to give +to his audience the spiritual meaning of the poem read. His rich voice had +the choral intonation without which no poem can be vocally interpreted. +His reading gave not only the articulated thought, but the spiritual +message of the poet. It is hardly too much to say that no one has ever +fully realized the dramatic power of Browning who has not listened to the +interpretation of Dr. Corson. Of his own part in the creation of the +Browning Society in London, Dr. Corson kindly contributed this record: + + "I was stopping with my wife at the Inns of Court Hotel, on High + Holborn. A day or two before receiving Mr. Browning's invitation, Dr. + Frederick James Furnivall dined with us, and after dinner we went over + to the Inns of Court Gardens, just back of the hotel. There we walked + about during the long evening twilight, and talked over the founding + of a Society which Dr. Furnivall and Miss Emily Henriette Hickey, the + poetess, had been contemplating, for the study of Browning's poetry. I + told him of what I had done at Cornell University, the previous four + or five years, in a Browning Club composed of Professors and their + wives, and in my University classes. It was decided that the London + Browning Society should be organized in October; and I engaged to go + over to England the following June, and read a paper before the + Society; which I did at its eighth meeting, on the 23d of June, the + subject of the paper being 'The Idea of Personality as embodied in + Robert Browning's Poetry, and of Art as an intermediate Agency of + Personality.'" + + +Another source of joy to Browning, and one that far exceeded that of any +recognition of himself, was the increasing recognition of his son's +achievements in art. Barrett Browning was at this time a pupil of Rodin in +Paris, devoting himself to sculpture with the same ardor that he gave to +his painting. As to which expression in art was the more his métier, _chi +lo sa_? The young man was the child of the muses, and all forms of art +were to him a temperamental inheritance. + +Oxford again honored Browning, this time in the June of 1882, with the +degree of D.C.L. "I never saw my father happier than on this occasion," +Mr. Barrett Browning said to the writer of this volume when questioned +regarding it; and another observer who was present speaks of Browning's +distinction in his red Oxford gown, his shoulders thrown back, and his +swift, light step. One of the humors of the occasion was the dangling of a +red cotton night-cap over his head by one of the undergraduates, who was +in danger of a not ill-merited rebuke, but Browning interceded with the +Vice-Chancellor not to be too hard "on the harmless drolleries of the +young man." It was in this Oxford gown, holding in his hand "the square +old yellow book," that Robert Barrett Browning painted the portrait of his +father, which he presented to Oxford, and which now hangs, a treasured +possession, in Balliol Hall, to which portrait some allusion has already +been made. + + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BROWNING, BY HIS SON. + +Painted in 1882, and presented to Oxford University by the artist.] + + +One of the most beautiful of the friendships of the last decade of the +poet's life was that with Mrs. Arthur Bronson, a very cultivated and +charming American woman who for more than twenty years made her home in +Venice. Casa Alvisi, on the Grand Canal, opposite Santa Maria della +Salute, came to be such a delightful center of social life for the choice +circle that Mrs. Bronson gathered around her, that its records fairly +enter into the modern history of Venice. Adjoining Casa Alvisi was the old +Giustiniani Palace, in which Mrs. Bronson had taken a suite of rooms that +she might use them in dispensing her hospitalities. No one who has been +the privileged guest of Mrs. Bronson can ever lose the grateful +appreciation of her genius as a hostess. Her lovely hospitality was +dispensed with the quality that entitled it to be considered as absolutely +a special gift of the gods, and when she invited Browning and his sister +to occupy these rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanti, it was with a +grace that forestalled any refusal. At first Miss Browning did a little +housekeeping on their own account, except that they dined and passed +the evening with Mrs. Bronson; later on, for several seasons, they were +her house-guests in Casa Alvisi,--that unique and dream-enchanted interior +crowded with lovely Venetian things, and bibelots and bric-à-brac picked +up the world over. But the brother and sister always occupied the rooms in +the palace. It was after the first one of this series of annual visits +that Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson the following letter after his return +to London: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W. + + Nov. 18, '81. + + I would not write at first arriving, Dear Friend, because I fancied + that I might say too much all at once, and afterward be afraid of + beginning again till some interval; this fortnight since I saw you, + however, must pass for a very long interval indeed, I will try to tell + you as quietly as possible that I never shall feel your + kindness,--such kindness!--one whit less than I do now; perhaps I feel + it "now" even more deeply than I could, at all events, realize that I + was feeling. + + You have given Venice an appreciation that will live in my mind with + every delight of that dearest place in the world. But all the same you + remain for me a dearest of friends, whether I see you framed by your + Venice, or brightening up our bleak London, should you come there. In + Venice, however, should I live and you be there next autumn, it will + go hard with me if I do not meet you again. + + What a book of memories, and instigations to get still more memories, + does your most beautiful and precious book prove to me! I never + supposed that photographers would have the good sense to use their art + on so many out-of-the-way scenes and sights, just those I love + most.... + + You--you have lost Lowell, and Field, and the rest of the good + fellowship, but you will be sure of a succession of the sort. + + +On the poet's seventieth birthday he received, from the Browning Societies +of Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell University, and others, a gift of a +complete set of his own works, bound in olive green morocco, in a +beautifully carved oak case, with this inscription: + + "To Robert Browning on his seventieth birthday, May 7th, 1882, from + some members of the Browning Societies. These members having + ascertained that the works of a Great Modern Poet are never in Robert + Browning's house, beg him to accept a set of these works which they + assure him will be found worthy of his most serious attention." + + +Dr. Corson has related that when he visited the poet at one time Browning +showed him this case, placed against the wall of the drawing-room, with an +almost boyish delight. + +In August of 1882, on their leisurely way to Venice, Browning and his +sister lingered at Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse and at Gressoney Saint-Jean, +where his enchanting outlook upon Monte Rosa was a continual joy, Mr. +Browning spent one night in the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse, in +order to hear the midnight mass; while Miss Browning, denied hospitality +in the monastery, received that of the convent near at hand, where she was +cordially entertained by the Mother Superior. + +The Prologue of "Ferishtah's Fancies," published the next year, is dated +from Gressoney, Val d'Aosta, and the lines, + + "A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee, + Delightful Gressoney!" + +will recall themselves to the memory. Miss Browning was an ideal companion +in these mountain wanderings. She was equal to endless walks, and she had +the accomplishment of being able to ride a mule or a donkey as one to the +manor born. From Gressoney they looked up to the glaciers of Monte Rosa, +almost overhanging, and from Saint-Pierre Browning wrote to a friend that +they were in the roughest and most primitive inn, "but my sister bears it +bravely." + +Italian recognition of Browning was stimulated and extended, if not +primarily inspired, by Il Signor Dottore Nancioni, who had the Chair of +Literature in the University of Florence, and whom the Brownings had first +met in the old Siena days. As Milsand first made Browning known in France, +through his critical papers in the _Revue_, so Nancioni published, in the +_Nuova Antologia_, and in the _Fanfulla della Domenica_ of Rome, several +papers devoted to serious and critical study and interpretation of +Browning's work; and he made the journey from Rome to Venice to meet the +poet again. The recital of poetry was by no means ended in Italy in the +days of the _Improvvisatori_, and Professor Nanciani frequently gave +readings from Browning before cultivated Italian audiences. + +When Venice honored Goldoni with a statue, Browning was invited to +contribute to that wonderful "Album" of letters, with which Italy +characteristically commemorates all scholarly events, with contributions +from literary men. The sonnet so pleased the Venetians that they gave it +the place of honor in the album. + +The London seasons during all these years were of unrivaled brilliancy. +Browning was seen in all the great houses, and often for two weeks he +would dine out every consecutive night. Dr. Corson, whose first visit to +Browning was made in the early eighties, gave to a friend in a personal +letter this little transcription of his first meeting with the poet, with +whom he had long been in correspondence: + + "He received me in the drawing-room, on the second floor. After a few + minutes' conversation, he showed me various interesting things, in the + drawing-room, busts and portraits and mementoes of Mrs. Browning, + keeping up a rapid and meandering current of talk. Something was said, + I forget what, which caused me to allude to 'the Book,' the 'square + old yellow book,' with 'crumpled vellum covers,' which he picked out + of the market-day trumpery in the Piazza San Lorenzo, in Florence, and + which led to the composition of his masterpiece, 'The Ring and the + Book,' 'I'll take you down in a few minutes,' he said, 'to the + library, and show it to you.' When we left the drawing-room and were + at the top of the stairway, he, with an apparent unconsciousness, and + as if I were a younger brother, put his arm over my off shoulder, and + so descended with me, talking all the while at his usual rapid rate. I + tell this little incident, as I observed later, on several occasions, + such an expression of unconscious cordiality and good fellowship was a + characteristic of him. + + "Beside his chair, at the writing table, stood Mrs. Browning's + low-seated, high and straight-backed, black haircloth covered chair, + on which were piled books almost to the top of the back, which most + effectually excluded any one from the honor of sitting in it. + + "When showing me 'The Book,' he called my attention to passages in the + Latin portion of it--the arguments of the two lawyers, Bottinius and + Hyacinthus de Archangelis, and I was struck with the way in which he + translated them, the rapid and close recasting of the thought in + English, a rare gift even with the best Latin scholars. I had + occasions to discover, in subsequent visits, that he read the Greek in + a genial way and with less grammatical consciousness than do many + Greek professors. His scholarship was extensive and, I would add, + _vital_, it not having been imposed upon him at a public school and a + university, and he having had what must have been Shakespeare's power + of acquiring and absorbing knowledge of all kinds. On some subsequent + visit, I don't remember what we had been talking about that led to the + remark, he said to me, in his rapid mode of speech, 'I never could + have done much at a public school,' meaning, of course, an endowed + foundation school, such as Eton and others, in which there is a + special preparation for the Universities. After a pause, he added, + 'no, nor at a university either. Italy was _my_ university.' In his + 'De Gustibus----' he says: + + 'Open my heart and you will see + Graved inside of it, Italy.' + + + "While he was showing me 'The Book,' I asked him about a passage in + 'The Ring and the Book.' He replied, 'I don't remember the passage. It + has been some time since I read the poem, and I haven't a copy of it + in my house!' + + "He showed me many of Mrs. Browning's books--nearly all of them 24mo + editions--said she couldn't hold big books--English, French, Italian, + Latin, and Greek books; a Hebrew Bible which had belonged to a + distinguished English bishop, whose name I've forgotten. 'Did Mrs. + Browning read Hebrew?' I asked. 'Oh, yes,' he replied, and added with + a sigh, 'she was a wonderful woman.'" + + +[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE + + "_June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square._" + + The Ring and the Book.] + + +The succeeding summer found the Corsons again in London, and the following +invitation from Browning particularly pleased them in its assurance that +"nobody else" would be present. + + DEAR PROFESSOR CORSON,--Could Mrs. Corson and yourself do my sister + and me the great pleasure of taking luncheon with us--and nobody + else--next Tuesday (27th) at one o'clock? + + Believe me, dear Professor Corson, + + Yours Truly Ever,-- + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +On Browning's return to England in 1861, after his wife's death, he had +entered into a most brilliant and congenial social life. Thackeray died +soon after his return; but there were Carlyle, Ruskin, Jowett, Millais, +Rossetti, Proctor, Matthew Arnold, Woolner, Leighton, Tennyson (whose +companionship, as we have seen, was one of his keenest enjoyments), and +his publisher, George Murray Smith, of the head of the house of Smith, +Elder, and Company, who was one of his chosen friends. Carlyle died in +1881, but many of this group well outlived Browning. On New Year's Day of +1884 Miss Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson: + + The very first word I write this year is to you, dearest friend, + wishing you every good gift the earth below, and Heaven above, can + offer. If Robert does not write his own share in these kind feelings, + it is only because we have mutually agreed that we shall come more + constantly before you if we keep our letters apart. + + ... You cannot think how incessantly we dwell on the memories of the + pleasant past. We are in Casa Alvisi in spirit daily, and I picture to + myself all that is going on in the well-loved rooms. I hope Edith + works at her guitar. She will find that it will repay the trouble. + + Give our kindest love to her, and take yourself our loving hearts. + + God bless you this year. + + Ever Yours Affectionately, + + SARIANNA BROWNING. + + +In a letter to Mrs. Bronson Browning alludes to the purchase of the new +house in DeVere Gardens: + + "... I am really in treaty--not too deeply _in_ it for extrication at + need--with the land-owner who proposes to build me the house I + want,--freehold, if you please! so that it can be Pen's after me; my + notion is to contract just what Sarianna and I require now, leaving it + in the said Pen's power to add and alter according to future + advisability." + + +Portions of other letters from Browning to Mrs. Bronson are as follows. +The first refers to the little daughter of Princess Mélanie Metternich. + + "First and worst of all, dear friend, how truly grieved I am to hear + of the sad end of the poor little girl I remember so well. Do you + remember how she, with her sister, walked before us on our way + homeward from the Piazza on nearly our last evening? And how prettily + she asked me at her own house to write in her Birthday Book! All this + sudden extinction of light in the gay Ca' Bembo, where I saw the silks + bespread before your knowledge and my ignorance! + + "It is needless to say how much I pity the Princess, and her kindly + husband, too, and I am sorry, very sorry, for you also, Dear Friend of + mine, well knowing how you must have suffered in degree." + + +Mrs. Bronson had a talent for the writing of drawing-room comedies, and to +one of these the poet alludes: + + "DEAR FRIEND,--I kept your Comedietta by me a whole week that I might + taste of it again and