known, to read, one morning, in the papers, of her marriage with the
author of ‘Paracelsus,’ and to learn, in the course of the day, that
not only was she married, but that she was absolutely on her way to
Italy. The energy and resolution implied were amazing on the part of
one who had long, as her own poems tell us, resigned herself to lie
down and die.
HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Hawthorne’s first impression of Mrs. Browning, in 1856.]
She is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets of dark hair, a pleasant,
intelligent, and sensitive face, and a low, agreeable voice. She looks
youthful and comely, and is very gentle and lady-like.... She is of
that quickly appreciative and responsive order of women, with whom
I can talk more freely than with any man; and she has, besides, her
own originality, wherewith to help on conversation, though, I should
say, not of a loquacious tendency. We ... talked of Miss Bacon; and
I developed something of that lady’s theory respecting Shakespeare,
greatly to the horror of Mrs. Browning.... On the whole, I like her the
better for loving the man Shakespeare with a personal love. We talked,
too, of Margaret Fuller, who spent her last night in Italy with the
Brownings.... I like her very much.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: ‘Passages from the English Note-Books.’ Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co., 1873.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Brownings in Italy.]
Mrs. Browning is, in many respects, the correlative of her husband. As
he is full of manly power, so she is a type of the most sensitive and
delicate womanhood. She has been a great sufferer from ill health, and
the marks of pain are stamped upon her person and manner. Her figure is
slight, her countenance expressive of genius and sensibility, shaded
by a veil of long, brown locks; and her tremulous voice often flutters
over her words, like the flame of a dying candle over the wick.
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. Her rare and fine genius needs no
setting forth at my hands. She is, also, what is not so generally
known, a woman of uncommon, nay, profound learning.... Nor is she more
remarkable for genius and learning, than for sweetness of temper,
tenderness of heart, depth of feeling, and purity of spirit. It is a
privilege to know such beings, singly and separately, but to see their
powers quickened, and their happiness rounded, by the sacred tie of
marriage, is a cause for peculiar and lasting gratitude. 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 soothing to remember.
GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD: ‘Six Months in Italy.’ Boston: James R. Osgood
& Co., 1871.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “Mignon.”]
She is little, hard-featured, with long, dark ringlets, a pale face,
and plaintive voice--something very impressive in her dark eyes and her
brow. Her general aspect puts me in mind of Mignon--what Mignon might
be in maturity and maternity.
SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter_ in ‘Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge,’
edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “The mother of the beautiful child.”]
It is a pleasant story, told of the street-beggars who walk through Via
Maggio, under the windows of Casa Guidi, that they always spoke of the
English woman who lived in that house, not by her well-known English
name, nor by any softer Italian word, but simply and touchingly as “The
mother of the beautiful child.” This was pleasanter to that woman’s
ears than to “hear the nations praising her far off.”
THEODORE TILTON: _Memorial Preface_ to ‘Last Poems of Mrs. Browning.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Bayard Taylor’s description.]
She was slight and fragile in appearance, with a pale, wasted face,
shaded by masses of soft, chestnut curls, which fell on her cheeks,
and serious eyes of bluish-gray. Her frame seemed to be altogether
disproportionate to her soul. This, at least, was the first impression:
her personality, frail as it appeared, soon exercised its power, and
it seemed a natural thing that she should have written ‘The Cry of the
Children’ or ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.’ I also understood how these
two poets, so different, both intellectually and physically, should
have found their complements in each other. The fortunate balance of
their reciprocal qualities makes them an exception to the rule that
the inter-marriage of authors is unadvisable.
BAYARD TAYLOR: ‘At Home and Abroad.’ (Second Series.) New York: G. P.
Putnam, 1862.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Casa Guidi.]
Casa Guidi, which has been immortalized by Mrs. Browning’s genius,
will be as dear to the Anglo-Saxon traveller as Milton’s Florentine
residence has been heretofore.
Those who have known Casa Guidi as it was, can never forget the square
ante-room, 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; 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 old
iron-gray 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 dreamy 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
book-cases, 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-chair, 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.
---- ----: ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning.’ _Atlantic Monthly_, September,
1861.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: An evening with the Brownings, 1858.]
We went last evening, at eight o’clock, to see the Brownings; and after
some search and enquiry, we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace in
a street not very far from our own. It being dusk, I could not see the
exterior.... The street is a narrow one; but on entering the palace we
found a spacious staircase and ample accommodations of vestibule and
hall, the latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chanting
of priests in a church close by. Browning told us that this was the
first church where an oratorio had ever been performed. He came into
the ante-room to greet us, as did his little boy Robert, whom they call
Pennini for fondness. The latter cognomen is a diminutive of Apennino,
which was bestowed upon him at his first advent into the world because
he was so very small, there being a statue in Florence of colossal size
called Apennino. I never saw such a boy as this before; so slender,
fragile and spirit-like,--not as if he were actually in ill health,
but as if he had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood.
His face is very pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly like
his mother’s.... Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing-room,
and greeted us most kindly,--a pale, small person, scarcely embodied
at all; at any rate only substantial enough to put forth her slender
fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet tenuity of
voice.
She is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards
the human race, although only remotely akin to it. It is wonderful
to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her
eyes. There is not such another figure in the world; and her black
ringlets cluster down into her neck, and make her face look the whiter
by their sable confusion. I could not form any judgment about her age;
it may range anywhere within the limits of human life or elfin life.
When I met her in London, at Lord Houghton’s breakfast-table, she did
not impress me so singularly; for the morning light is more prosaic
than the dim illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room; and
besides, sitting next to her, she did not have occasion to raise her
voice in speaking, and I was not sensible what a slender voice she has.
It is marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive
a creature can impress us, as she does, with the certainty of her
benevolence. It seems to me there were a million chances to one that
she would have been a miracle of acidity and bitterness.
We had some tea and some strawberries, and passed a pleasant evening.
There was no very noteworthy conversation; the most interesting
topic being that disagreeable and now wearisome one of spiritual
communications, as regards which Mrs. Browning is a believer, and her
husband an infidel.... Browning and his wife had both been present
at a spiritual session held by Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the
unearthly hands, one of which had placed a laurel wreath on Mrs.
Browning’s head. Browning, however, avowed his belief that these hands
were affixed to the feet of Mr. Hume, who lay extended in his chair,
with his legs stretched far under the table. The marvellousness of the
fact, as I have read of it, and heard it from other eye-witnesses,
melted strangely away in his hearty gripe, and at the sharp touch of
his logic, while his wife, ever and anon, put in a little gentle word
of expostulation.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: ‘Passages from the French and Italian Note-Books.’
Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1872.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The color of her hair.]
It curiously happens that I first met Mrs. Browning at Rome in 1859,
where and when Hawthorne also first made her acquaintance, I believe. I
remember going through the Vatican with him, and the then ex-President
Pierce, during my sojourn in Rome, in the spring of that year.
Though we both saw Mrs. Browning last in that year, my impressions are
very distinct that her hair was of a dark-chestnut. It did not curl
naturally; but, by one of those artifices of the toilet which all of
her sex and some of mine understand, it was worn, as it has usually
been painted, in side ringlets. Hawthorne’s constitutional propensity
to take sombre views of things may account for the liberty he seems to
have taken with Mrs. Browning’s hair.
JOHN BIGELOW: _The Critic_, September 23, 1882.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Mrs. Browning’s conversation.]
Mrs. Browning’s conversation was most interesting. It was not
characterized by sallies of wit or brilliant repartee, nor was it
of that nature which is most welcome in society. It was frequently
intermingled, with trenchant, quaint remarks, leavened with a quaint,
graceful humor of her own; but it was eminently calculated for a
_tête-à-tête_. Mrs. Browning never made an insignificant remark. All
that she said was always worth hearing; a greater compliment could
not be paid her. She was a most conscientious listener, giving you
her mind and heart, as well as her magnetic eyes. Though the latter
spoke an eager language of their own, she conversed slowly, with a
conciseness and point which, added to a matchless earnestness that was
the predominant trait of her conversation as it was of her character,
made her a most delightful companion. _Persons_ were never her theme,
unless public characters were under discussion, or friends who were to
be praised, which kind office she frequently took upon herself. One
never dreamed of frivolities in Mrs. Browning’s presence, and gossip
felt itself out of place. _Your_self, not _her_self, was always a
pleasant subject to her, calling out all her best sympathies in joy
and yet more in sorrow. Books and humanity, great deeds, and, above
all, politics, which include all the grand questions of the day, were
foremost in her thoughts, and, therefore, oftenest on her lips. I speak
not of religion, for with her everything was religion.
---- ----: ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning,’ _Atlantic Monthly_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Appearance in her late days.]
[Miss Mitford’s] description of twenty-five years ago[6] is true,
every word, of a photograph now lying on our table, copied from
Macaire’s original, made at Havre in 1856, and which Robert Browning
esteems a faithful likeness of his wife. The three-quarter length shows
the comparative stature of the figure, which is here so delicate and
diminutive that we can easily imagine how the story come to be told
(although not true) that her husband drew this same portrait in ‘The
Flight of the Duchess’ when he sketched
----“The smallest lady alive.”
