1846-1850
"And on her lover's arm she leant
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
To that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, beyond the day,
Through all the world she followed him."
MARRIAGE AND ITALY--"IN THAT NEW WORLD"--THE HAUNTS OF PETRARCA--THE MAGIC
LAND--IN PISA--VALLOMBROSA--"UN BEL GIRO"--GUERCINO'S ANGEL--CASA
GUIDI--BIRTH OF ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING--BAGNI DI LUCCA--"SONNETS
FROM THE PORTUGUESE"--THE ENCHANTMENT OF ITALY.
Paris, "and such a strange week it was," wrote Mrs. Browning to Miss
Mitford; "whether in the body, or out of the body, I can scarcely tell.
Our Balzac should be flattered beyond measure by my even thinking of him
at all." The journey from London to Paris was not then quite the swift and
easy affair it now is, the railroad between Paris and Havre not being then
completed beyond Rouen; still, such an elixir of life is happiness that
Mrs. Browning arrived in the French Capital feeling much better than when
she left London. Mrs. Jameson had only recently taken leave of Miss
Barrett on her sofa, and sympathetically offered to take her to Italy
herself for the winter with her niece; Miss Barrett had replied: "Not only
am I grateful to you, but happy to be grateful to you," but she had given
no hint of the impending marriage. Mrs. Jameson's surprise, on receiving
a note from Mrs. Browning, saying she was in Paris, was so great that her
niece, Geraldine Bate (afterward Mrs. MacPherson of Rome), asserted that
her aunt's amazement was "almost comical." Mrs. Jameson lost no time in
persuading the Brownings to join her and her niece at their quiet pension
in the Rue Ville l'Eveque, where they remained for a week,--this "strange
week" to Mrs. Browning.
In Paris they visited the galleries of the Louvre, but did little
sight-seeing beyond, "being satisfied with the idea of Paris," she said.
To a friend Mrs. Jameson wrote:
"I have also here a poet and a poetess--two celebrities who have run
away and married under circumstances peculiarly interesting, and such
as render imprudence the height of prudence. Both excellent; but God
help them! for I know not how the two poet heads and poet hearts will
get on through this prosaic world."
As for ways and means, however, the Brownings were sufficiently provided.
He had a modest independence, and she also had in her own right a little
fortune of some forty thousand pounds, yielding three or four hundred
pounds a year; but in the July preceding their marriage Browning, with his
sensitive honor, insisted upon her making a will bequeathing this capital
to her own family. In a letter to him dated July 27 of that summer the
story of his insistence on this is revealed in her own words: "I will
write the paper as you bid me.... You are noble in all things ... but I
will not discuss it so as to tease you.... I send you the paper therefore,
to that end, and only to that end...." The "document," by Browning's
insistence, gave her property to her two sisters, in equal division, or,
in case of their death, to the surviving brothers. Nothing less than this
would satisfy Robert Browning.
Meantime, there was the natural London comment. Wordsworth observed: "So
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett have gone off together! It is to be
hoped they can understand each other, for no one else can."
Mr. Kenyon wrote "the kindest letter" to them both, and pronounced them
"justified to the uttermost," and to Mrs. Browning he said: "I considered
that you had imperiled your life upon this undertaking and I still thought
you had done wisely!" But by that magic alchemy of love and happiness Mrs.
Browning only gained constantly in strength, and Mrs. Jameson pronounced
them "wise people, whether wild poets or not."