again; how clever it is, who can know better + than I, who furnished the bare framework which your Virginia creeper + has over-flourished so charmingly? It is all capitally done; quite as + much elaborated as the little conception was worth; but its great + value to me is the proof it really gives what really good work you + might do on a larger scale.... + + "... I dined last evening at John Murray's, in the room where used to + meet Byron, Scott, Moore, all those famous men of old, whose portraits + still adorn the walls. Murray told me he well remembered Byron and his + ways; could still in fancy see him and Scott, and also hear them, as + they stamped heavily (lame as both were) down the somewhat narrow + stairs. Sociability may well come to the relief of people who cannot + amuse themselves at home, for the weather, mild, and too mild, is + gray, sunless and spiritless, altogether. To-day it rains, a rare + occurrence...." + + +One of the very pleasant interludes in Mr. Browning's life came about this +time in the receipt of a letter from Professor Masson of the University of +Edinburgh, inviting the poet to be his guest the week of the coming +Tercentenary celebration of the University. It had been decided to confer +on Mr. Browning an Honorary Degree, but by some misadventure the official +letter announcing this had not reached him, and in reply to Professor +Masson he wrote that he had not received "the invitation to Edinburgh +which occasions this particularly kind one," which he thankfully +acknowledged, "but I should find it difficult if not impossible to leave +London in April," he continues, "as my son will then be with me; but had I +seen my way in so doing it would delight me, indeed, could I spend the +days in question with you and Mrs. Masson." He added that if ever he was +privileged "to see the as famous as beautiful City again," he should call +on the Massons the first thing of all, and he desired thanks to Mrs. +Masson "for associating her goodness with yours." + +Apparently another letter appears from Professor Masson, but still +Browning does not receive the official invitation of the University. +"Should it follow," he writes, "I will acknowledge the distinction as +gratefully as I have done already when it was conferred by Oxford and +Cambridge." The Massons also invited Mr. Browning to bring his son with +him, and he responded: + + "... So, my dear Professor Masson, I provisionally accept your + hospitality with thankfulness, and that of Mrs. Masson. For my son, + who is away, I can only say that he shall be informed of your + goodness, and I fully believe will be delighted to avail himself of + it.... As to the 'vagueness or intelligibility' of your note, I can + assure you that one thing was intelligible enough,--that you wished to + help me most kindly and pleasantly to witness an extremely interesting + ceremony, and I have written to my son and his answer you shall hear + as soon as possible.... By the way, ought I to attend in the Oxford + D.C.L. gown,--at any preliminary entertainment, for instance." + + +The next letter tells its own story. + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W. + + March 25th, 1884. + + MY DEAR PROFESSOR MASSON,--Nothing can be kinder than all your + proposed arrangements. My son arrived two days ago, and, + unfortunately, is obliged to return to Paris next week in order to + finish work begun there--and he will be detained too long to allow of + the visit which he would otherwise delight in paying you and for the + invitation to which he desires me to offer you and Mrs. Masson his + grateful acknowledgments, being well aware of what a privilege he is + forced to deprive himself.... I shall bring the Oxford D.C.L. gown and + provide myself with a Hood in Edinburgh. + + So, with repeated thanks for all your goodness, and looking forward + with much pleasure to the approaching festivities, and even more in + the opportunity to converse, believe me, my dear Professor Masson, + + Yours Very Sincerely, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +Miss Rosaline Masson, the Professor's daughter, has described how Browning +sat before the fire the evening of his arrival, in an armchair, his hands +resting on it, while he spoke with sympathetic pride of his son's work, +and told how the son, who had studied so much abroad, had once announced +to Millais his intention of going to Egypt to paint, and that Millais had +replied that he would not give up his months in the highlands of Scotland +for any years in Egypt. + +The Massons had as their guests for this great commemoration the Count and +Countess Aurelio Saffi, the Count bringing with him his gorgeous Bologna +gown, in which he had the resplendence of a figure in a stained glass +window. + +The week was a most enjoyable one to Mr. Browning. Receptions and dinners +made up a round of festivity, and when he was asked by his hostess if he +objected to all the adulation he received, he replied: "Object to it? No; +I have waited forty years for it and now--I like it." + +After his return to London he sent to Mrs. Masson two manuscripts of Mrs. +Browning's, her translations of "Psyche and Pan" and of "Psyche +Propitiating Ceres," and to Professor Masson a letter from Leigh Hunt to +himself, which the Professor had wished to copy,--the original which he +sent being written on sheets of different colors held together with +colored embroidery. + +Browning wrote to his host that he had read with delight his two lectures +on Carlyle, and that "the goodness of that memorable week" was never long +out of his mind. + +The letters written to Mrs. Bronson offer almost a panoramic picture of +his life over all these closing years. Alluding to a studio that he had +taken for the temporary accommodation of his son's pictures and busts, Mr. +Browning resumes: + + ... Pen's statues and busts are in bronze now, and his large "Idyl," + three landscapes, and whatsoever else, to arrive soon. Were you only + here to see! Well, you can bear with the talking about them you shall + undergo, for we two understand each other, don't we? I know I am ever + yours and your own Edith's affectionately, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +In the late summer Browning and his sister were the guests of Mrs. +Bloomfield Moore, in her villa at St. Moritz, from which Mr. Browning thus +writes to Mrs. Bronson: + + VILLA BERRY, ST. MORITZ, OBER ENGADINE. + + Sept. 6, '84. + + Yes, dearest friend, your pretty wreath came this morning, and + opposite this table shall it hang till I leave the house, be it + withered or no, and at present it is fresh. Now, thank you for what? + For everything, your love, and thoughts, and regrets, too. Do not we, + too, regret that Italy is closed to us; but the comfort out of the + vexation is that you will, will you not, cross to London from Paris, + and so we shall see you for all the multiplied hindrances. Now how do + you suppose it is faring with us? We are alone. Our hostess was + summoned to America last week, to her extreme regret, and after a hot + business of telegraphing and being telegraphed to, left last + Wednesday. She had taken this comfortable villa till the middle of + December, and would not hear of our quitting it, and, all things + considered, we had little inclination to do so, for you were from + home, and what would be the good of lingering out this month + elsewhere, the air and influences happening to suit us extremely. So + our plan is to stay out Sept. here, and be content with at most two + months' absence, instead of the four we utterly enjoyed last year. + Mrs. Moore was altogether as kind and considerate as possible, and has + made every possible provision for our comfort after her departure. We + are quite alone. Friends are in the place, but we only get glimpses of + them. The place is emptying fast, the pensions shut up, the walks on + the mountain-side are wholly our own. Two days ago the snow fell + thickly, and what a sight were the mountains next morning in a glowing + sun! These changes I expect will diversify the whole month, and inside + this warm, pleasant room Sarianna and I read, and don't require "the + devil to find some missing ill for idle hands to do." You have much + more to enjoy with all that good music thrown in, and I am glad for + you. We get books and papers enough, and I am correcting proofs of the + poem I was too negligent about in London. Many distractions stood in + the way of that. After all, we have attained the main object of our + journey, the complete re-establishment of Sarianna's health, who walks + twice a day, just as of old. I am cheered, too, by letters from + Robert, the last of which comes just now. + + He was anxious that his statue of "Dryope" should be seen at the + Brussels exhibition, a triennial one, and important from the + concurrence of the best foreign artists; but the "Grosvenor," where it + was shown, did not close till the first week in August, while the + Brussels Gallery was closed to (entrance of) works on the 25th of + July. Robert sent his photographs with a petition for a "delai," only + exceptionally granted; the committee conceded it unanimously, and have + given it a place where it stands by itself, and is capitally seen. He + went to see it, and so did the King and Queen, to whom he would have + been presented, had he not been in morning dress. (The father of + Robert to the mother of Edith.) You know very well how interested and + delighted I shall be to read your German translations if you send + them; do! + + +Again, from this invigorating mountain village Browning writes to his +Venetian friend and hostess in Casa Alvisi: + + VILLA BERRY, ST. MORITZ, ENGADINE, S. + + Sept. 23, '84. + + For first thing, dearest friend, I am glad to know that my letter with + the poems reached you before your departure. I had some fear that you + might miss it. It is like your goodness to care so much about what + amounts to so little. I did what I could to be of use by amending; I + could have done more to the purpose if the poems were original; but I + know your translations were faithful, as they should be. When you + write out of your own dear head let me see, and try hard to improve + it, never so little. I well remember the whole book of verses you let + me read at Venice; I could not well have helped you there. And now for + a sorrow after the gladness; we do not pass through Paris this time, + but take the direct and more convenient route by Amiens and Calais. + Last year we wanted, or needed, to see Pen, who was at his Paris + studio; but now he is still in Dinard. I do not know when he means to + leave; if he finds you at Paris it will be a delight for him to see + you.... + + Well, yes, the king's behavior has been admirable; what a chance the + poor Pope has thrown away in not preceding him! If the "Prisoner of + the Vatican" had quietly walked out of his confinement, with a Cross + before him, and an attendant on each side, and passed on to Naples and + the hospitals "braving all danger in imitation of his Master," I + verily believe there might have happened a revolution. Such events + from much less causes being frequent enough. Where is the "wisdom of + the serpent"? + + Dearest friend, my sister writes, all love to Edith, all love to you, + from your ever affectionate + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +On their return to London the letters to Mrs. Bronson again resume the +story of this interesting life: + + "... I have got rid of my last proof-sheets, and all of a sudden it + occurs to me to ask--now that alteration is impossible, I + suppose--whether I have offended in just dating the last poem from the + place where I wrote it--the Giustiniani? The first poem was dated at + the inn, and the last seemed to belong to the beloved place where it + was penned, as I wanted to remember, or be remembered, rather. Have I + done wrong? (I hear at this moment my sister actually singing in the + next room,--so completely is she re-established in health.) By letters + we find that the admirable weather at St. Moritz was continued up to + the end of the last week; here the weather is fine, and finer than + usual, but the sparkle is off the wine, the wonderful freshness of St. + Moritz does not incline one to dance rather than walk. + + "I am in absolute peace and quietude, and so thoroughly prepared to + enjoy your coming,--if that may be...." + + +The next letter speaks of American friends: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W. + + Oct. 14, '84. + + DEAREST FRIEND,--I waited a little before replying to your letter, + wanting to be sure when I could say that Pen would be in Paris; he + proposed to go there yesterday, and you will certainly have a visit + from him as soon as he can manage to do what I know he desires very + much. + + Here are your verses which I try to be as severe about as possible, + with no success, at all, worth speaking of! You will take my + corrections (infinitesimal, this time) for what they are worth, and + continue to send me what you write, will you not? + + I was surprised two days ago by a note from Mr. Lowell, inviting me + and my sister to meet the Storys at dinner to-morrow, they being his + guests during a short stay in London; and yesterday afternoon they + called on my sister, both the Storys and Mr. Lowell; the former are + flourishing, and go in a few days to Rome. Where they have passed the + summer, we were not told. Last evening at a dinner given by Sidney + Colvin, I met Mr. James, who showed great interest in hearing how you + were, and how much nearer you were likely to be. On the other hand, + there will be a sad visitor to Venice presently, Professor Huxley, in + a deplorable state of health, from over-work. I hate to speak of what + is only too present with me,--your own health,--I trust you have got + rid of that cough, (all dreadful things go with a cough in my + memory.)... + + ... My book, which you kindly inquire about, is out of my hands and in + print, but the publishing, the when and how, concerns the publisher. I + do not expect to see the completed thing for another month. + + Yes, I felt so lovingly to the Giustinian-Reconnati that I could not + bear cutting the link allowed by the Place and Date that were appended + to the Ms., and you permit, so all is well, if you remember me as ever + affectionately yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +Under date of October 23, 1884, Browning says in one letter: + + "I saw Huxley's brother-in-law, Sir Robert Collier, last evening, at + Dr. Granville's, and inquired about the stay in Venice. It will be a + very short one as he has to return almost immediately for the marriage + of his daughter Rachel; I can hardly think he will re-return, the + ceremony at an end, yet he may; and in that case he shall be informed + of your goodness to himward, in apostolically appropriate language. He + is a thoroughly admirable person in all but his inconsiderateness in + this waste of a precious life. I duly told the Storys how much you + wanted to see them, and they probably have seen you by this time. Mrs. + Story meant to rest at Paris, and forego the Amiens route. She has + been unwell, but I thought her appearance very satisfactory. I dined + with them last week at Mr. Lowell's, and called there on Sunday. I met + Henry James the other day, and surprised as well as inspirited him by + the news that you were so near, and, as I believed, so soon to be + nearer. Now write to me, tell me all you are about to do; how is dear + Edith?... + + O, no, Pen is none of mine to outward view, but wholly his + mother's--in some respects, at least. At the same age there was small + difference between Pen's face and that of the brother she lost,--to + judge by a drawing I possess...." + + +To the Marchesa Peruzzi di' Medici who sent to him a translation she had +made of the "Ricordo Autobiografici" of Giovanni Duprè, Browning thus +writes:[16] + + "It is not so very 'little' an affair, and in the fear that when my + sister has finished it, I may have to begin my own reading, and end it + so late as to lead you to suppose that either book or letter has gone + wrong, on this account I write at once to thank you most heartily. My + sister says the Autobiography is fascinating; I can well believe it, + for I never knew such a work to be without interest, and this of Duprè + must abound in precisely the matters that interest me most.... When I + have thoroughly gone through the book I will write you again, if you + permit me, as I know your old memories will be indulgent in the case. + We may be in Italy this autumn, and if you are within reach you will + be certain to see the old friend who always rejoices when he hears of + your well-being, and trusts it may continue.... Pen is very well; at + Dinard just now, painting landscape in the open air. I have told him + already of the book which he will take delight in reading. I am + occupied this very day in sending his statue of 'Dryope' to Brussels, + where the Exhibition will give it a chance of being judged by better + knowledge than is found here." + + +The following letter indicates, in Browning's own charming way, the warm +attachment that both he and his sister had for Mrs. Bronson: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W. + + Feb. 15, '85. + + DEAREST MRS. BRONSON,--This dull morning grew to near blackness + itself, when, at breakfast, my sister said once again, "No news of her + from Venice,"--and I once again calculated and found by this time it + was a month and a full half since we heard from you. Why should this + be? If I had simply and rationally written a line, instead of thinking + a thought, I should have known, as your dear goodness will let me + know, as soon as you receive this, how you are, how Edith is, now that + the winter is over and gone with the incentives to that cough which + was still vexatious when we had your last letter. + + Do not let us mind high-days and holidays: be sure of this, that every + day will be truly festal that brings us a word from you, for other + clouds than the material ones make us melancholy just now; and how + this turbid element about us contrasts with the golden hours near the + beloved friends,--perhaps more vivid,--certainly more realized as + valuable, than ever! I do not mean to write much because what I want + to impress on your generosity is that just a half sheet, with mere + intelligence about you, will be a true comfort and sustainment to me + and to my sister,--the barest account of yourself, and what we + appreciate with you; and, for our part, you shall hear, at least, that + we are well, or ailing, stationary, or about to move. + + +In the early spring Browning again writes to Mrs. Bronson: + + 19, WARWICK CRESCENT, W. + + April 8, '85. + + DEAREST FRIEND,--This is not a letter, for I have this minute returned + from a funeral, in pitiful weather, and am unable either in body or + soul to write one, much as I hope to do, with something of my warm + self in it. But I find Burne Jones's pretty and touching letter, and + want this leaf to serve as an envelope to what may please you, who + deserve so thoroughly that it should. I will write in a day or two. I + heard from Pen this morning, who is at Dinard, being too ill to remain + in Paris, but finds himself already better. He told me and re-told me + how good you had been to him. How I trust all is going well with + you,--certainly you need no assurance of,--enough that I love you with + all my heart. Bless you and your Edith. It is an Edith,--Proctor's + (Barry Cornwall's) daughter, whom I have been following to her grave. + Some fifty years ago her father said to me while caressing her, "Ah, + Browning, this is the Poetry." "I know it." "No, you know nothing + about it." Well, if I was ignorant then, I am instructed now. So, dear + Two Poems, long may I have you to read and to enjoy! + + Yours affectionately Ever, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +In the following autumn Mr. Barrett Browning, who had not seen Venice +since his infancy, joined his father, and was "simply infatuated" with the +dream city. It was for his sake that Browning had wished to purchase the +Manzoni Palace, "to secure for him a perfect domicile, every facility for +his painting and sculpture." + +The autumn of 1886 brought to Browning a great sadness in the death of +Milsand, and Miss Browning being out of health, and unequal to a +continental journey, they both passed a part of the autumn at Llangollen, +where Sir Theodore and Lady Martin (Helen Faucit) were their near +neighbors, with whom they had tea every Sunday, and renewed one of the +most delightful friendships. + +On the publication of Dr. Corson's "Introduction to the Poetry of +Browning," he sent a copy to the poet who thus replied: + + 19. Warwick Crescent. W. + + Dec. 28. '86. + + My dear Dr Corson, + + I waited some days after the arrival of your Book and Letter thinking + I might be able to say more of my sense of your goodness: but I can do + no more now than a week ago. You "hope I shall not find too much to + disapprove of": what I ought to protest against, is "a load to sink a + navy--too much honor": how can I put aside your generosity, as if cold + justice--however befitting myself,--would be in better agreement with + your nature? Let it remain as an assurance to younger poets that, + after fifty years' work unattended by any conspicuous recognition, an + over-payment may be made, if there be such another munificent + appreciator as I have been privileged to find--in which case let them, + even if more deserving, be equally grateful. + + I have not observed anything in need of correction in the notes. The + "little tablet" was a famous "Last Supper," mentioned by Varwn, (page. + 232) and gone astray long ago from the Church of S. Spirito: it turned + up, according to report, in some obscure corner, while I was in + Florence, and was at once acquired by a stranger. I saw it,--genuine + or no, a work of great beauty. (Page 156.) A "canon," in music, is a + piece wherein the subject is repeated--in various keys--and being + strictly obeyed in the repetition, becomes the "Canon"--the imperative + _law_--to what follows. Fifty of such parts would be indeed a notable + peal: to manage three is enough of an achievement for a good musician. + + And now,--here is Christmas: all my best wishes go to you and Mrs. + Corson--those of my sister also. She was indeed suffering from grave + indisposition in the summer, but is happily recovered. I could not + venture, under the circumstances, to expose her convalescence to the + accidents of foreign travel--hence our contenting ourselves with Wales + rather than Italy. Shall you be again induced to visit us? Present or + absent, you will remember me always, I trust, as + + Yours most affectionately + + Robert Browning. + + +The year of 1887 was an eventful one in that the "Parleyings" were +published in the early spring; that Browning removed from Warwick Crescent +to 29 DeVere Gardens; and that the marriage of his son to Miss Coddington +of New York was celebrated on October 4 of that year, an event that gave +the poet added happiness. To a stranger who had asked permission to call +upon him Browning wrote about this time: + + "... My son returns the day after to-morrow with his wife, from their + honeymoon at Venice, to stay with me till to-morrow week only, when + they leave for Liverpool and America--there to pass the winter. During + their short stay, I am bound to consult their convenience, and they + will be engaged in visiting, or being visited by friends, so as to + preclude me from any chance of an hour at my own disposal. If you + please--or, rather, if circumstances permit you to give me the + pleasure of seeing you at twelve on Saturday morning, the first day + when I shall be at liberty, I shall be happy to receive you." + + +[Illustrations: Manuscript Letter] + + +The stranger did so arrange that his visit should extend itself over the +magic date of "November 5th," and on that day he stood at the portal to +DeVere Gardens house. + + "I was taken up to the poet's study," he writes. "There had been that + day a memorial meeting for Matthew Arnold, to which Browning had been, + and he spoke with reminiscent sadness of Arnold's life. + + "'I have been thinking all the way home of his hardships,' said Mr. + Browning. 'He once told me, when I asked why he had not recently + written any poetry, that he could not afford to, but that when he had + saved enough, he intended to give up all other work, and devote + himself to poetry. I wonder if he has turned to it now?' Browning + added musingly." + + +One interesting incident related by this caller is that, having just been +reading and being greatly impressed by Mr. Nettleship's analysis and +interpretation of "Childe Roland," he asked the author if he accepted it. +"Oh, no," replied Mr. Browning; "not at all. Understand, I don't repudiate +it, either; I only mean that I was conscious of no allegorical intention +in writing it. 'Twas like this; one year in Florence I had been rather +lazy; I resolved that I would write something every day. Well, the first +day I wrote about some roses, suggested by a magnificent basket that some +one had sent my wife. The next day 'Childe Roland' came upon me as a kind +of dream. I had to write it, then and there, and I finished it the same +day, I believe. But it was simply that I had to do it. I did not know then +what I meant beyond that, and I'm sure I don't know now. But I am very +fond of it." + +This interesting confession emboldened the visitor to ask if the poet +considered 'James Lee's wife' quite guiltless in her husband's +estrangement. "Well, I'm not sure," replied Mr. Browning; "I was always +very fond of her, but I fancy she had not much tact, and did not quite +know how to treat her husband. I think she worried him a little. But if +you want to know any more," he continued, with a twinkle in his eye, "you +had better ask the Browning Society,--you have heard of it, perhaps?" + +When Robert Barrett Browning purchased the Palazzo Rezzonico, the +acquirement was a delight to his father, not unmixed with a trace of +consternation, for it is one of the grandest and most imposing palaces in +Italy. Up to 1758 it was occupied by Cardinal Rezzonico himself, when, at +that date, he became Pope under the title of Clement XIII. This palace, +built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, commands an +unparalleled situation on the Grand Canal, and the majestic structure of +white marble, with its rich carvings, the baroque ornaments of its +key-stones, its classic cornices and tripartite loggias, its columns and +grand architectural lines, is remarked, even in Venice, the city of +palaces, for its sumptuous magnificence. As Mr. Browning had before +remarked to Mrs. Bronson, "Pen" was infatuated with Venice. It is equally +true that much of the infatuation of the ethereal city for subsequent +visitors was due in no small measure to the beautiful and reverent manner +in which Robert Barrett Browning made this palace a very Valhalla of the +wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here the son gathered +every exquisite treasure associated with his mother, and when, three years +later, his father breathed his last within this noble palace, the younger +Browning added to the associations of his mother those, also, of his +father's books, art, and intimate possessions. With his characteristic +courtesy and generous consideration Mr. Barrett Browning permitted +visitors, for many years, through his entire ownership of the palace, to +visit and enjoy the significant collections, treasures which his taste and +his love had there gathered. + + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING + +("PENINI"), AS A CHILD. + +Painted at Siena, by Hamilton Wild, 1859.] + + +On the façade of the palace two stately entrances open upon the broad +flight of marble steps that lead down to the water, and on the +architraves are carved river-gods. In the spacious court was placed his +own statue of "Dryope." Ascending one marble flight of the grand escalier, +one entered a lofty apartment whose noble proportions and richness of +effect were most impressive. The floor, of red marble, in its rich, +Byzantine hue, harmonized with a richly painted ceiling, which was one +celebrated in Venetian art. From this vast salon opened, through richly +carved doors, a series of rooms, each made vital with the portraits, +sketches, busts, and other memorials of the poets. There were Story's +busts of Browning and of his wife; there was Robert Barrett Browning's +bust of his father,--one of the most remarkable among portrait busts in +contemporary art; the portraits of Robert and Elizabeth Browning painted +by Gordigiani of Rome, about 1855; a lovely pastel of Mrs. Browning when +she was a child, representing her as standing in a garden, holding up her +apron filled with flowers; there was her little writing-desk, and other +intimate personal mementoes about. The immense array of presentation +copies from other authors to the poets made an interesting library of +themselves, as did the various translations of their own poems into many +languages. There was a portrait of Browning painted when a young man, with +a troubadour cloak falling over his shoulders; and a most interesting +portrait of Milsand, painted by Barrett Browning, as a gift to his father. + +There was also a picture of himself as a lad, the "Penini" of Siena days, +mounted on his pony, and painted by Hamilton Wild (a Boston artist), in +that most picturesque of hill-towns, during one of those summers that the +Brownings and the Storys had passed in the haunts of Santa Caterina. + +By Mrs. Browning's little writing tablet was placed the last manuscript +she had ever written; and on a table lay a German translation of "Aurora +Leigh," with an inscription of presentation to Browning. + +From one of these salons, looking out on the Grand Canal, is an alcove, +formerly used as the private chapel of the Rezzonico. It was all white and +gold, with a Venetian window draped in the palest green plush, while on +either side were placed tall vases encrusted with green. In this alcove +Mr. Barrett Browning had caused to be inscribed, in golden letters, +surrounded with traceries and arabesques in gold, a copy of the +inscription that was composed by the poet, Tommaseo, and placed by the +city of Florence on the wall of Casa Guidi, near the grand portal: + + QUI SCRISSE E MORI + ELISABETTA BARRETT BROWNING + CHE IN CUORE DI DONNA CONCILIAVA + SCIENZA DI DOTTO E SPIRITO DI POETA + E FECE DEL SUO VERSO AUREO ANELLO + FRA ITALIA E INGHILTERRA + PONE QUESTO MEMORIA + FIRENZE GRATA + 1861. + + +On the first floor was the room in which the poet wrote when the guest of +his son in the palace; a _sala_ empaneled with the most exquisite +decorated alabaster, panels of which also formed the doors, and opening +from this was his sleeping-room, also beautifully decorated. + +In one splendid _sala_, with rich mural decorations, and floor of black +Italian marble, were many choice works of art, rare souvenirs, pictures of +special claim to interest, wonderful tapestries, and almost, indeed, an +_embarras de richesse_ of beauty. + +In 1906 Robert Barrett Browning sold the Rezzonico; and now, beside his +_casa_ and studios in Asolo, he has one of the old Medici villas, near +Florence,--"La Torre all' Antella," with a lofty tower, from which the +view is one of the most commanding and fascinating in all Tuscany. The +panorama includes all Florence, with her domes and campanile and towers; +and the Fiesolean hills, with the old town picturesquely revealed among +the trees and against the background of sky, and with numerous other +villages and hamlets, and a mountain panorama of changing color always +before the eye. Mr. Browning is one of the choicest of spirits, with all +that culture and beauty of spiritual life that characterized his parents. +He is a great linguist, and is one of the most interesting of men. No one +knew his father, in that wonderful inner way, as did his son. He was +twelve years old at the time of his mother's death, and from that period +he was the almost constant companion of his father, until Browning's +death, twenty-eight years later. Robert Barrett Browning has also +purchased the massive Casa Guidi, thus fitly becoming the owner of the +palace in which he was born, and that is forever enshrined in literary +history and poetic romance. It is, also, one of those poetic sequences of +life, that Casa Guidi and Palazzo Peruzzi, near each other, in the Via +Maggiore in Florence, are respectively owned by Mr. Browning and the +Marchesa Peruzzi di' Medici, under which stately title Mr. Story's +daughter Edith, the childhood friend and companion of "Penini," is now +known. + +After the return to London of Browning and his sister Sarianna, from St. +Moritz, his constant letters to Mrs. Bronson again take up the story of a +poet's days. + +In the early winter he thus writes to his cherished friend--the date being +December 4, 1887: + + "Now let us shut the gondola glasses (I forget the technical word) and + Talk, dear Friend! Here are your dear labors of love,--the letters and + enclosures, and here is my first day of leisure this long fortnight, + for, would you believe it? I have been silly enough to sit every + morning for three hours to one painter, who took an additional two + hours yesterday, in order to get done; before which exercise of + patience I had to sit to another gentleman, who will summon me again + in due time,--all this since my return from Venice and the _youthful + five_! However, when, two days ago, there was yet another application + to sit, the bear within the 'lion' came out, and I declined, as little + gruffly as I was able. And so the end is I can talk and enjoy + myself--even at a distance--with a friend as suddenly dear as all + hands from the clouds must needs be. I will not try and thank you for + what you know I so gratefully have accepted,--and shall keep forever, + I trust. + + "Well, here is the Duke's letter; he is a man of few words, and less + protestation; but feels, as he should, your kindness, and will gladly + acknowledge it, should you come to England, and it seems that you may. + But what will Venice be without you next year, if we return there as + we hope to do? + + "... Mrs. Bloomfield Moore passed through London some three weeks ago, + and at once wrote to me about what pictures of Robert's might be + visible? She at once bought the huge 'Delivery to the Secular Arm,' + for the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and the 'Dinard Market + Woman' for herself, and this so spontaneously, and I did hear in a day + or two that she was convinced I had not asked half enough for the + pictures! She had inquired at the Gallery where the larger one was + exhibited, and they estimated its value at so much. I told her their + estimate was not mine, and that Robert was thoroughly remunerated--to + say nothing of what he would think of all this graciousness; and since + her departure I have had an extremely gratifying letter full of + satisfaction at her purchases,..." + + +On the death of Lord Houghton, Mr. Browning had been prevailed upon to +accept the office of Foreign Correspondent to the Royal Academy; he was +much beloved by the Academicians, many of whom were among his familiar +friends, and that his son was an artist endeared to him all art. + +To Mrs. Bronson Browning once remarked: "Do you know, dear friend, if the +thing were possible, I would renounce all personal ambition and would +destroy every line I ever wrote, if by so doing I could see fame and +honors heaped on my Robert's head." Mrs. Bronson's comment on this was +that in his son he saw the image of his wife, whom he adored,--"literally +adored," she added. + +At the Academy banquets Browning was always an honored guest, and his +nomination by the President to the post of Foreign Correspondent was +promptly ratified by the Council. + +On the removal to DeVere Gardens, Mr. Browning took great pleasure in the +arrangement of his home. His father's library of six thousand books was +now unpacked, and, for the first time, he had space for them; many of the +beautiful old carvings, chests, cabinets, bookcases, that he had brought +from Florence, could in the new home be placed to advantage. The visitor, +to-day, to Mr. Barrett Browning's Florentine villa will see many of these +rich and elaborate furnishings, and the younger Browning will point out an +immense sofa (that resembles a catafalque), with amused recollection of +having once seen his father and Ruskin sitting side by side on it, "their +feet dangling." From Venice the poet had brought home, first and last, +many curious and beautiful things,--a silver lamp, old sconces from +churches, and many things of which he speaks in his letters to Mrs. +Bronson. + +The initial poem in "Asolando," entitled "Rosny," was written at the +opening of the year 1888, and it was soon followed by "Beatrice Signorini" +and "Flute-Music." In February he writes to George Murray Smith, his +publisher, of his impulse to revise "Pauline," which had lain untouched +for fifty years,--an impulse to "correct the most obvious faults ... +letting the thoughts, such as they are, remain exactly as at first." It +seems that the portrait, too, that is to accompany the volume does not +quite please him, and he suggests slight changes. "Were Pen here," he +says, "he could manage it all in a moment." + +This confidence was not undeserved. Richly gifted in many directions, a +true child of the gods, Robert Barrett Browning has an almost marvelous +gift in portraiture. He seems to be the diviner, the seer, as well as the +artist, when transferring to canvas a face that interests him. The +portrait of Milsand, to which allusion has before been made, and that of +his father, painted in his Oxford robes, with "the old yellow book in his +hand," which is in Balliol, are signal illustrations of his power in +portraying almost the very mental processes of thought and feeling and +kindling imagination,--all that goes to make up the creative life of art. + +He is fairly a connoisseur in literature, as well as in his own +specialties of painting and sculpture; and the poetry of the elder +Browning has no more critically appreciative reader than his son. Some +volume of his father's is always at hand in his traveling; and he, like +all Browning-lovers, can never open any volume of Robert Browning's +without finding revealed to him new vistas of thought, renewed aspiration +and resolve for all noble living, and infinite suggestiveness of spiritual +achievement. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +1888-1889 + + "On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round." + + "O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest!" + + +"ASOLANDO"--LAST DAYS IN DEVERE GARDENS--LETTERS OF BROWNING AND + TENNYSON--VENETIAN LINGERINGS AND FRIENDS--MRS. BRONSON'S CHOICE + CIRCLE--BROWNING'S LETTERS TO MRS. BRONSON--ASOLO--"IN RUBY, EMERALD, + CHRYSOPRAS"--LAST MEETING OF BROWNING AND STORY--IN PALAZZO + REZZONICO--LAST MEETING WITH DR. CORSON--HONORED BY WESTMINSTER + ABBEY--A CROSS OF VIOLETS--CHORAL MUSIC TO MRS. BROWNING'S POEM, "THE + SLEEP"--"AND WITH GOD BE THE REST." + + +In the winter of 1887-1888 Mr. Browning wrote "Rosny," which follows the +"Prologue" in "Asolando," and soon after the "Beatrice Signorini" and +"Flute Music." He also completely revised his poems for the new edition +which his publishers were issuing in monthly volumes, the works completed +in July. "Parleyings," which had appeared in 1887, had, gloriously or +perilously as may be, apparently taken all the provinces of learning, if +not all the kingdoms of earth, for its own; for its themes ranged over +Philosophy, Politics, Love, and Art, as well as Alchemy, and one knows not +what; but its power and vigor reveal that there had been no fading of the +divine fire. The poet made a few minor changes in "The Inn Album," but +with that exception he agreed with his friend and publisher, that no +further alterations of any importance were required. Mr. Browning's +relations with his publishers were always harmonious and mutually +gratifying. Such a relation is, to any author, certainly not the least +among the factors of his happiness or of his power of work, and to +Browning, George Murray Smith was his highly prized friend and counselor, +as well as publisher, whose generous courtesies and admirable judgment had +more than once even served him in ways quite outside those of literature. + +In the late summer of 1888 Browning and his sister fared forth for +Primiero, to join the Barrett Brownings, with whom the poet concurred in +regarding this little hill-town as one of the most beautiful of places, +his favorite Asolo always excepted. "Primiero is far more beautiful than +Gressoney, far more than Saint-Pierre de Chartreuse," he wrote to a +friend: "with the magnificence of the mountains that, morning and evening, +are literally transmuted to gold." In letters or conversation, as well as +in his verse, Browning's love of color was always in evidence. "He dazzles +us with scarlet, and crimson, and rubies, and the poppy's 'red +effrontery,'" said an English critic; "with topaz, amethyst, and the glory +of gold, and makes the sonnet ache with the luster of blue." When, in the +haunting imagery of memory pictures, after leaving Florence, he reverted +to the gardens of Isa Blagden, on Bellosguardo, the vision before him was +of "the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the wall under the +olive trees." For Browning was the poet of every thrill and intensity of +life--the poet and prophet of the dawn, not of the dark; the herald who +announced the force of the positive truth and ultimate greatness; never +the interpreter of the mere negations of life. The splendor of color +particularly appealed to him, thrilling every nerve; and when driving with +Mrs. Bronson in Asolo he would beg that the coachman would hasten, if +there were fear of missing the sunset pageant from the loggia of "La +Mura." In "Pippa Passes," how he painted the splendor of sunrise +pouring into her chamber, and in numberless other of his poems is this +fascination of color for him revealed. + + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BROWNING IN 1865. + +Painted by George Frederick Watts, R.A. + +In the possession of the National Portrait Gallery, London.] + + +Under the date of August, 1888, the poet writes to Mrs. Bronson: + + DEAREST,--We have at last, only yesterday, fully determined on joining + the couple at Primiero, and, when the heats abate, going on to Venice + for a short stay. May the stay be with you as heretofore? I don't feel + as if I could go elsewhere, or do otherwise, although in case of any + arrangements having been made that stand in the way, there is the + obvious Hôtel Suisse. I suppose at need there could be found a + messenger to poor Guiseppina, whose misfortunes I commiserate. You + know exactly how much and how little we want. But if I am to get any + good out of my visit I must lead the quietest of lives.... + + We propose setting out next Monday, the 13th,--Basle, Milan, Padua, + Treviso, Primiero, by the week's end. + + I have been nearly eleven weeks in town, with an exceptional four + days' visit to Oxford; and hard social work all the time, indeed, up + to the latest, when, three weeks ago, I found it impossible to keep + going. Don't think that the kindness which sometimes oppresses me + while in town, forgets me afterward; I have pouring invitations to the + most attractive places in England, Ireland, Scotland,--but "c'est + admirable, mais ce n'est pas la paix." May I count on the "paix" where + I so much enjoyed it? I hear with delight that Edith will be with you + again,--that completes the otherwise incompleteness. Yes, the + Rezzonico is what you Americans call a "big thing."... But the + interest I take in its acquisition is different altogether from what + accompanied the earlier attempt. At most, I look on approvingly, as by + all accounts I am warranted in doing, but there an end.... + + ... So, dearest friend, "a rivederci!" Give my love to Edith and tell + her I hope in her keeping her kindness for me, spite of the claims on + it of all the others. And my sister, not one word of her? Somehow you + must know her more thoroughly than poor, battered me, tugged at and + torn to pieces, metaphorically, by so many sympathizers, real or + pretended. She wants change, probably more than I do. And, but for + her, I believe I should continue here, with the gardens for my place + of healing. How she will enjoy the sight of you, if it may be! Tell me + what is to be hoped, or feared, or despaired of, at Pen's address, + whatever it may be. And remember me as ever most affectionately yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +The succeeding letter, written from Albergo Gille, Primiero, tells the +story of a rather trying journey, what with the heat and his +indisposition, but on finding himself bestowed at Primiero he is +"absolutely well again," and anticipating his Venice: "what a Venice it +would be," he says, "if I went elsewhere than to the beloved friend who +calls me so kindly!" And he adds: + + "My stay will be short, but sweet in every sense of the word if I find + her in good health, and in all other respects just as I left her; 'no + change' meaning what it does to me who remember her goodness so well. + It will be delightful to meet Edith again, if only it may be that she + arrives while we are yet with you, even before, perhaps. + + "Can I tell you anything about my journey except that it was so + agreeable an one? On the first evening as I stepped outside our + carriage for a moment, I caught sight of a well-known face. 'Dr. + Butler, surely.' You have heard of his marriage the other day to a + learnedest of young ladies, who beat all the men last year at Greek. + He insisted on introducing me to her; I had seen her once before + without undergoing that formality and willingly I shook hands with a + sprightly young person ... pretty, and grand-daughterly, she is, + however, only twenty-six years his junior. Then, this happened; the + little train from Montebelluna to Feltre was crowded--we could find no + room except in a smoking carriage--wherein I observed a good-natured, + elderly gentleman, an Italian, I took for granted. Presently he said, + 'Can I offer you an English paper?' 'What, are you English?' 'Oh, yes, + and I know you,--who are going to see your son at Primiero.' 'Why, + who can you be?' 'One who has seen you often.' 'Not surely, Mr. + Malcolm?' 'Well, nobody else.' So ensued an affectionate greeting, he + having been the guardian angel of Pen in all his chafferings about the + purchase of the palazzo. He gave me abundance of information, and + satisfied me on many points. I had been anxious to write and thank him + as he deserved, but this provided an earlier and more graceful way, + for a beginning at least. + + "Pen is at work on a pretty picture, a peasant girl whom he picked up + in the neighborhood, and his literal treatment stands him in good + stead; he is reproducing her cleverly, at any rate, he takes pains + enough." + + +Towards the end of September they joined in Venice the "beloved friend," +whose genius for friendship only made each sojourn with her more beautiful +than the preceding, if that which was perfect could receive an added +degree. "It was curious to see," wrote Mrs. Bronson, "how on each of his +arrivals in Venice he took up his life precisely as he had left it." +Browning and his sister frequently went on Sundays to the Waldensian +chapel, where in this autumn there was a preacher of great eloquence. +Every morning, after their early coffee, the poet was off for a brisk +walk, and after returning he busied himself with his letters and +newspapers, his mail always containing more or less letters from strangers +and admirers, some of whom solicited autographs, which, so far as +possible, he always granted. Mrs. Bronson has somewhere noted that when +asked, _viva voce_, for an autograph, he would look puzzled, and say "I +don't like to always write the same verse, but I can only remember one," +and he would then proceed to copy "All that I know of a certain star," +which, however it "dartles red and blue," he knew nothing of save that it +had "opened its soul" to him. Arthur Rogers, delivering the Bohlen +lectures for 1909, compared Browning with Isaiah, in his lecture on +"Poetry and Prophecy," and he instanced this "star" which "opened its +soul" to the poet, as attesting that Browning, like Isaiah, could do no +more than search depths of life. + +The Palazzo Giustiniani-Recanti was a fitting haunt for a poet. Casa +Alvisi, adjoining, in which Mrs. Bronson lived, looked out, as has been +noted, on Santa Maria della Salute, which was on the opposite side of the +Grand Canal; but the Giustiniani palace, dating to the fifteenth century, +had its outlook through Gothic windows to the south, on a court and garden +of romantic loveliness. The perfect tact of their hostess left the poet +and his sister entirely free to come and go as they pleased, and at midday +they took their déjeuner together, ordering by preference Italian dishes, +as rissotto, macaroni, and fruits, especially figs and grapes. They +enjoyed these _tête-à-tête_ repasts, talking and laughing all the while, +and then, about three every afternoon they joined Mrs. Bronson and her +daughter for the gondola trip. The hostess records that the poet's +invariable response to the question as to where they should go would be: +"Anywhere, all is beautiful, only let it be toward the Lido." While both +the poet and his sister were scrupulously prompt in returning all calls of +ceremony, they were glad to evade formal visits so far as possible; and +the absolute freedom with which their hostess surrounded them was grateful +beyond words. "The thought deeply impressed me," said Mrs. Bronson, "that +one who had lifted so many souls above the mere necessity for living in a +troublesome world deserved from those permitted to approach him their best +efforts to brighten his personal life.... The little studies for his +comfort, the small cares entailed upon me during the too brief days and +weeks when his precious life was partly entrusted to my care, might seem +to count for little in an existence far removed from that of an ordinary +man; yet, as a fact, he was glad and grateful for the smallest attention. +He was appreciative of all things. He never regarded gratitude as a +burden, as less generous minds are apt to do," continued Mrs. Bronson. + + +[Illustration: MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON + +From a painting by Ellen Montalba, in Asolo + + In the possession of Edittá, Contessa Rucellai (_née_ Bronson), + Palazzo Rucellai, Florence.] + + +One of his greatest enjoyments in Venice was to wander with Edith Bronson +through the Venetian _calli_. "Edith is the best cicerone in the world," +he would remark; "she knows everything and teaches me all she knows. There +never was such a guide." The young girl indeed knew her Venice as a +devotee knows his illuminated missal, and her lovely vivacity and +sweetness must have invested her presence with the same charm that is felt +to-day in the Contessa Rucellai, in her Florentine palace, for Miss +Bronson, it may be said _en passant_, became the wife of one of the most +eminent Italian nobles, the Rucellai holding peculiar claim to distinction +even among the princely houses of Florence. + +From these gondola excursions they always returned about five, and +sometimes the poet would join the group around Mrs. Bronson's tea-table, +conversing with equal facility in French, German, or Italian, and to their +delight would say, "Edith, dear, you may give me a cup of tea." But as a +rule he considered this beverage as too unhygienic at that hour, and +whenever with an "Excuse me, please," he sought his own apartments, he was +never questioned for his reasons. "It was enough that he wished it," said +his hostess. He and Miss Browning always appeared promptly for dinner, +which was at half-past seven in Casa Alvisi. The poet was scrupulous about +his evening dress; and Miss Browning, Mrs. Bronson relates, was habitually +clad "in rich gowns of a somber tint, with quaint, antique jewels, and +each day with a different French cap of daintiest make." + +The evenings seem to have been idyllic. Browning would often read aloud, +and he loved to improvise on an old spinnet standing in a dim recess in +one of the salons. The great Venetian families were usually in +_villeggiatura_ at the time when Browning was in Venice, so that he met +comparatively few of them; it was this freedom from social obligations +that contributed so much to the restful character of his sojourns, and +enabled him to give himself up to that ineffable enchantment of Venice. He +made a few friends, however, among Mrs. Bronson's brilliant circle, and +one of the notable figures among these was the old Russian noble and +diplomat, Prince Gagarin, who, born in Rome, had been educated in his own +country, and had represented Russia at the courts of Athens, +Constantinople, and Turin. Mrs. Bronson has told the story of one evening +when the poet and the old diplomat indulged in a mutual tournament of +music; "first one would sing, and then the other," Browning recalling +folk-songs of Russia which he had caught up in his visit to that country +fifty years before. + +Another of Mrs. Bronson's inner circle, which included the Principessa +Montenegro, the mother of Queen Elena, and other notable figures, was the +Contessa Marcello, whom both the poet and his sister greatly liked; and +one radiant day they all accepted an invitation to visit the Contessa at +her villa at Mogliano, a short railway trip from Venice. The poet seemed +to much enjoy the brief journey, and at the station was the Contessa with +her landau, in which Mrs. Bronson, the poet, and his sister were seated, +while Miss Bronson rode one of the ponies on which some of the young +people had come down to greet the guests. After luncheon the Contessa, +with her young daughter, the Contessina, led their guests out in the +grounds to a pergola where coffee was served, and which commanded a vista +of a magnificent avenue of copper beeches, whose great branches met and +interlaced overhead. The Contessa was the favorite lady of honor at the +court of Queen Margherita, and she interested Mr. Browning very much by +speaking of her beloved royal mistress, and showing him some of the +handwriting of the Queen, which he thought characteristically graceful +and forcible. The Contessina and Miss Bronson, with others of the younger +people, seated themselves in rustic chairs to listen to every word from +the poet; and a Venetian sculptor, who was there, concealed himself in the +shrubbery and made a sketch of Browning. The Contessina, who, like all the +young Italian girls of high breeding and culture, kept an album of foreign +poetry, brought hers, and pleadingly asked Mr. Browning if he would write +in it for her. As usual, for the reasons already given, he (perforce) +wrote "My Star," and when the girl looked at it she exclaimed that it was +one of her old favorites, and showed him where she had already copied it +into the book. + +At the station, when they drove down again to take the returning train, +one of the young _literati_ of Italy was there, and the Contessa +introduced him to Browning, saying that the young man had already achieved +distinction in letters. Mr. Browning talked with him most cordially, and +after they were on their way he said that the young writer "seemed to be a +youth of promise, and that he hoped he should meet him again." But when +they did hear of him again it was as the lecturer of a series of talks on +Zola, "which, as may be supposed," notes Mrs. Bronson, "the poet expressed +no desire to attend." The marvelous days of that unearthly loveliness of +Venice in the early autumn flew by, and Mrs. Bronson's guest returned to +DeVere Gardens. To his hostess the poet wrote, under date of DeVere +Gardens, December 15, 1888: + + DEAREST FRIEND,--I may just say that and no more; for what can I say? + I shall never have your kindness out of my thoughts,--and you never + will forget me, I know. We shall please you by telling you our journey + was quite prosperous, and wonderfully fine weather, till it ended in + grim London, and its fog and cold. (At Basle there was cold, but the + sun made up for everything.) We altered our plans so far as to sleep + and to stay through a long day at Basle, visiting the museum, + cathedral, etc., and went on by night train in a sleeping-car, of + which we were the sole occupants, to Calais, directly. At Dover the + officials were prepared for us, would not look at the luggage, and + were very helpful as well as courteous; and at London orders had been + given to treat us with all possible good nature. They wouldn't let us + open any box but that where the lamp was packed; offered to take our + word for its weight, and finally asked me, "since there were the three + portions, would I accept the weight of the little vessel at bottom as + that of the other two?" "Rather," as Pen says, so they declined to + weigh the whole lamp, charging less than a quarter of what it does + weigh, and even then requiring assurance that I was "quite satisfied." + We were to be looked after first of all the passengers, and so got + away early enough to find things at home in excellent order.... I send + a hasty line to try to express the impossible,--how much I love you, + and how deeply I feel all your great kindness. Every hour of the day I + miss you, and wish I were with you and dear Edith again, in beloved + Casa Alvisi. + + +These letters to Mrs. Bronson reveal Browning the man as do no other +records in literature. The consciousness of being perfectly understood, +and the realization of the delicacy and beauty of the character of Mrs. +Bronson made this choice companionship one of the greatest joys in +Browning's life. It may, perhaps, as well be interpolated here that a +large package of the fascinating letters from Robert Browning to Mrs. +Bronson, from which these extracts are made, were placed at the disposal +of the writer of this volume by the generous kindness of Mrs. Bronson's +daughter, the Contessa Rucellai, and with the slight exception of a few +paragraphs used by Mrs. Bronson herself (in two charming papers that she +wrote on Browning), they have never before been drawn upon for +publication. + +Under the date of January 4, 1889, the poet writes to Mrs. Bronson: + + No, dearest friend, I can well believe you think of me sometimes, even + oft-times, for in what place, or hour, or hour of the day, can you + fail to be reminded of some piece of kindness done by you and received + by me during those memorable three months when you cared for me and my + sister constantly, and were so successful in your endeavor to make us + perfectly happy. Depend on it, neither I nor she move about this house + (which has got to be less familiar to us through our intimate + acquaintance with yours),--neither of us forget you for a moment, nor + are we without your name on our lips much longer, when we sit quietly + down at home of an evening, and talk over the pleasantest of pleasant + days.... + + The sole invitation I can but accept this morning is to the Farewell + dinner about to be given by the Lord Mayor to Mr. Phelps; that I am + bound to attend. I have not seen him or Mrs. Phelps yet; but they + receive this afternoon, and if I am able I shall go. You will wish to + know that all our articles have arrived safely, and more expeditiously + than we had expected. The tables, lanterns, etc., are very decidedly + approved of, and fit into the proper corners very comfortably; so that + everywhere will be an object reminding us, however unnecessarily, of + Venice. Your ink-stand brightens the table by my hand; the lamp will + probably stand beside it; while Tassini tempts me to dip into him + every time I pass the book-case. I may never see the loved city again, + but where in the house will not some little incident of the then + unparalleled months, wake up memories of the gondola, and the + stopping, here and there, and the fun at Morchio's; the festive return + home, behind broad-backed Luigi; then the tea, and the dinner, and + Gargarin's crusty old port flavor, and the Dyers, and Ralph Curtis, + and O, the delightful times! Of Edith I say nothing because she has + herself, the darling! written to me, the surprise and joy of that! And + I mean to have a talk with her on paper, alas! my very self, and + induce her not to let me have the last word. Oh, my two beloveds I + must see Venice again; it would be heart-breaking to believe + otherwise. Of course I entered into all your doings, the pretty things + you got, and prettier, I am sure, you gave. And I was sorry, so sorry, + to hear that naughty Edith, no darling, for half a second, now I think + of it,--did not figure in the tableaux. I hope and believe, however, + she did dance in the New Year. Bid her avoid this cold-catching and + consequent headache. Do write, dearest friend, keep me _au courant_ of + everything. No minutest of your doings but is full of interest to me + and Sarianna. But I am at the paper's extreme edge. Were it elephant + folio (is there such a size?) it would not hold all I have in my + heart, and head, too, of love for you and "our Edie;" so, simply, God + bless you, my beloveds! + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + Princess Montenegro sent me by way of a New Year's card,--what do you + think? A pretty photograph of the Rezzonico. The young lady was + equally mindful of Sarianna. + + R. B. + + +To Miss Edith Bronson the poet wrote, as follows: + + DEAREST EDIE,--I did not reply to your letter at once for this reason; + an immediate answer might seem to imply I expected such a delightful + surprise every day, or week, or even month; and it was wise economy to + let you know that I can go on without a second piece of kindness till + you again have such a good impulse and yield to it--by no means + binding yourself to give me regularly such a pleasure. You shall owe + me nothing, but be as generous as is consistent with justice to other + people.... I did not go out except to the complimentary farewell + dinner our Lord Mayor gave to Mr. Phelps which nobody could be excused + from attending. We all grieved at the loss, especially of Mrs. Phelps, + who endeared herself to everybody. Both of them were sorry to go from + us.... + + +The next letter reveals anew Browning's always thoughtful courtesy in +bespeaking kindness for mutual friends, as he writes: + + "There is arranged to be a sort of expedition [to Venice] of young + Toynbee Hall men, headed by Alberto Ball, the son of our common + friend, for the purpose of studying, not merely amusing, themselves + with,--the beloved city. Well as the Balls are entitled to say that + they know you, still, the young and clever Ball chooses to wish me to + beg your kind notice; and I suppose that his companions are to be + noticed also,--of what really appears to be a praiseworthy effort + after self-instruction. Will you smile on him when he calls on you? + for his father's sake, who is anxious about the scheme's success? I + have bespoken Pen's assistance, and he will do the honors of the + Rezzonico with alacrity, I have no doubt." + + +[Illustration: MISS EDITH BRONSON, + +(NOW CONTESSA RUCELLAI) + +From a Water-Color by Passini, Venice, 1883.] + + +In almost every life that is strongly individualized those who look back +after it has passed from visible sight cannot but recognize how rhythmic +are the sequences that have characterized its last months on earth. If the +person in question had actually known the day on which he should be called +away, he would hardly have done other than he did. It is as if the spirit +had some prescience, not realized by the ordinary consciousness, but still +controlling its conduct of the last time allotted here. With this last +year of Robert Browning's life, this unseen leading is especially obvious. +In the spring he had revised his poetic work; he had passed Commemoration +week at Oxford, as he loved to do; he had passed much of the time with his +friend, the Master of Balliol, and among his last expressions on leaving +Oxford was "Jowett knows how I love him." He was also in Cambridge, and +Edmund Gosse has charmingly recalled the way in which he dwelt, +retrospectively, on his old Italian days. + +In June, also, he paid his usual visit to Lord Albemarle (the last +survivor of those who fought at Waterloo), and in that month he wrote to +Professor Knight, who was about to exchange the Chair of Philosophy at the +University of Glasgow for that of Literature at St. Andrews, saying: "It +is the right order; Philosophy first, and Poetry, which is its highest +outcome, afterward, and much harm has been done by reversing the usual +process." + +The letters to Mrs. Bronson tell much of the story of these days. In one, +dated June 10, 1899, he gives this reminiscence of Asolo: + + DEAREST FRIEND,--It was indeed a joy to get your letter. I know that a + change of place would be desirable for you, darling Edie told me so, + but I fancied you would not leave Venice so soon.... + + ... One thing is certain, that if I do go to Venice, and abide at the + Rezzonico, every day during the visit I shall pass over to the beloved + Alvisi and entirely beloved friends there, who are to me in Venice + what San Marco is to the Piazza. Enough of this now, and something + about Asolo. + + When I first found out Asolo, I lodged at the main hotel in the + Square,--an old, large inn of the most primitive kind. The ceiling of + my bed-room was traversed by a huge crack, or rather cleft, caused by + the earthquake last year; the sky was as blue as blue could be, and we + were all praying in the fields, expecting the town to tumble in. On + the morning after my arrival, I walked up to the Rocca; and on + returning to breakfast I mentioned it to the land-lady, wherein a + respectable middle-aged man, sitting by, said: "You have done what I, + born here, never thought of doing." I took long walks every day, and + carried away a lively recollection of the general beauty, but I did + not write a word of 'Pippa Passes'--that idea struck me when walking + in an English wood, and I made use of Italian memories. + + I used to dream of seeing Asolo in the distance and making vain + attempts to reach it--repeatedly dreamed this for many a year. And + when I found myself once more in Italy, with Sarianna, I went there + straight from Venice. We found the old inn lying in ruins, a new one + (being) built, to take its place,--I suppose that which you see now. + We went to a much inferior albergo, the best then existing, and were + roughly, but pleasantly, entertained for a week, as I say. People told + me the number of inhabitants had greatly increased, and things seemed + generally more ordinary and life-like. I am happy that you like it so + much. When I got my impression, Italy was new to me.... + + ... I shall go to Oxford for Commemoration, and stay a week for + another affair,--a "gaudy" dinner given to the magnates of Eton. + + +To the forthcoming collection, entitled "Asolando," the group of poems +dedicated to Mrs. Bronson, the poet alludes as follows: + + ... By the way the new little book of poems that was to associate your + name with mine, remains unprinted. For why? The publishers think its + announcement might panic-strike the purchasers of the new edition, who + have nearly enough of me for some time to come! Never mind. We shall + have our innings. + + Bless you ever and your Edith; keep me in mind as your very own always + affectionate + + R. B. + + +The poet's love for Asolo is revealed in the following letter to Mrs. +Bronson: + + 29, DEVERE GARDENS, W. + + July 17,'89. + + DEAREST FRIEND,--I shall delight in fancying your life at Asolo, my + very own of all Italian towns; your house built into the wall, and the + neighboring castle ruins, and the wonderful outlook; on a clear day + you can see much further than Venice. I mentioned some of the dear + spots pointed out to my faith as ruins, while what wants no faith at + all,--the green hills surrounding you, Posagno close by,--how you will + enjoy it! And do go there and get all the good out of the beautiful + place I used to dream about so often in old days, till at last I saw + it again, and the dreams stopped,--to begin, again, I trust, with a + figure there never associated with Asolo before. Shall I ever see you + there in no dream? I cannot say; I feel inclined to leave England this + next autumn that is so soon to overtake us.... + + Pen stays a few days longer in Paris to complete his picture. He had + declined to compete at the Exposition, but has been awarded a Medal + (3rd), which, however, enables him to dispense with the permission of + the Salon that his works shall be received. Julian Story gets also a + medal of the same class. Pen reports stupendously of the Paris + show.... + + ... Well, you know we have been entertaining and entertained by the + Shah. I met him at Lord Roseberry's, and before dinner was presented + to him, when he asked me in French: _"Êtes-vous poëte?" "On s'est + permis de le dire quelquefois." "Et vous avez fait des livres?" + "Plusieurs livres?" "Trop de livres." "Voulez-vous m'en faire le + cadeau d'un de vos livres afin que je puisse me ressouvenir de vous?" + "Avec plaisir."_ Accordingly I went next day to a shop where they keep + them ready bound, and chose a brightly covered "selection."... + + All the outing I have accomplished was a week at Oxford, which was a + quiet one,--Jowett's health, I fear, not allowing the usual invitation + of guests to Balliol. I had all the more of him, to my great + satisfaction. + + Sarianna is quite in her ordinary health, but tired as we cannot but + be. She is away from the house, but I know how much she would have me + put in of love in what I would say for her.... Did you get a little + book by Michael Field? "Long Ago," a number of poems written to + _innestare_ what fragmentary lines and words we have left of Sappho's + poetry. I want to know particularly how they strike you. + + +To Tennyson for his eightieth birthday Mr. Browning writes: + + To-morrow is your birthday, indeed a memorable one. Let me say I + associate myself with the universal pride of our country in your + glory, and in its hope that for many and many a year we may have your + very self among us; secure that your poetry will be a wonder and + delight to all those appointed to come after; and for my own part let + me further say, I have loved you dearly. May God bless you and yours! + I have had disastrous experience.... Admiringly and Affectionately + yours, + + ROBERT BROWNING.[17] + + +To this letter Lord Tennyson replied: + + ALDWORTH, August, 1889. + + MY DEAR BROWNING,--I thank you with my whole heart and being for your + noble and affectionate letter, and with my whole heart and being I + return your friendship. To be loved and appreciated by so great and + powerful a nature as yours will be a solace to me, and lighten my dark + hours during the short time of life that is left to us. + + Ever Yours, + + A. TENNYSON. + + +The poet found himself again longing for his Italy. To Mrs. Bronson, under +date of August 8, he wrote, referring to a letter of hers received two +days before, crowned with "the magical stamp of Asolo": + + "... So a fancy springs up which shall have utterance as just a fancy. + The time has come for determining on some change of place, if change + is ever to be, and, I repeat, just a fancy, if I were inclined to join + you at Asolo, say a fortnight hence, could good rooms be procurable + for Sarianna and myself? Now as you value--I won't say my love, but my + respect and esteem--understand me literally, and give me only the + precise information I want--not one half-syllable about accommodation + in your house! + + "I ask because when I and Sarianna went there years ago, the old + Locanda on the Square lay in ruins, and we put up at a rougher inn in + the town's self. I dare say the principal hotel is rebuilt by this + time, or rather has grown somewhat old. Probably you are there indeed. + Just tell us exactly. Pen is trying his best to entice us his way, + which means to Primiero and Venice; but the laziness of age is + subduing me, and how I shrink from the 'middle passage,'--all that day + and night whirling from London to Basle, with the eleven or twelve + hours to Milan. Milan opens on Paradise, but the getting to Milan! + Perhaps I shall turn northward and go to Scotland after all. Still, + dear and good one, tell me what I ask. After the requisite information + you will please tell me accurately how you are, how that wicked + gad-a-bout, Edith, is, and where; and what else you can generously + afford of news,--news Venetian, I mean...." + + +Later the poet writes: + + "... I trust that as few clouds as may be may trouble the blue of our + month at Asolo; I shall bring your book full of verses for a final + overhauling on the spot where, when I first saw it, inspiration seemed + to steam up from the very ground. + + "And so Edith is (I conjecture, I hope, rightly) to be with you; won't + I show her the little ridge in the ruin where one talks to the echo to + greatest advantage." + + +From Milan Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson: + + DEAREST FRIEND,--It is indeed a delight to expect a meeting so soon. + Be good and mindful of how simple our tastes and wants are, and how + they have been far more than satisfied by the half of what you + provided to content them. I shall have nothing to do but to enjoy your + company, not even the little business of improving my health since + that seems perfect. I hear you do not walk as in the old days. I count + upon setting that right again. O Venezia, benedetta! + + +It was with greater enjoyment, apparently, than ever before even, that Mr. +Browning turned to the Asolo of his "Pippa Passes" and "Sordello." Mrs. +Bronson, in her brilliant and sympathetic picturing of the poet, speaks of +his project "to raise a tower like Pippa's near a certain property in +Asolo, where he and Miss Browning might pass at least a part of every +year." The "certain property," to which Mrs. Bronson so modestly alludes, +was her own place, "La Mura." The tower has since been erected by the +poet's son, and the dream is thus fulfilled, though the elder Browning did +not live to see it. Mrs. Bronson describes his enjoyment of nature in this +lovely little hill-town,--"the ever-changing cloud shadows on the plain, +the ranges of many-tinted mountains in the distance, and the fairy-like +outline of the blue Euganean Hills, which form in part the southern +boundary of the vast Campagna." Browning would speak of the associations +which these hills bear with the names of Shelley and Byron. + +Across the deep ravine from La Mura a ruined tower was all that remained +of the villa of Queen Catarina Cornaro, who, when she lost Cyprus, retired +to Asolo; and in Browning's dedication to Mrs. Bronson of his "Asolando," +he ascribes the title to Cardinal Bembo, the secretary of Queen Catarina. +Mr. Browning loved to recall the traditions of that poetic little court, +which for two decades was held within those walls, whose decay was fairly +hidden by the wealth of flowers that embowered them. Of his own project he +would talk, declaring that he would call it "Pippa's Tower," and that it +should be so built that from it he could see Venice every day. He +playfully described the flag-signals that should aid communication between +"Pippa's Tower" and Casa Alvisi. "A telephone is too modern," he said; and +explained that when he asked his friend to dine the flag should be +blue,--her favorite color; and if her answer was yes, her flag should be +the same color; or if no, her flag should be red. This last visit of the +poet to his city of dream and vision seemed to Mrs. Bronson one of +unalloyed pleasure. "To think that I should be here again!" he more than +once exclaimed, as if with an unconscious recognition that these weeks +were to complete the cycle of his life on earth. Asolo is thirty-four +miles from Venice, and it is within easy driving distance of Possagno, the +native place of Canova, in whose memory the town has a museum filled with +his works and casts. "Pen must see this," remarked Mr. Browning, as he +lingered over the statues and groups and tombs. Mrs. Bronson records that +one day on returning from a drive to Bassano the poet was strangely +silent, and no one spoke; finally he announced that he had written a poem +since they left Bassano. In response to an exclamation of surprise he +said: "Oh, it's all in my head, but I shall write it out presently." His +hostess asked if he would not even say what inspired it, to which he +returned: + +"Well, the birds twittering in the trees suggested it. You know I don't +like women to wear those things in their bonnets." The poem in question +proved to be "The Lady and the Painter." + +Mr. Browning took the greatest enjoyment in the view from Mrs. Bronson's +loggia. "Here," he would say, "we can enjoy beauty without fatigue, and be +protected from sun, wind, and rain." His hostess has related that its +charm made him often break his abstemious habit of refusing the usual five +o'clock refreshment, and that he "loved to hear the hissing urn," and when +occasionally accepting a cup of tea and a biscuit would say, "I think I am +the better for this delicious tea, after all." + +Every afternoon at three they all went to drive, exploring the region in +all directions. The driving in Asolo seemed to charm him as did the +gondola excursions in Venice. "He observed everything," said Mrs. Bronson, +"hedges, trees, the fascination of the little river Musone, the great +_carri_ piled high with white and purple grapes. He removed his hat in +returning the salutation of a priest, and touched his hat in returning the +salutation of the poorest peasant, who, after the manner of the country, +lifted his own to greet the passing stranger. 'I always salute the +church,' Mr. Browning would say; 'I respect it.'" + +All his life Browning was an early riser. In Asolo, as elsewhere, he began +his day with a cold bath at seven, and at eight he and his sister sat down +to their simple breakfast, their hostess keeping no such heroic hours. +Mrs. Bronson had adopted the foreign fashion of having her light breakfast +served in her room, and her mornings were given to her wide correspondence +and her own reading and study. She was a most accomplished and scholarly +woman, whose goodness of heart and charm of manner were paralleled by her +range of intellectual interests and her grasp of affairs. + +After breakfasting Browning and his sister, inseparable companions always, +would start off on their wanderings over the hills. The poet was keenly +interested in searching out the points of interest of his early years in +Asolo; the "echo," the remembered views, the vista whose fascination still +remained for him. From the ruined _rocca_ that crowned the hill, the view +comprised all the violet-hued plain, stretching away to Padua, Vicenzo, +Bassano; the entire atmosphere filled with historic and poetic +associations. How the poet mirrored the panorama in his stanzas: + + "How many a year, my Asolo, + Since--one step just from sea to land-- + I found you, loved yet feared you so-- + For natural objects seemed to stand + Palpably fire-clothed! No--" + +The "lambent flame," and "Italia's rare, o'er-running beauty," enchanted +his vision. + +Returning from their saunterings, the brother and sister took up their +morning reading of English and French newspapers, Italian books, with the +poet's interludes always of his beloved Greek dramatists. + +In these October days the Storys arrived to visit Mrs. Bronson in her +picturesque abode. An ancient wall, mostly in ruins, with eighteen towers, +still surrounds Asolo, and partly in one of these towers, and partly in +the arch of the old portal, "La Mura" was half discovered and half +constructed. Its loggia had one wall composed entirely of sliding glass, +which could be a shelter from the storm with no obstruction of the view, +or be thrown open to all the bloom and beauty of the radiant summer. Just +across the street was the apartment in which Mrs. Bronson bestowed her +guests. + +That Browning and Story should thus be brought together again for their +last meeting on earth, however undreamed of to them, prefigures itself now +as another of those mosaic-like events that combined in beauty and +loveliness to make all his last months on earth a poetic sequence. The +Storys afterward spoke of Mr. Browning as being "well, and in such force, +brilliant, and delightful as ever"; and the last words that passed between +the poet and the sculptor were these of Browning's: "We have been friends +for forty years, forty years without a break!" + +On the first day of November this perfect and final visit to Asolo ended, +and yielding to the entreaties of his son, Browning and his sister bade +farewell to Mrs. Bronson and her daughter, who were soon to follow them to +Venice, where the poet and Miss Browning were to be the guests of the +Barrett Brownings in Palazzo Rezzonico. + +The events of all these weeks seem divinely appointed to complete with +stately symmetry this noble life. As one of them he found in Venice his +old friend, and (as has before been said) the greatest interpreter of his +poetry, Dr. Hiram Corson. The Cornell professor was taking his University +Sabbatical year, and with Mrs. Corson had arrived in Venice just before +the poet came down from Asolo. "I called on him the next day," Dr. Corson +said of this meeting. "He seemed in his usual vigor, and expressed great +pleasure in the restorations his son was making in the palace. 'It's a +grand edifice,' he said, 'but too vast.'" + +Dr. Corson continued: + + "He was then engaged in reading the proofs of his 'Asolando.' He + usually walked two hours every day; went frequently in his gondola + with his sister to his beloved Lido, and one day when I walked with + him + + 'Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with + rings,' + + I had to quicken my steps to keep pace with him. He called my + attention to an interesting feature of this world-renowned place, and + told me much of their strange history. He knew the city literally _par + coeur_." + + +[Illustration: PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON + +From a painting by J. Colin Forbes, R.A., in the possession of Eugene +Rollin Corson.] + + +Mr. Browning passed with Dr. and Mrs. Corson the last morning they were in +Venice. Of the parting Dr. Corson has since written in a personal letter +to a friend: + + "He told us much about himself; about Asolo, which he had first + visited more than fifty years before, during his visit to Italy in + 1838, when, as he says in the Prologue to 'Asolando,' alluding to 'the + burning bush,' + + 'Natural objects seemed to stand + Palpably fire-clothed.' + + + "A servant announcing that the gondola had come to take us to the + railway station, he rose from his chair, and said, 'Now be sure to + visit me next May, in London. You'll remember where my little house is + in De Vere Gardens'; and bidding us a cordial good-bye, with a 'God + bless you both,' he hastened away. We little thought, full of life as + he then was, that we should see him no more in this world." + + +To a letter from Miss Browning to their hostess, Browning added: + + DEAREST MRS. BRONSON,--I am away from you in one sense, never to be + away from the thought of you, and your inexpressible kindness. I trust + you will see your way to returning soon. Venice is not herself without + you, in my eyes--I dare say this is a customary phrase, but you well + know what reason I have to use it, with a freshness as if it were + inspired for the first time. Come, bringing news of Edith, and the + doings in the house, and above all of your own health and spirits and + so rejoice + + Ever your affectionate + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +With another letter of his sister's to their beloved friend and hostess, +Mr. Browning sent the following note,--perhaps the last lines that he ever +wrote to Mrs. Bronson, as she returned almost immediately to Casa Alvisi, +and the daily personal intercourse renewed itself to be broken only by +his illness and death. The poet wrote: + + PALAZZO REZZONICO, Nov. 5th, 1889. + + DEAREST FRIEND,--A word to slip into the letter of Sarianna, which I + cannot see go without a scrap of mine. (Come and see Pen and you will + easily concert things with him.) I have all confidence in his + knowledge and power. + + I delight in hearing how comfortably all is proceeding with you at La + Mura. I want to say that having finished the first two volumes of + Gozzi, I brought the third with me to finish at my leisure and return + to you; and particularly I may mention that the edition is very rare + and valuable. It appears that Symmonds has just thought it worth while + to translate the work, and he was six months finding a copy to + translate from! + + ... I have got--since three or four days--the whole of my new volume + in type, and expect to send it back, corrected, by to-morrow at + latest. But I must continue at my work lest interruptions occur, so, + bless you and good-bye in the truest sense, dear one! + + Ever Your Affectionately + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +The "new volume in type" to which he referred was his collection entitled +"Asolando," all of which, with the exception of one poem, had been written +within the last two years of his life. + +Mr. Barrett Browning relates that while his father was reading aloud these +last proofs to himself and his wife, the poet paused over the "Epilogue," +at the stanza-- + + "One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, + Never doubted clouds would break, + Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, + Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, + Sleep to wake." + +and remarked: "It almost seems like praising myself to say this, and yet +it is true, the simple truth, and so I shall not cancel it." + +November, often lovely in Venice, was singularly summer-like that year. On +one day Mr. Browning found the heat on the Lido "scarcely endurable," +indeed, but "snow-tipped Alps" revealed themselves in the distance, +offering a strange contrast to the brilliant sunshine and the soft blue +skies. Still November is not June, after all, however perfect the +imitation of some of its days. One day there was a heavy fog on his +favorite Lido, and the poet, who refused to be deprived of his walk, +became thoroughly chilled and illness followed. The following note from +Mr. Barrett Browning to Mrs. Bronson indicates the anxiety that prevailed +in Palazzo Rezzonico, where the tenderest care of his son and +daughter-in-law ministered to the poet. The note is undated, save by the +day of the week. + + PALAZZO REZZONICO, + + 9 o'clock, Monday Evening. + + DEAREST MRS. BRONSON,--The improvement of last night is scarcely + maintained this morning,--the action of the heart being weaker at + moments. He is quite clear-headed, and is never tired of saving he + feels better, "immensely better,--I don't suppose I could get up and + walk about, in fact I know I could not, but I have no aches or + pains,--quite comfortable, could not be more so,"--this is what he + said a moment ago. + + I will let you know if there is any change as the day goes on. + + My love to you. + + Yours, PEN. + + +The delightful relations that had always prevailed between the poet and +his publishers were touchingly completed when, just before he breathed his +last, came a telegram from George Murray Smith with its tidings of the +interest with which "Asolando" was being received in England. And then +this little note written on that memorable date of December 12, 1889, from +Barrett Browning to Mrs. Bronson, tells the story of the poet's entrance +on the new life. + + PALAZZO REZZONICO, + + 10.30 P.M. + + DEAREST FRIEND,--Our Beloved breathed his last as San Marco's clock + struck ten,--without pain--unconsciously. + + I was able to make him happy a little before he became unconscious by + a telegram from Smith saying, "Reviews in all this day's papers most + favorable, edition nearly exhausted." + + He just murmured, "How gratifying." + + Those were his last intelligible words. + + Yours, PEN. + + +In that hour how could the son and the daughter who so loved him remember +aught save the exquisite lines with which the poet had anticipated the +reunion with his "Lyric Love": + + "Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest!" + + +In the grand _sala_ with its floor of black Italian marble and its lofty +ceiling with exquisite fresco decoration, the simple and impressive +service was held in Palazzo Rezzonico, and a fleet of gondolas, filled +with friends and accompanied by the entire Venetian Syndic, bore the +casket to its temporary resting-place in the chapel of San Michele, in the +campo santo. The gondola that carried the casket had an angel, carved in +wood, at the prow, and a lion at the stern. Dean Bradley, on behalf of +Westminster Abbey, had telegraphed to Robert Barrett Browning, asking that +the body of the poet might be laid within those honored walls; and as the +cemetery in Florence wherein is Mrs. Browning's tomb had long been closed, +this honor from England was accepted. The same honor of a final +resting-place in Westminster Abbey was also extended for the removal of +the body of Mrs. Browning, but their son rightly felt that he must yield +to the wishes of Florence that her tomb be undisturbed, and it is +fitting that it should remain in the Italy she so loved. + + +[Illustration: PALAZZO REZZONICO, VENICE + +Owned by Robert Browning from 1888 to 1906. In the upper room, at the +left-hand corner, the poet died.] + + +So associated with her brother's life was Miss Sarianna Browning that the +story would be incomplete not to add that she survived him many years,--a +gracious and beloved presence. In the January following the poet's death, +she said in a letter to Mrs. Bronson: + + "I have already let a day pass without thanking you for the most + beautiful locket, which I love even more for your sake than his. I + shall always think of you, so good, so near, and so dearly loved by + him. All your watchfulness over our smallest comfort,--how he felt + it!... Bless you forever for all the joy you gave him at Asolo,--how + happy he was! And how you were entwined in all our plans for the happy + future we were to enjoy there! Think of him when you go back, as + loving the whole place, and yourself, the embodiment of its + sweetness." + + +Miss Browning died in her nephew's home, La Torre All' Antella, near +Florence, in the spring of 1903, in her ninetieth year. + +On the façade of the Palazzo Rezzonico the City of Venice placed this +inscription to the memory of the poet: + + A + ROBERTO BROWNING + MORTO IN QUESTO PALAZZO + IL 12 DICEMBRE, 1889 + VENEZIA + POSE + + "Open my heart and you will see + Graved inside of it,--'Italy'" + + +It was on the last day of 1889 that the impressive rites were held in +Westminster Abbey for Robert Browning. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the +Dean of Windsor, an aid-de-camp representing Queen Victoria, Dean Bradley, +the sub-dean, and many eminent canons, and Sir Frederick Bridge, of the +Abbey choir, all were present among the officiating clergy. The casket +under its purple pall, with a massive cross of violets, and wreaths of +lilies-of-the valley, and white roses (Mrs. Browning's favorite flower), +was followed by the honorary pall-bearers including Hallam Tennyson, +representing the Poet Laureate (whose health did not permit him to be +present), Archdeacon Farrar, the Master of Balliol (representing Oxford), +the Master of Trinity (representing Cambridge), Professor Masson +(representing the University of Edinburgh), and George Murray Smith. The +committal service was entirely choral, and Mrs. Browning's poem with its +touching refrain, + + "He giveth His beloved sleep!" + +was chanted by the full vested choir of the Abbey, to music composed for +the occasion by Sir Frederick Bridge. Preceding the Benediction, the +entire vast concourse of people united in singing the hymn, + + "O God, our help in ages past!" + + +As that great assemblage turned away from the last rites in commemoration +of the poet who produced the largest body of poetry, and the most valuable +as a spiritual message, of any English poet, was there not wafted in the +air the choral strains from some unseen angelic choir, that thrilled the +venerable Abbey with celestial triumph: + + "'Glory to God--to God!' he saith: + Knowledge by suffering entereth, + And Life is perfected by Death." + + + + +INDEX + + + Abinger, Lord, 18 + + "Abt Vogler," 205 + + "Andrea del Sarto," 152, 170 + + "Any Wife to Any Husband," 152 + + "Apprehension, An," 47 + + Arnold, Matthew, 112 + + Arnould, Joseph, friendship for Browning, 14, 39, 40, 129; + letters to Domett, 69, 94, 99, 103 + + Ashburton, Lady Louisa, 222 + + "Asolando," 5, 282, 292 + + "Aurora Leigh," 50, 52, 76, 127, 134, 143, 148, 158, 160, 164, + 167, 171, 174-176, 210 + + + "Balaustion's Adventure," 229 + + Barrett, Alfred, 16, 164 + + ----, Arabel, 16, 50, 129, 137, 164, 202, 212 + + ----, Edward (brother), 16, 22, 59; + death of, 18, 62, 135 + + ----, Edward (father) legal name, 17; + marriage, 18; + character, 20, 21, 121, 164; + death, 178 + + ----, Elizabeth. _See_ Moulton-Barrett, Elizabeth + + ----, George, 16, 50 + + ----, Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook), 16, 50; + marriage, 121; + affection for sister, 129; + 137, 164, 192 + + ----, Mrs. (mother), 18, 21 + + "Battle of Marathon," 20 + + "Beatrice Signorini," 237, 267 + + "Bells and Pomegranates," 14, 39, 67, 68 + + "Ben Karshook's Wisdom," 158 + + Berdoe, Dr., commentary on "Paracelsus," 37 + + "Bertha in the Lane," 46, 71 + + "Bishop Blougram's Apology," 205 + + Blagden, Isabella, friendship with Brownings, 111, 112, 178, 182, + 184, 190, 191, 197, 200, 201, 207, 225; + death, 229 + + Blessington, Lady, 33, 113, 138 + + "Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A," 69 + + "Book of the Poets, The," 64, 206 + + Boyd, Hugh Stuart, tutor, 22; + letters from Elizabeth Barrett, 25, 45, 53, 55, 63, 64, 68, 73, 89 + + Bronson, Mrs. Arthur (Katherine DeKay), friendship with Browning, 242, + 273; + letters from Browning, 243, 248, 249, 252-260, 265, 271, 272, 277-286, + 291, 292; + hospitality, 242, 274-276; + entertains Browning in Asolo, 286, 287, 290; + letters from Robert Barrett Browning, 293-294; + letter from Sarianna Browning, 295 + + Bronson, Edith (Contessa Rucellai), 275, 280 + + Brooks, Rev. Dr. Phillips, 211, 212 + + Browning, Mrs. (mother), 4-6, 38 + + ----, Elizabeth Barrett, birth, 16; + childhood, 17, 19; + ancestry, 17, 18; + first literary work, 20; + accident to, 21; + studies, 22; + tastes, 23, 24; + removal to Sidmouth, 24; + translation of "Prometheus Bound," 44; + removal to London, 45; + fugitive poems, 46-48, 53; + Hebrew Bible, 49; + definite periods in her life, 50; + change of residence, 54, 56; + notable friends, 58, 59; + publication of "The Seraphim," 56; + literary criticisms, 60, 61, 67, 68; + goes to Torquay, 59; + personal appearance, 58; + death of brother, 62; + returns to England, 63; + translations from Greek, 64; + description of her room, 65; + refusal to meet Browning, 65; + publication of two volumes of poems, 71; + literary reputation established, 71, 72; + first letter from Browning, 73, 74; + correspondence of poets, 74-89; + meets Browning, 80; + lyrics, 83, 84; + marriage, 87, 89; + will, 93; + lyrics, 100, 101; + mentioned for Laureateship, 121, 122; + books read by, 143; + genius for friendship, 148; + comment on dress, 151; + description of, 153, 179; + souvenir locket, 153; + views on life, 159; + appreciation of Tennyson, 166; + success of "Aurora Leigh," 174-176; + American appreciation, 187; + ill health, 193, 195; + closing days, 196; + last words, 197; + burial, 197; + tomb, 200; + tablet on Casa Guidi to her memory, 218, 264; + Tauchnitz edition of poems, 227 + + Browning, Reuben (uncle), 8 + + ----, Robert (father), character and qualities, 4-6; + removal to Paris, 132; + talent for caricature, 137; + death, 210 + + ----, Robert (grandfather), 4 + + ----, Robert, ancestry of, 4-6; + birth, 4; + childhood and early tastes, 6-8; + first literary work, 7; + home atmosphere, 10, 11; + school, 12; + influenced by Byron and Shelley, 13, 14; + juvenile verses, 14; + publication of "Pauline," 14; + visit to Russia, 27, 28; + meets Wordsworth, Landor, Dickens, and Leigh Hunt, 30, 32; + personal appearance, 31; + writes play for Macready, 33; + visit to Venice, 35, 36; + removal to Hatcham, 38; + English friends and social life, 38-41; + hears of Elizabeth Barrett, 41; + visit to Italy, 70, 71; + return to England, 71; + correspondence of the poets, 74-89; + first meeting with Miss Barrett, 80; + marriage, 87, 89; + sees "Sonnets from the Portuguese," 109; + lyrics, 120, 121, 152; + keynote of his art, 122-125; + interpretation of Shelley, 133, 134; + Fisher's portrait of, 153; + Page's portrait of, 155; + literary standing, 172; + finds "Old Yellow Book," 181; + homage to Landor, 183; + leaves Florence forever, 200; + returns to London, 200; + takes London house, 202; + literary work, 203-207; + extension of social activities, 206, 207; + friendship with Jowett, 209; + meeting with Tennyson, 210; + death of father, 210; + Oxford conferred degree of M.A., 211; + made Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, 211; + new six-volume edition of poems, 213; + dedication to Tennyson, 213; + success of "The Ring and the Book," 214-215; + comparison of character of Pompilia to that of his wife, 219; + visits Scotland with the Storys, 221-222; + conversation and personal charm, 222-224; + with Milsand in "Red Cotton Night-cap Country," 224-226; + prepares Tauchnitz edition of Mrs. Browning's poems, 227; + friendship with Domett, 228; + relations with Tennyson, 230-232; + facility for rhyming, 231; + visit to Oxford and Cambridge, 232; + sojourn at "La Saisiaz," 233-234; + revisits Italy, 235, 239-240; + doctrine of life, 237; + Oxford conferred degree of D.C.L., 241; + son's portrait of, 242; + friendship with Mrs. Bronson, 242; + gift from Browning Societies, 243; + letters to Mrs. Bronson, 243, 248, 249, 252-260, 265, 271, 272, + 277-286, 291; + Italian recognition, 245; + honored at Edinburgh, 249; + letters to Professor Masson, 249, 250; + removal to DeVere Gardens, 260; + Foreign Correspondent to Royal Academy, 266; + poet of intensity, 270; + last year in London, 281; + return to Asolo, 287-288; + last meeting with the Storys and Dr. Corson, 289-290; + death, 294; + memorial inscription, 295; + burial, 295 + + Browning, Robert Barrett ("Penini"), birth, 107; + anecdotes of, 126, 139, 144, 146, 147, 155; + studies of, 171, 178, 180, 185, 188, 192, 193; + love of novels, 181; + enjoyment of Siena, 184; + children's party at French Embassy, 194; + preparation for University, 202; + characteristics, 202, 265; + explanation of "The Ring and the Book," 218; + begins study of painting, 227; + picture in Royal Academy, 227; + success in art, 236, 241; + marriage to Miss Coddington, 260; + purchase of Palazzo Rezzonico, 262; + portrait of father, 217, 242; + portrait of Milsand, 263; + purchase of Casa Guidi, 265; + Florentine villa, 264-265, 267 + + ----, Robert Jardine, 38 + + ----, Sarianna, 4, 38; + letter from Browning, 71; + letters from Mrs. Browning, 195; + goes to live with brother, 211; + letter to Domett, 228; + travels with brother, 236; + letters to Mrs. Bronson, 248, 293; + death, 295 + + Brownings, The, life in Paris, 92, 93; + finances, 93; + journey to Italy, 95; + winter in Pisa, 95, 97; + home in Florence, 97; + visit to Vallombrosa, 98, 99; + apartments in Casa Guidi, 100, 101; + trip to Fano, 103, 104; + literary work, 106; + meet Story, 107; + summer at Bagni di Lucca, 107; + Florentine friends and life, 111-113, 118, 119; + visit to Siena, 125; + return to England, 129; + life and friends in Paris, 130-137; + return to England, 137; + social life in London, 137-141; + return to Casa Guidi, 142; + summer at Bagni di Lucca, 144-151; + winter in Rome, 152-157; + "Clasped Hands," 153; + pilgrimage to Albano, 156; + return to Florence, 157; + poetic work, 158; + Italian appreciation, 161; + return to London, 164; + Tennyson reads "Maud" to them, 165; + winter and social life in Paris, 167-172; + return to Florence, 176; + Florentine gayety, 176, 178; + summer in Normandy, 179; + another winter in Rome, 180; + return to Florence, 181; + summer in Siena, 184-185; + in Florence again, 185; + Roman winter, 185, 188-189; + journey to Florence, 189-190; + last summer in Siena, 191-192; + last winter in Rome, 192-193; + return to Casa Guidi, 195; + memorials in Palazzo Rezzonico, 262 + + "Browning Society, The," 240 + + Browning, William Shergold, 38 + + Brunton, Rev. Wm., poem, 91 + + "By the Fire-side," 170 + + + Carducci, Contessa, 71 + + Carlyle, Thomas and Jane, 30, 38, 39, 41, 61, 68, 97, 129, 130, 131 + + Casa Alvisi, 242, 243, 274 + + "Casa Guidi Windows," 106, 115, 116 + + "Catarina to Camoens," 71, 83 + + Chaucer, project to modernize, 603 + + "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," 152, 261 + + "Child's Grave at Florence, A," 121 + + Chorley, Henry, 39, 40, 147 + + "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," 110, 119, 123, 124, 125 + + "Christopher Smart," 237 + + Clarke, Mary Graham. _See_ Barrett, Mrs. + + "Clasped Hands, The," 153 + + Coddington, Fanny, 260 + + "Colombe's Birthday," 27, 38, 143 + + "Comfort," 47 + + "Conclusion," 72 + + "Confessions," 46, 83, 84 + + Cook, Mrs. Surtees. _See_ Barrett, Henrietta + + Corson, Dr. Hiram, criticism of Browning's poetry, 29, 218; + visit to Browning, 35, 222, 244, 245-247, 290-291; + founder of Browning Society, 240-241; + letters from Browning, 247, 259; + 215 + + Cosimo I, statue of, 114 + + "Cowper's Grave," 46, 57 + + Coxhoe Hall, 16 + + Cranch, Christopher Pearse, 111 + + Crosse, Andrew, 58, 59 + + "Crowned and Wedded," 46 + + "Cry of the Children, The," 46 + + "Curse for a Nation, A," 186 + + Curtis, George William, 118, 119 + + Cushman, Charlotte, 40, 141 + + + "Dead Pan, The," 47, 68, 83 + + "Deaf and Dumb," 205 + + "Death in the Desert, A," 205, 237 + + "Denial, A," 84 + + "De Profundis," 18, 52, 136 + + "Development," 5 + + Dickens, Charles, 30, 33, 59, 61, 69 + + Dilke, Mr., 64 + + Domett, Alfred, friendship for Browning, 14, 39, 228; + Browning's letters to, 42, 43; + Arnould's letters to, 69, 94, 99, 103 + + Dowden, Dr. Edward, 97, 133 + + Dowson, Christopher, 39 + + "Drama of Exile, A," 46, 71-72 + + "Dramatic Idyls," 236 + + "Dramatis Personæ," 203-205 + + "Dryope," statue of, 263 + + Dulwich Gallery, 11 + + + Eastnor Castle, 22 + + Egerton-Smith, Miss, 233-234 + + Elgin, Lady, 131, 132, 167 + + Eliot, George, 190 + + "Englishman in Italy, The," 71 + + "Epistle of Karnish," 158 + + "Essay on Mind," 22 + + "Eurydice to Orpheus," 265 + + "Evelyn Hope," 120 + + + "Face, A," 205 + + Faucit, Helen (Lady Martin), 70, 143 + + "Ferishtah's Fancies," 244 + + Field, Kate, Browning gives locket, 154; + visit to the Brownings, 182; + Browning's letters to, 183, 186, 208; + Mrs. Browning's letter to, 187 + + "Fifine," 237 + + "Flight of the Duchess, The," 80, 152 + + "Flute-Music," 267 + + Forster, John, criticism of "Paracelsus," 30; + friendship for Browning, 31, 32, 129; + 33, 39, 69 + + Fox, Rev. William Johnson, 30, 140, 141 + + "Fra Lippo Lippi," 152, 169-170 + + Franceschini, tragedy of, 181 + + Fuller, Margaret. _See_ D'Ossoli, Marchesa + + Furnivall, Dr., 240 + + "Futurity," 47 + + + Garrow, Theodosia. _See_ Trollope + + Giorgi, Signor, 217 + + "Gold Hair," 204 + + Gosse, Edmund, 97, 281 + + "Grammarian's Burial, A," 152 + + "Greek Christian Poets, The," 23, 65, 206 + + Griffin, Professor Hall, 27, 118, 134 + + "Guardian Angel, The," 103, 152 + + Gurney, Rev. Archer, 38 + + + "Half Rome," 218 + + Haworth, Fanny, letter from Browning, 36; + 40 + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 150, 178-179 + + "Hector in the Garden," 47 + + "Helen's Tower," 222 + + "Hervé Riel," 211 + + Hillard, George Stillman, 106, 118 + + Hodell, Dr. Charles W., 215-216 + + Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 48 + + "Holy Cross Day," 158 + + Hope End, 16, 19, 22, 24 + + Horne, Richard Hengist, letter from Elizabeth Barrett, 19, 59; + friendship with Miss Barrett, 30, 53, 60, 61, 62, 65, 68 + + Hosmer, Harriet, takes cast of "Clasped Hands," 153; + excursion with Brownings, 156, 157; + letter from Browning, 168; + visits poets, 191, 194 + + "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," 35 + + + "In a Balcony," 144, 158, 203 + + "In a Gondola," 36 + + "Inclusions," 84 + + "Incondita," 14, 140 + + "Inn Album," 232, 269 + + "Insufficiency," 47, 84 + + "In the Doorway," 207 + + "Isabel's Child," 46, 57 + + Italy, political conditions of, 105, 108, 115, 117, 121, 143, 180 + + "Ivan Ivanovitch," 27, 236 + + + James, Henry, characterization of Browning, 224 + + "James Lee's Wife," 204, 261 + + Jameson, Mrs., friendship with Miss Barrett, 73, 92, 93, 94, 95, + 96, 129; + letter from Browning, 108 + + Jerrold, Douglas, 41 + + Jowett, Dr., 209, 229, 281 + + + Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, 129, 138, 153, 154, 155 + + Kenyon, John, 33; + meets Browning, 40; + offers an introduction to Miss Barrett, 41; + 45; + visit to Rydal Mount, 56; + account of, 58, 59; + termed the "joy-giver," 65; + shows manuscript of "Dead Pan" to Browning, 68; + dedication of "Paracelsus" to, 69; + appreciation of, 74; + letters to the Brownings, 74, 97; + friendship, 112, 113, 129, 137; + dedication of "Aurora Leigh" to, 174; + death and legacy to Brownings, 176 + + Kingsley, Charles, 139 + + King Victor and King Charles, 69 + + Kinney, Mrs., 144, 145 + + + "Lady and the Painter, The," 288 + + "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," 71, 72, 73 + + "Lament for Adonis," 23 + + Landor, Walter Savage, chirography of, 23; + meets Browning, 30; + courtesy of, 32; + meets Miss Barrett, 55, 59, 137; + quoted, 60; + intimacy with Leigh Hunt, 112, 113; + opinions, 138; + guest of Brownings, 182; + homage from Browning, 183; + guest of Storys, 183, 184, 190, 192 + + "La Saisiaz," 233-234 + + "Last Poems," 202 + + "La Torre all' Antella," 264, 295 + + "La Vallière," 33 + + Leighton, Sir Frederic, 200 + + "Les Charmettes," 238 + + "Lost Leader, The," 32 + + "Loved Once," 83, 84 + + Lowell, James Russell, 51, 74 + + "Luria," 69 + + Lytton, Bulwer, 33, 53, 60 + + ----, Lord (Owen Meredith), 142; + entertains Mrs. Browning, 145-146; + visits the Brownings, 149, 150, 158 + + + Macready, William, meeting with Browning, 30, 31; + suggests playwriting to Browning, 32; + sees "Strafford," 33; + produces "Strafford," 34; + dinner to Browning, 39; + produces "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," 69, 70 + + Marcello, Contessa, 276 + + Martineau, Harriet, friendship with Brownings, 33, 35, 39, 60, 62, 68 + + Masson, Professor, Browning entertained by, 249-251 + + Mazzini, 13, 143 + + Medici, Marchesa Peruzzi di, birthday fête, 184; + reminiscences of, 188, 193; + visit to Scotland, 221; + villa of, 239; + translation of Duprè's Autobiography, 257; + Browning's letter to, 257; + Florentine palace of, 265 + + Medici, statue of Fernandino di, 173 + + "Meeting at Night," 120 + + "Men and Women," 106, 157, 164, 169, 172 + + Millais, Lady, 240 + + ----, Sir John Everett, Browning's letter to, 227-228; + 251 + + Milnes, Monckton (Lord Houghton), 30, 60, 61, 138; + christening party, 139 + + Milsand, Joseph, meeting with Browning, 134; + paper on Browning, 135; + letter from Browning, 152, 225; + friendship with Brownings, 159, 224, 225, 226; + criticism of "Aurora Leigh," 176; + death, 259; + portrait, 263 + + Mitford, Mary Russell, 32; + association with the Brownings, 32, 45, 55, 56, 58, 61, 65, 72; + letter from Mrs. Browning, 108, 118, 135, 136, 159; + death, 173 + + Mohl, Mme., 132, 167, 171 + + Moore, Mrs. Bloomfield, 252 + + Moulton-Barrett, Elizabeth (niece), 18 + + ----. _See_ Barrett, explanation of name, 17 + + + Nancioni, il Signor Dottore, 245 + + Nettleship, Mr., essays on Browning, 213 + + "New Spirit of the Age, The," 60, 68 + + Nightingale, Florence, 140 + + + "Old Yellow Book, The," 215 + + "One Word More," 123, 168-169, 205 + + Ongaro, Dall', 194 + + "Only a Cure," 121 + + Ossoli, Marchesa d' (Margaret Fuller), 111, 112; + visits the Brownings, 118; + death, 112, 126 + + "Other Half Rome, The," 218 + + + "Pacchiarotto," 232 + + Page, William, 152, 155, 181 + + Palazzo Giustiniani, 242 + + ---- Peruzzi, 265 + + ---- Pitti, 102, 105, 106 + + ---- Rezzonico, 262-264, 290, 293, 295 + + "Paracelsus," 14, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 57, 69, 168, 237 + + "Parleyings," 269 + + "Parting at Morning," 120 + + Patmore, Coventry, 140 + + "Pauline," 12, 14, 15, 28, 34, 57, 169, 172, 267 + + "Penini." _See_ Browning, Robert Barrett + + "Pippa Passes," 36, 65, 67, 69, 271, 286-287 + + Pius IX (Pio Nono), 105, 115, 117, 118, 121 + + Poe, Edgar Allan, 52 + + "Poems before Congress," 185 + + "Poet's Vow, The," 53, 55, 57 + + "Pompilia," 206, 218, 219 + + "Portrait, A," 18, 164 + + Powers, Hiram, 102, 112, 118, 142 + + Prince of Wales (Edward VII), 180-181 + + Proctor ("Barry Cornwall"), 30, 33, 40, 61, 69, 129 + + "Prometheus Bound," 23, 25, 44 + + "Proof and Disproof," 84 + + "Prospice," 123, 205 + + + "Question and Answer," 84 + + + "Rabbi Ben Ezra," 205 + + "Recollections of a Literary Life," 135 + + "Red Cotton Night-cap Country," 226, 230 + + "Return of the Druses, The," 69 + + "Rhapsody of Life's Progress, A," 47, 48, 83 + + "Rhyme of the Duchess May, The," 227 + + "Ring and the Book, The," 182, 203, 205, 214-220 + + Ripert-Monclar, Marquis Amédée de, 28, 38, 153 + + Ritchie, Lady, 153, 154, 226 + + Robertson, John, 35, 39 + + Rogers, Arthur, 273 + + "Romances and Lyrics," 67 + + "Romaunt of Margret, The," 53, 58 + + "Rosny," 267 + + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 139, 165, 166, 169, 174 + + + Sand, George, 131, 136 + + "Saul," 120, 157 + + Scotti, Signor, 71 + + "Seraphim, The," 46, 56, 58, 110 + + Sharp, William, quoted, 6; + suggested origin of "Flight of the Duchess," 12; + quoted, 28; + description of Browning, 31; + 43 + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 13, 133, 134 + + Silverthorne, Mrs., 14 + + "Sleep, The," 46, 83 + + Smith, Alexander, 151 + + Smith, George Murray, 247, 270, 296 + + "Sonnets from the Portuguese," 50, 71, 97, 108, 109, 110, 123, 168 + + "Sordello," 14, 27, 28, 35, 41-42, 69, 171, 207, 237 + + "Soul's Tragedy, A," 69 + + "Statue and the Bust, The," 152, 173 + + Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 90 + + Story, Edith. _See_ Medici, Marchessa Peruzzi di + + ----, William Wetmore and Emeline, Browning's first meeting, 107, 111; + characteristics, 118, 119; + associations with the Brownings, 148-152, 155, 184, 185, 192, 196, + 197, 199, 221, 239; + entertain Landor, 183; + characterization of Hawthorne, 150; + last meeting with Browning, 289-290 + + "Strafford," 33, 34, 35, 57 + + + Talfourd, Field, 39 + + Talfourd, Sergeant, 30, 32, 40, 60, 69 + + Taylor, Bayard, 129 + + Tennyson, Alfred, 15; + comment on "Sordello," 41; + 60; + works, 56, 68; + Miss Barrett's comments on, 61, 67, 120; + becomes Laureate, 122; + letter to Mrs. Browning, 139, 140; + reads "Maud" to the poets, 165; + letters from Browning, 209, 230, 284; + friendship with Browning, 231; + dedication, 213; + regarding Browning's lines, 232 + + ----, Frederick, 144, 158 + + ----, Hallam, 296 + + "Tertium Quid," 218 + + Thackeray, Anne. _See_ Ritchie, Lady + + Ticknor and Fields, 156 + + Tittle, Margaret, 4 + + "Toccata of Galuppi's, A," 120 + + Trollope, Thomas Adolphus and Theodosia, 59, 111, 112, 190, 229 + + "Two Poets of Croisic," 236 + + + "Valediction, A," 84 + + Vallombrosa, 98, 99 + + Villari, Mme. Pasquale, 112 + + "Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus, The," 46 + + "Vision of Poets, A," 71 + + + Wiedemann, Sarah Anna, 4-6 + + "Wine of Cyprus," 23, 86 + + "Woman's Last Word, A," 120 + + Wordsworth, William, 30, 32, 55, 56, 59, 68, 94 + + + Zampini, Fanny (Contessa Salazar), 161 + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] Letters of Robert Browning and Alfred Domett. New York: Dodd, Mead and +Co. + +[2] Life of Robert Browning. London: Walter Scott, Limited. + +[3] La Vie et l'oeuvre de Elizabeth Browning, par Germaine-Marie +Merlette; Licencie des lettres; Docteur de l'Université de Paris. + +[4] Red Letter Days of my Life. London: Richard Bentley and Son. + +[5] "Letters of Robert Browning and Alfred Domett." New York: Dodd, Mead, +and Company. + +[6] Robert Browning: Life and Letters. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and +Company. + +[7] "La Vita e le Opere di Roberto et Elisabetta Barrett Browning. Rome: +Societa Typografico-Editrice Nazionale." + +[8] William Wetmore Story and his Friends. Boston: The Houghton-Mifflin +Co. + +[9] Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett. London: John Murray. + +[10] Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Co. + +[11] Life of Phillips Brooks. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co. + +[12] Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. London: The Macmillan +Company. + +[13] Life and Letters of Sir John Millais. London: Methuen and Co. + +[14] What I Remember. New York: Harper and Brothers. + +[15] Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Company. + +[16] William Wetmore Story. Boston: The Houghton-Mifflin Company. + +[17] Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Co. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Text in italics is enclosed between underscores (_italics_). + +Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate +both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as +presented in the original text. + +Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest +paragraph break. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "bythe" to "by the" (page 39) + "twentienth" to "twentieth" (page 142) + "Personae" corrected to "Personæ" (page 203) + "to to" corrected to "to" (page 214) + "Personae" corrected to "Personæ" (page 232) + "writen" corrected to "written" (page 272) + "Edinburg" corrected to "Edinburgh" (index) + "Fireside" corrected to "Fire-side" (index) + + +Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors +have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have +been left open. + +Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in +spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROWNINGS*** + + +******* This file should be named 30671-8.txt or 30671-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/6/7/30671 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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