But the one striking feature of the picture is the intellectual and
spiritual expression of the face and head; for here, borne up by
pillars of curls on either side, is just such an arch as she saw in
‘The Vision of Poets’:
“A forehead royal with the truth.”
A photograph, taken in Rome only a month before she died, wears a not
greatly changed expression, except in an added pallor to cheeks always
pale; foretokening the near coming of the shadow of death.
THEODORE TILTON: _Memorial Preface_ to ‘Last Poems of Mrs. Browning.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “The beauty of expression.”]
Hers was not the beauty of feature; it was the loftier beauty of
expression. Her slight figure seemed hardly large enough to contain the
great heart that beat so fervently within, and the soul that expanded
more and more as one year gave place to another. It was difficult to
believe that such a fairy hand could pen thoughts of such ponderous
weight, or that such a still, small voice could utter them with
equal force. But it was Mrs. Browning’s face upon which one loved to
gaze--that face and head which almost lost themselves in the thick
curls of her dark brown hair. That jealous hair could not hide the
broad, fair forehead.... Her large brown eyes were beautiful, and were
in truth the windows of her soul.
---- ----: ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning.’ _Atlantic Monthly._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her characteristic modesty.]
The resemblance between the Brownings, although many exist, are often
more fancied than real. They did not revise each other’s writings.
Neither knew what the other had been doing until it was done. ‘Aurora
Leigh’ was two-thirds written before her husband saw a word of it.
Nor did he know of the existence of the ‘Portuguese Sonnets’ till a
considerable time after the marriage, when she showed them to him for
the first time, and he, in his delight, persuaded her to put them in
print. Otherwise they might never have been published; for with her
characteristic modesty she at first thought them unworthy even of his
reading, to say nothing of the whole world’s. She felt so doubtful of
the merit of ‘Aurora Leigh’ that at one time she laid even that aside
with the idea never to publish it.
[Sidenote: Method of writing.]
Her method of writing was to seize the moment when the mood was upon
her, and to fix her thought hurriedly on the nearest slip of paper.
She was sensitive to interruption while composing, but was too shy
to permit even her friends to see her engaged at her work. When the
servant announced a visitor, the busy poet suddenly hid her paper and
pen, and received her guest as if in perfect leisure for the visit.
Giving her mornings to the instruction of her little son, and holding
herself ready after twelve o’clock to give welcome to any comer, it was
a wonder to many how she could find the needed time to study or write.
[Sidenote: Her revisions.]
She made many and marked changes in her poems in successive editions.
These show her fastidious taste. She was never satisfied to let a
stanza remain as it was. Most of these amendments are for the better,
but some for the worse, as orators who correct their printed speeches
sometimes spoil the best parts. In many cases she substituted not
only new rhymes but new thoughts, turning the verses far out of their
old channels; in others she struck out whole lines and passages as
superfluous; in others she made fitter choice of single words, so
adding vividness to the expression.
THEODORE TILTON: _Memorial Preface_ to ‘Last Poems of Mrs. Browning’.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: How ‘Aurora Leigh’ was written.]
I am still too near ‘Aurora Leigh’ to be quite able to see it all; my
wife used to write it, and lay it down to hear our child spell, or when
a visitor came,--it was thrust under a cushion then. At Paris, a year
ago last March, she gave me the first six books to read, I never having
seen a line before. She then wrote the rest, and transcribed them
in London, where I read them also. I wish, in one sense, that I had
written and she had read it.
ROBERT BROWNING: _Letter to Leigh Hunt_. ‘Correspondence of Leigh
Hunt,’ edited by his son.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Landor’s delight in ‘Aurora Leigh.’]
I am reading a poem full of thought and fascinating with fancy--Mrs.
Browning’s ‘Aurora Leigh.’ In many pages there is the wild imagination
of Shakespeare. I had no idea that any one in this age was capable of
so much poetry. I am half drunk with it. Never did I think I should
have a good hearty draught of poetry again: the distemper had got into
the vineyard that produced it. Here are indeed, even here, some flies
upon the surface, as there always will be upon what is sweet and strong.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR: _Letter to J. Foster_, 1857. ‘Walter Savage
Landor: A Biography,’ by John Forster. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.,
1869.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: George Eliot’s enjoyment.]
We are reading ‘Aurora Leigh,’ for the third time, with more enjoyment
than ever. I know no book that gives me a deeper sense of communion
with a large as well as beautiful mind.
MARIAN EVANS LEWES: _Letter to Sara Hennell_, 1857. ‘George Eliot’s
Life,’ edited by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Sympathetic criticism of the ‘Portuguese Sonnets.’]
I am disposed to consider the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ as, if
not the finest, a portion of the finest subjective poetry in our
literature. Their form reminds us of an English prototype, and it is no
sacrilege to say that their music is showered from a higher and purer
atmosphere than that of the Swan of Avon. We need not enter upon cold
comparison of their respective excellences; but Shakespeare’s personal
poems were the overflow of his impetuous youth: his broader vision,
that took a world within its ken, was absolutely objective; while Mrs.
Browning’s ‘Love Sonnets’ are the outpourings of a woman’s tenderest
emotions, at an epoch when her art was most mature, and her whole
nature exalted by a passion that to such a being comes but once and for
all. Here, indeed, the singer rose to her height. Here she is absorbed
in rapturous utterance, radiant and triumphant with her own joy. The
mists have risen and her sight is clear. Her mouthing and affectation
are forgotten, her lips cease to stammer, the lyrical spirit has full
control. The sonnet, artificial in weaker hands, becomes swift with
feeling, red with a “veined humanity,” the chosen vehicle of a royal
woman’s vows. Graces, felicities, vigor, glory of speech, here are so
crowded as to tread each upon the other’s sceptred pall. The first
sonnet, equal to any in our tongue, is an overture containing the
motive of the canticle; “not Death, but Love” had seized her unaware.
The growth of this happiness, her worship of its bringer, her doubts
of her own worthiness, are the theme of these poems. She is in a sweet
and, to us, pathetic surprise at the delight which had at last fallen
to her:
“The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers.”
Never was man or minstrel so honored as her “most gracious singer of
high poems.” In the tremor of her love she undervalued herself,--with
all her feebleness of body, it was enough for any man to live within
the atmosphere of such a soul! In fine, the ‘Portuguese Sonnets,’
whose title was a screen behind which the singer poured out her full
heart, are the most exquisite poetry hitherto written by a woman, and
of themselves justify us in pronouncing their author the greatest of
her sex.... An analogy with ‘In Memoriam’ may be derived from their
arrangement and their presentation of a single analytic theme; but
Tennyson’s poem, though exhibiting equal art, more subtile reasoning
and comprehensive thought, is devoted to the analysis of philosophic
grief, while the ‘Sonnets’ reveal to us that love which is the most
ecstatic of human emotions and worth all other gifts in life.
E. C. STEDMAN: ‘Victorian Poets.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1881.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her timidity.]
It was my privilege to live for years near by, and in intimate
intercourse with, the divinity of Casa Guidi, her whose genius has
immortalized the walls as well as the windows of that antique palace;
for a tablet has been inserted by the grateful Italians, whose cause
she so eloquently espoused, in the grand entrance hall, recording
her name, deeds, and long residence there, with the tribute of their
thanks and love. Yet I had not known the Brownings personally, in the
more intimate sense of acquaintanceship, till that blessed day, when
in the balm of a June morning, we started together in an open carriage
for Pratolino, taking with us a manservant, who carried the basket
containing our picnic dinner, of which only four were to partake. A
larger party would have spoiled the whole. A more timid nature was
never joined to a bolder spirit than in Elizabeth Browning. She fairly
shrunk from observation, and could not endure mixed company, though
in her heart kind and sympathetic with all. Her timidity was both
instinctive and acquired; having been an invalid and student from her
youth up, she had lived almost the life of a recluse; thus it shocked
her to be brought face to face with inquisitive strangers, or the world
in general. On this very account, and because her health so rarely
permitted her to make excursions of any kind, she enjoyed, as the
accustomed do not, and the unappreciative cannot, any unwonted liberty
in nature’s realm, and doubly with a chosen few sympathetic companions,
to whom she could freely express her thoughts and emotions. Like most
finely strung beings, she spoke through a changeful countenance every
change of feeling.
[Sidenote: At Patrolino.]
Never shall I forget how her face--the plain, mortal, beautiful in its
immortal expression--lighted up to greet us as our carriage drove into
the _porte-cochere_ of Casa Guidi on that memorable morning. Simple as
a child, the honest enjoyment which she anticipated in our excursion
beamed through her countenance. Those large, dark, dreamy eyes--usually
like deep wells of thought--sparkled with delight; while her adored
Robert’s generous capacity for pleasure showed even a happier front
than ordinary; reflecting her joy, as we turned into the street and out
of the city gate towards Patrolino. The woman of usually many thoughts
and few words grew a talker under the stimulus of open country air;
while her husband, usually talkative, became the silent enjoyer of her
vocal gladness, a pleasure too rarely afforded him to be interrupted.
We, of choice, only talked enough to keep our _improvisatrice_ in the
humor of utterance.
[Sidenote: Mr. Browning talks of his wife.]