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 _Athenaeum_, 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 git_ 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 Aeschylus 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!"