Among the interesting comments on the marriage was Joseph Arnould's letter
to Alfred Domett, under date of November of that year. He wrote:
"... I think the last piece of news I told you of was Browning's
marriage to Miss Barrett. She is, you know, our present greatest
living English poetess: ... she has been in the most absolute and
enforced seclusion from society; cultivating her mind to a wonderful
amount of accomplishment, instructing herself in all languages,
reading Chrysostom in the original Greek, and publishing the best
metrical translation that has yet appeared of the 'Prometheus
Bound'--having also found time to write three volumes of poetry, the
last of which raised her name to a place second only to that of
Browning and Tennyson, amongst all those who are not repelled by
eccentricities of external form from penetrating into the soul and
quintessential spirit of poetry that quickens the mould into which the
poet has cast it. Well, this lady, so gifted, so secluded, so
tyrannized over, fell in love with Browning in the spirit before ever
she saw him in the flesh--in plain English, loved the writer, before
she knew the man. Imagine, you who know him, the effect which his
graceful bearing, high demeanor, and noble speech must have had on
such a mind when first she saw the man of her visions in the twilight
of her darkened room. She was at once in love as a poet-soul only can
be; and Browning, as by contagion or electricity, was no less from
the first interview wholly in love with her.... He is a glorious
fellow! Oh, I forgot to say that the _soi-disante_ invalid, once
emancipated from the paternal despotism, has had a wondrous revival,
or rather, a complete metamorphosis; walks, rides, eats, and drinks
like a young and healthy woman,--in fact, is a healthy woman of, I
believe, some five and thirty. But one word covers all; they are in
Love, who lends his own youth to everything."
The journey from Paris to Italy, if less comfortable and expeditious than
now, was certainly more romantic, and the Brownings, in company with Mrs.
Jameson and her niece, fared forth to Orleans, and thence to Avignon,
where they rested for two days, making a poetic pilgrimage to Vaucluse,
where Petrarca had sought solitude. "There at the very source of the
'_chiare, fresche e dolci acque_,'" records Mrs. MacPherson in her
biography of Mrs. Jameson, "Mr. Browning took his wife up in his arms, and
carrying her across through the shallow, curling waters, seated her on a
rock that rose throne-like in the middle of the stream. Thus Love and
Poetry took a new possession of the spot immortalized by Petrarca's
fancy."
From Marseilles they sailed to Livorno (Leghorn), the port only a few
miles from Pisa. The voyage was a delight to Mrs. Browning. She was
enchanted with the beautiful panorama of the Riviera as they sailed down
the coast, where the terraces of mountains rise, with old castles and
ruins often crowning their summits, and the white gleam of the hill-towns
against a background of blue sky. All the Spezzia region was haunted by
memories of Shelley; Lerici, where last he had lived, was plainly in view,
and they gazed sadly at Viareggio, encircled by pine woods and mountains,
where the body of the poet had been found. In Pisa they took rooms in the
Collegio Fernandino, in the Piazza del Duomo, in that corner of Pisa
wherein are grouped the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, and
the Campo Santo, all in this consummate beauty of silence and
seclusion,--a splendor of abandoned glory. All the stir of life (if,
indeed, one may dream of life in Pisa) is far away on the other side of
the city; to this corner is left the wraith-like haunted atmosphere, where
only shadows flit over the grass, and the sunset reflections linger on the
Tower. A statue of Cosimo di Medici was near; the Lanfranchi palace, where
Byron had lived, was not far away, on the banks of the Arno. They quite
preferred the Duomo and the Campo Santo to social festivities, and
Professor Ferrucci offered them all the hospitalities of the University
library. They had an apartment of four rooms, "matted and carpeted,"
coffee and rolls in the morning, dinner at the Trattoria, "thrushes and
chianti with a marvelous cheapness, no trouble, no cook, no kitchen; the
prophet Elijah, or the lilies of the field, took as little thought for
their dining," writes Mrs. Browning, "and it exactly suits us. At nine we
have our supper of roast chestnuts and grapes.... My head goes round
sometimes. I was never happy before in my life.... And when I am so good
as to let myself be carried up-stairs, and so angelical as to sit still on
the sofa, and so considerate as not to put my foot into a puddle, why, my
duty is considered done to a perfection worthy all adoration.... Mrs.
Jameson and Geraldine are staying in the hotel, and we manage to see them
every day; so good and true and affectionate she is, and so much we shall
miss her when she goes.... