There are, in literary history, few _scènes de la vie privée_ more
affecting than that of the greatest of English poetesses, in the
maturity of her first poetic period, lying, like a fading flower, for
hours, for days continuously, in a darkened room in a London house. So
ill was Miss Elizabeth Barrett, early in the second half of the forties,
that few friends, herself even, could venture to hope for a single one
of those Springs which she previsioned so longingly. To us, looking back
at this period, in the light of what we know of a story of singular
beauty, there is an added pathos in the circumstance that, as the singer
of so many exquisite songs lay on her invalid's sofa, dreaming of things
which, as she thought, might never be, all that was loveliest in her
life was fast approaching--though, like all joy, not without an equally
unlooked-for sorrow. "I lived with visions for my company, instead of
men and women ... nor thought to know a sweeter music than they played
to me."
This is not the occasion, and if it were, there would still be
imperative need for extreme concision, whereon to dwell upon the early
life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The particulars of it are familiar
to all who love English literature: for there is, in truth, not much to
tell--not much, at least, that can well be told. It must suffice, here,
that Miss Barrett was born on the 4th of March 1809, and so was the
senior, by three years, of Robert Browning.
By 1820, in remote Herefordshire, the not yet eleven-year-old poetess
had already "cried aloud on obsolete Muses from childish lips" in
various "nascent odes, epics, and didactics." At this time, she tells
us, the Greeks were her demi-gods, and she dreamt much of Agamemnon. In
the same year, in suburban Camberwell, a little boy was often wont to
listen eagerly to his father's narrative of the same hero, and to all
the moving tale of Troy. It is significant that these two children, so
far apart, both with the light of the future upon their brows, grew up
in familiarity with something of the antique beauty. It was a lifelong
joy to both, that "serene air of Greece." Many an hour of gloom was
charmed away by it for the poetess who translated the "Prometheus Bound"
of Æschylus, and wrote "The Dead Pan": many a happy day and memorable
night were spent in that "beloved environment" by the poet who wrote
"Balaustion's Adventure" and translated the "Agamemnon."
The chief sorrow of her life, however, occurred in her thirty-first
year. She never quite recovered from the shock of her well-loved brother
Edward's tragic death, a mysterious disaster, for the foundering of the
little yacht _La Belle Sauvage_ is almost as inexplicable as that of
the _Ariel_ in the Spezzian waters beyond Lerici. Not only through the
ensuing winter, but often in the dreams of after years, "the sound of
the waves rang in my ears like the moans of one dying."
The removal of the Barrett household to Gloucester Place, in Western
London, was a great event. Here, invalid though she was, she could see
friends occasionally and get new books constantly. Her name was well
known and became widely familiar when her "Cry of the Children" rang
like a clarion throughout the country. The poem was founded upon an
official report by Richard Hengist Horne, the friend whom some years
previously she had won in correspondence, and with whom she had become
so intimate, though without personal acquaintance, that she had agreed
to write a drama in collaboration with him, to be called "Psyche
Apocalypté," and to be modelled on "Greek instead of modern tragedy."
Horne--a poet of genius, and a dramatist of remarkable power--was one of
the truest friends she ever had, and, so far as her literary life is
concerned, came next in influence only to her poet-husband. Among the
friends she saw much of in the early forties was a distant "cousin,"
John Kenyon--a jovial, genial, gracious, and altogether delightful man,
who acted the part of Providence to many troubled souls, and, in
particular, was "a fairy godfather" to Elizabeth Barrett and to "the
other poet," as he used to call Browning. It was to Mr. Kenyon--"Kenyon,
with the face of a Bendectine monk, but the most jovial of good
fellows," as a friend has recorded of him; "Kenyon the Magnificent," as
he was called by Browning--that Miss Barrett owed her first introduction
to the poetry of her future husband.
Browning's poetry had for her an immediate appeal. With sure insight she
discerned the special quality of the poetic wealth of the "Bells and
Pomegranates," among which she then and always cared most for the
penultimate volume, the "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." Two years before
she met the author she had written, in "Lady Geraldine's Courtship"--
"Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate' which, if cut deep down
the middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity."
A little earlier she had even, unwittingly on either side, been a
collaborateur with "the author of 'Paracelsus.'" She gave Horne much aid
in the preparation of his "New Spirit of the Age," and he has himself
told us "that the mottoes, which are singularly happy and appropriate,
were for the most part supplied by Miss Barrett and Robert Browning,
then unknown to each other." One thing and another drew them nearer and
nearer. Now it was a poem, now a novel expression, now a rare sympathy.
An intermittent correspondence ensued, and both poets became anxious to
know each other. "We artists--how well praise agrees with us," as Balzac
says.
A few months later, in 1846, they came to know one another personally.
The story of their first meeting, which has received a wide acceptance,
is apocryphal. The meeting was brought about by Kenyon. This common
friend had been a schoolfellow of Browning's father, and so it was
natural that he took a more than ordinary interest in the brilliant
young poet, perhaps all the more so that the reluctant tide of
popularity which had promised to set in with such unparalleled sweep and
weight had since experienced a steady ebb.
And so the fates brought these two together. The younger was already far
the stronger, but he had an unbounded admiration for Miss Barrett. To
her, he was even then the chief living poet. She perceived his ultimate
greatness; as early as 1845 had "a full faith in him as poet and
prophet."
As Browning admitted to a friend, the love between them was almost
instantaneous, a thing of the eyes, mind, and heart--each striving for
supremacy, till all were gratified equally in a common joy. They had one
bond of sterling union: passion for the art to which both had devoted
their lives.
To those who love love for love's sake, who _se passionnent pour la
passion_, as Prosper Merimée says, there could scarce be a more sacred
spot in London than that fiftieth house in unattractive Wimpole Street,
where these two poets first met each other; and where, in the darkened
room, "Love quivered, an invisible flame." Elizabeth Barrett was indeed,
in her own words, "as sweet as Spring, as Ocean deep." She, too, was
always, as she wrote of Harriet Martineau, in a hopeless anguish of body
and serene triumph of spirit. As George Sand says, of one of her
fictitious personages, she was an "artist to the backbone; that is, one
who feels life with frightful intensity." To this too keen intensity of
feeling must be attributed something of that longing for repose, that
deep craving for rest from what is too exciting from within, which made
her affirm the exquisite appeal to her of such Biblical passages as "The
Lord of peace Himself give you peace," and "He giveth His Beloved
Sleep," which, as she says in one of her numerous letters to Miss
Mitford, "strike upon the disquieted earth with such a _foreignness_
of heavenly music."
Nor was he whom she loved as a man, as well as revered as a poet,
unworthy of her. His was the robustest poetic intellect of the century;
his the serenest outlook; his, almost the sole unfaltering footsteps
along the perilous ways of speculative thought. A fair life, irradiate
with fairer ideals, conserved his native integrity from that incongruity
between practice and precept so commonly exemplified. Comely in all
respects, with his black-brown wavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and
winsome smile, alert luminous eyes, quick, spontaneous, expressive
gestures--an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a
modulation of the lips, an assertive or deprecatory wave of the hand,
conveying so much--and a voice at that time of a singular penetrating
sweetness, he was, even without that light of the future upon his
forehead which she was so swift to discern, a man to captivate any woman
of kindred nature and sympathies. Over and above these advantages, he
possessed a rare quality of physical magnetism. By virtue of this he
could either attract irresistibly or strongly repel.
I have several times heard people state that a hand-shake from Browning
was like an electric shock. Truly enough, it did seem as though his
sterling nature rang in his genially dominant voice, and, again, as
though his voice transmitted instantaneous waves of an electric current
through every nerve of what, for want of a better phrase, I must
perforce call his intensely alive hand. I remember once how a lady,
afflicted with nerves, in the dubious enjoyment of her first experience
of a "literary afternoon," rose hurriedly and, in reply to her hostess'
inquiry as to her motive, explained that she could not sit any longer
beside the elderly gentleman who was talking to Mrs. So-and-so, as his
near presence made her quiver all over, "like a mild attack of
pins-and-needles," as she phrased it. She was chagrined to learn that
she had been discomposed not by 'a too exuberant financier,' as she had
surmised, but by, as "Waring" called Browning, the "subtlest assertor of
the Soul in song."
With the same quick insight as she had perceived Robert Browning's
poetic greatness, Elizabeth Barrett discerned his personal worth. He was
essentially manly in all respects: so manly, that many frail souls of
either sex philandered about his over-robustness. From the twilight
gloom of an æesthetic clique came a small voice belittling the great man
as "quite too 'loud,' painfully excessive." Browning was manly enough to
laugh at all ghoulish cries of any kind whatsoever. Once in a way the
lion would look round and by a raised breath make the jackals wriggle;
as when the poet wrote to a correspondent, who had drawn his attention
to certain abusive personalities in some review or newspaper: "Dear
Sir--I am sure you mean very kindly, but I have had too long an
experience of the inability of the human goose to do other than cackle
when benevolent and hiss when malicious, and no amount of goose
criticism shall make me lift a heel against what waddles behind it."
Herself one whose happiest experiences were in dreamland, Miss Barrett
was keenly susceptible to the strong humanity of Browning's song, nor
less keenly attracted by his strenuous and fearless outlook, his poetic
practicality, and even by his bluntness of insight in certain matters.
It was no slight thing to her that she could, in Mr. Lowell's words, say
of herself and of him--
"We, who believe life's bases rest
Beyond the probe of chemic test."
She rejoiced, despite her own love for remote imaginings, to know that
he was of those who (to quote again from the same fine poet)
"... wasted not their breath in schemes
Of what man might be in some bubble-sphere,
As if he must be other than he seems
Because he was not what he should be here,
Postponing Time's slow proof to petulant dreams;"
that, in a word, while 'he could believe the promise of to-morrow,' he
was at the same time supremely conscious of 'the wondrous meaning of
to-day.'
Both, from their youth onward, had travelled 'on trails divine of
unimagined laws.' It was sufficient for her that he kept his eyes fixed
on the goal beyond the way he followed: it did not matter that he was
blind to the dim adumbrations of novel byways, of strange Calvarys by
the wayside, so often visible to her.
Their first meeting was speedily followed by a second--by a third--and
then? When we know not, but ere long, each found that happiness was in
the bestowal of the other.
The secret was for some time kept absolutely private. From the first Mr.
Barrett had been jealous of his beloved daughter's new friend. He did
not care much for the man, he with all the prejudices and baneful
conservatism of the slave-owning planter, the other with ardent
democratic sentiments and a detestation of all forms of iniquity. Nor
did he understand the poet. He could read his daughter's flowing verse
with pleasure, but there was to his ear a mere jumble of sound and sense
in much of the work of the author of "The Tomb at St. Praxed's" and
"Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis." Of a selfishly genial but also of a
violent and often sullen nature, he resented more and more any
friendship which threatened to loosen the chain of affection and
association binding his daughter to himself.
Both the lovers believed that an immediate marriage would, from every
point of view, be best. It was not advisable that it should be long
delayed, if to happen at all, for the health of Miss Barrett was so poor
that another winter in London might, probably would, mean irretrievable
harm.
Some time before this she had become acquainted with Mrs. Jameson, the
eminent art-writer. The regard, which quickly developed to an
affectionate esteem, was mutual. One September morning Mrs. Jameson
called, and after having dwelt on the gloom and peril of another winter
in London, dwelt on the magic of Italy, and concluded by inviting Miss
Barrett to accompany her in her own imminent departure for abroad. The
poet was touched and grateful, but, pointing to her invalid sofa, and
gently emphasising her enfeebled health and other difficult
circumstances, excused herself from acceptance of Mrs. Jameson's
generous offer.
In the "Memoirs of Mrs. Jameson" that lady's niece, Mrs. Macpherson,
relates how on the eve of her and her aunt's departure, a little note of
farewell arrived from Miss Barrett, "deploring the writer's inability
to come in person and bid her friend good-bye, as she was 'forced to be
satisfied with the sofa and silence.'"
It is easy to understand, therefore, with what amazement Mrs. Jameson,
shortly after her arrival in Paris, received a letter from Robert
Browning to the effect that he _and his wife_ had just come from
London, on their way to Italy. "My aunt's surprise was something almost
comical," writes Mrs. Macpherson, "so startling and entirely unexpected
was the news." And duly married indeed the two poets had been!
From the moment the matter was mooted to Mr. Barrett, he evinced his
repugnance to the idea. To him even the most foolish assertion of his
own was a sacred pledge. He called it "pride in his word": others
recognised it as the very arrogance of obstinacy. He refused to
countenance the marriage in any way, refused to have Browning's name
mentioned in his presence, and even when his daughter told him that she
had definitely made up her mind, he flatly declined to acknowledge as
even possible what was indeed very imminent.
Nor did he ever step down from his ridiculous pinnacle of wounded
self-love. Favourite daughter though she had been, Mr. Barrett never
forgave her, held no communication with her even when she became a
mother, and did not mention her in his will. It is needless to say
anything more upon this subject. What Mr. and Mrs. Browning were
invariably reticent upon can well be passed over with mere mention of
the facts.
At the last moment there had been great hurry and confusion. But
nevertheless, on the forenoon of the 12th of September 1846, Robert
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett had unceremoniously stepped into St.
Maryle-bone Church and there been married. So secret had the matter been
kept that even such old friends as Richard Hengist Horne and Mr. Kenyon
were in ignorance of the event for some time after it had actually
occurred.
Mrs. Jameson made all haste to the hotel where the Brownings were, and
ultimately persuaded them to leave the hotel for the quieter _pension_
in the Rue Ville d'Evêque, where she and Mrs. Macpherson were staying.
Thereafter it was agreed that, as soon as a fortnight had gone by, they
should journey to Italy together.
Truly enough, as Mrs. Macpherson says, the journey must have been
"enchanting, made in such companionship." Before departing from Paris,
Mrs. Jameson, in writing to a friend, alluded to her unexpected
companions, and added, "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." This kindly friend was not the only person who
experienced similar doubts. One acquaintance, no other than the
Poet-Laureate, Wordsworth, added: "So, Robert Browning and Elizabeth
Barrett have gone off together! Well, I hope they may understand each
other--nobody else could!"
As a matter of fact they did, and to such good intent that they seem
never to have had one hour of dissatisfaction, never one jar in the
music of their lives.
What a happy wayfaring through France that must have been! The
travelling had to be slow, and with frequent interruptions, on account
of Mrs. Browning's health: yet she steadily improved, and was almost
from the start able to take more exercise, and to be longer in the open
air than had for long been her wont. They passed southward, and after
some novel experiences in _diligences_, reached Avignon, where they
rested for a couple of days. Thence a little expedition, a poetical
pilgrimage, was made to Vaucluse, sacred to the memory of Petrarch and
Laura. There, as Mrs. Macpherson has told us, at the very source of the
"chiare, fresche e dolce acque," 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,
indeed, did love and poetry take a new possession of the spot
immortalised by Petrarch's loving fancy.
Three weeks passed happily before Pisa, the Brownings' destination, was
reached. But even then the friends were unwilling to part, and Mrs.
Jameson and her niece remained in the deserted old city for a score of
days longer. So wonderful was the change wrought in Mrs. Browning by
happiness, and by all the enfranchisement her marriage meant for her,
that, as her friend wrote to Miss Mitford, "she is not merely improved
but transformed." In the new sunshine which had come into her life, she
blossomed like a flower-bud long delayed by gloom and chill. Her heart,
in truth, was like a lark when wafted skyward by the first spring-wind.
At last to her there had come something of that peace she had longed
for, and though, in the joy of her new life, her genius "like an Arab
bird slept floating in the wind," it was with that restful hush which
precedes the creative storm. There is something deeply pathetic in her
conscious joy. So little actual experience of life had been hers that in
many respects she was as a child: and she had all the child's yearning
for those unsullied hours that never come when once they are missed. But
it was not till love unfastened the inner chambers of her heart and
brain that she realised to the full, what she had often doubted, how
supreme a thing mere life is. It was in some such mood that she wrote
the lovely forty-second of the "Sonnets from the Portuguese," closing
thus--
"Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd,--where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it."
As for Browning's love towards his wife, nothing more tender and
chivalrous has ever been told of ideal lovers in an ideal romance. It is
so beautiful a story that one often prefers it to the sweetest or
loftiest poem that came from the lips of either. That love knew no
soilure in the passage of the years. Like the flame of oriental legend,
it was perennially incandescent though fed not otherwise than by
sunlight and moonshine. If it alone survive, it may resolve the poetic
fame of either into one imperishable, luminous ray of white light: as
the uttered song fused in the deathless passion of Sappho gleams
star-like down the centuries from the high steep of Leucadoe.
It was here, in Pisa, I have been told on indubitable authority, that
Browning first saw in manuscript those "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
which no poet of Portugal had ever written, which no man could have
written, which no other woman than his wife could have composed. From
the time when it had first dawned upon her that love was to be hers, and
that the laurel of poetry was not to be her sole coronal, she had found
expression for her exquisite trouble in these short poems, which she
thinly disguised from 'inner publicity' when she issued them as "from
the Portuguese."
It is pleasant to think of the shy delight with which the delicate,
flower-like, almost ethereal poet-wife, in those memorable Pisan
evenings--with the wind blowing soundingly from the hills of Carrara, or
quiescent in a deep autumnal calm broken only by the slow wash of Arno
along the sea-mossed long-deserted quays--showed her love-poems to her
husband. With what love and pride he must have read those outpourings of
the most sensitive and beautiful nature he had ever met, vials of lovely
thought and lovelier emotion, all stored against the coming of a golden
day.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after Death!"
Even such heart-music as this cannot have thrilled him more than these
two exquisite lines, with their truth almost too poignant to permit of
serene joy--
"I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee!"
Their Pisan home was amid sacred associations. It was situate in an old
palazzo built by Vasari, within sight of the Leaning Tower and the
Duomo. There, in absolute seclusion, they wrote and planned. Once and
again they made a pilgrimage to the Lanfranchi Palace "to walk in the
footsteps of Byron and Shelley": occasionally they went to Vespers in
the Duomo, and listened, rapt, to the music wandering spirally through
the vast solitary building: once they were fortunate in hearing the
impressive musical mass for the dead, in the Campo Santo. They were even
reminded often of their distant friend Horne, for every time they
crossed one of the chief piazzas they saw the statue of Cosimo de Medici
looking down upon them.
In this beautiful old city, so full of repose as it lies "asleep in the
sun," Mrs. Browning's health almost leapt, so swift was her advance
towards vigour. "She is getting better every day," wrote her husband,
"stronger, better wonderfully, and beyond all our hopes."
That happy first winter they passed "in the most secluded manner,
reading Vasari, and dreaming dreams of seeing Venice in the summer." But
early in April, when the swallows had flown inland above the pines of
Viareggio, and Shelley's favourite little Aziola was hooting silverly
among the hollow vales of Carrara, the two poets prepared to leave what
the frailer of them called "this perch of Pisa."
But with all its charm and happy associations, the little city was dull.
"Even human faces divine are quite _rococo_ with me," Mrs. Browning
wrote to a friend. The change to Florence was a welcome one to both.
Browning had already been there, but to his wife it was as the
fulfilment of a dream. They did not at first go to that romantic old
palace which will be for ever sociate with the author of "Casa Guidi
Windows," but found accommodation in a more central locality.
When the June heats came, husband and wife both declared for Ancona, the
picturesque little town which dreams out upon the Adriatic. But though
so close to the sea, Ancona is in summer time almost insufferably hot.
Instead of finding it cooler than Florence, it was as though they had
leapt right into a cauldron. Alluding to it months later, Mrs. Browning
wrote to Horne, "The heat was just the fiercest fire of your
imagination, and I _seethe_ to think of it at this distance."
It was a memorable journey all the same. They went to Ravenna, and at
four o'clock one morning stood by Dante's tomb, moved deeply by the
pathetic inscription and by all the associations it evoked. All along
the coast from Ravenna to Loretto was new ground to both, and endlessly
fascinating; in the passing and repassing of the Apennines they had
'wonderful visions of beauty and glory.' At Ancona itself,
notwithstanding the heat, they spent a happy season. Here Browning wrote
one of the loveliest of his short poems, "The Guardian Angel," which had
its origin in Guercino's picture in the chapel at Fano. By the allusions
in the sixth and eighth stanzas it is clear that the poem was inscribed
to Alfred Domett, the poet's well-loved friend immortalised as "Waring."
Doubtless it was written for no other reason than the urgency of song,
for in it are the loving allusions to his wife, "_my_ angel with me
too," and "my love is here." Three times they went to the chapel, he
tells us in the seventh stanza, to drink in to their souls' content the
beauty of "dear Guercino's" picture. Browning has rarely uttered the
purely personal note of his inner life. It is this that affords a
peculiar value to "The Guardian Angel," over and above its technical
beauty. In the concluding lines of the stanzas I am about to quote he
gives the supreme expression to what was his deepest faith, his
profoundest song-motive.
"I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?
* * * * *
"How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?"
After the Adriatic coast was left, they hesitated as to returning to
Florence, the doctors having laid such stress on the climatic
suitability of Pisa for Mrs. Browning. But she felt so sure of herself
in her new strength that it was decided to adventure upon at least one
winter in the queen-city. They were fortunate in obtaining a residence
in the old palace called Casa Guidi, in the Via Maggiore, over against
the church of San Felice, and here, with a few brief intervals, they
lived till death separated them.
On the little terrace outside there was more noble verse fashioned in
the artist's creative silence than we can ever be aware of: but what a
sacred place it must ever be for the lover of poetry! There, one ominous
sultry eve, Browning, brooding over the story of a bygone Roman crime,
foreshadowed "The Ring and the Book," and there, in the many years he
dwelt in Casa Guidi, he wrote some of his finer shorter poems. There,
also, "Aurora Leigh" was born, and many a lyric fresh with the dew of
genius. Who has not looked at the old sunworn house and failed to think
of that night when each square window of San Felice was aglow with
festival lights, and when the summer lightnings fell silently in broad
flame from cloud to cloud: or has failed to hear, down the narrow
street, a little child go singing, 'neath Casa Guidi windows by the
church, _O bella libertà, O bella!_
Better even than these, for happy dwelling upon, is the poem the two
poets lived. Morning and day were full of work, study, or that
pleasurable idleness which for the artist is so often his best
inspiration. Here, on the little terrace, they used to sit together, or
walk slowly to and fro, in conversation that was only less eloquent than
silence. Here one day they received a letter from Horne. There is
nothing of particular note in Mrs. Browning's reply, and yet there are
not a few of her poems we would miss rather than these chance
words--delicate outlines left for the reader to fill in: "We were
reading your letter, together, on our little terrace--walking up and
down reading it--I mean the letter to Robert--and then, at the end,
suddenly turning, lo, just at the edge of the stones, just between the
balustrades, and already fluttering in a breath of wind and about to fly
away over San Felice's church, we caught a glimpse of the feather of a
note to E.B.B. How near we were to the loss of it, to be sure!"
Happier still must have been the quiet evenings in late spring and
summer, when, the one shrouded against possible chills, the other
bare-headed and with loosened coat, walked slowly to and fro in the
dark, conscious of "a busy human sense" below, but solitary on their
balcony beyond the lamplit room.
"While in and out the terrace-plants, and round
One branch of tall datura, waxed and waned
The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower."
An American friend has put on record his impressions of the two poets,
and their home at this time. He had been called upon by Browning, and by
him invited to take tea at Casa Guidi the same evening. There the
visitor saw, "seated at the tea-table of the great room of the palace in
which they were living, a very small, very slight woman, with very long
curls drooping forward, almost across the eyes, hanging to the bosom,
and quite concealing the pale, small face, from which the piercing
inquiring eyes looked out sensitively at the stranger. Rising from her
chair, she put out cordially the thin white hand of an invalid, and in
a few moments they were pleasantly chatting, while the husband strode up
and down the room, joining in the conversation with a vigour, humour,
eagerness, and affluence of curious lore which, with his trenchant
thought and subtle sympathy, make him one of the most charming and
inspiring of companions."
In the autumn the same friend, joined by one or two other acquaintances,
went with the Brownings to Vallombrosa for a couple of days, greatly to
Mrs. Browning's delight, for whom the name had had a peculiar
fascination ever since she had first encountered it in Milton.
She was conveyed up the steep way towards the monastery in a great
basket, without wheels, drawn by two oxen: though, as she tells Miss
Mitford, she did not get into the monastery after all, she and her maid
being turned away by the monks "for the sin of womanhood." She was too
much of an invalid to climb the steeper heights, but loved to lie under
the great chestnuts upon the hill-slopes near the convent. At twilight
they went to the little convent-chapel, and there Browning sat down at
the organ and played some of those older melodies he loved so well.
It is, strangely enough, from Americans that we have the best account of
the Brownings in their life at Casa Guidi: from R.H. Stoddart, Bayard
Taylor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Stillman Hillard, and W.W. Story. I
can find room, however, for but one excerpt:--
"Those who have known Casa Guidi as it was, could hardly enter the
loved rooms now, and speak above a whisper. They who have been so
favoured, can never forget the square anteroom, with its great
picture and pianoforte, at which the boy Browning passed many an
hour--the little dining-room covered with tapestry, and where hung
medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning--the long
room filled with plaster-casts and studies, which was Mrs.
Browning's retreat--and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room
where _she_ always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with
plants, and looks out upon the iron-grey church of Santa Felice.
There was something about this room that seemed to make it a
proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued
light gave it a dreary look, which was enhanced by the
tapestry-covered walls, and the old pictures of saints that looked
out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. Large bookcases
constructed of specimens of Florentine carving selected by Mr.
Browning were brimming over with wise-looking books. Tables were
covered with more gaily-bound volumes, the gifts of brother
authors. Dante's grave profile, a cast of Keats's face and brow
taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial
face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good friend and relative,
little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in
turn, and gave rise to a thousand musings. A quaint mirror,
easy-chairs and sofas, and a hundred nothings that always add an
indescribable charm, were all massed in this room. But the glory
of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low
arm-chair near the door. A small table, strewn with
writing-materials, books, and newspapers, was always by her
side.... After her death, her husband had a careful water-colour
drawing made of this room, which has been engraved more than once.
It still hangs in his drawing-room, where the mirror and one of
the quaint chairs above named still are. The low arm-chair and
small table are in Browning's study--with his father's desk, on
which he has written all his poems."--(_W.W. Story_.)
To Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, Mr. Hillard, and Mr. Story, in particular, we
are indebted for several delightful glimpses into the home-life of the
two poets. We can see Mrs. Browning in her "ideal chamber," neither a
library nor a sitting-room, but a happy blending of both, with the
numerous old paintings in antique Florentine frames, easy-chairs and
lounges, carved bookcases crammed with books in many languages,
bric-a-brac in any quantity, but always artistic, flowers everywhere,
and herself the frailest flower of all.
Mr. Hillard speaks of the happiness of the Brownings' home and their
union as perfect: he, full of manly power, she, the type of the most
sensitive and delicate womanhood. This much-esteemed friend was
fascinated by Mrs. Browning. Again and again he alludes to her exceeding
spirituality: "She is a soul of fire enclosed in a shell of pearl:" her
frame "the transparent veil for a celestial and mortal spirit:" and
those fine words which prove that he too was of the brotherhood of the
poets, "Her tremulous voice often flutters over her words like the flame
of a dying candle over the wick."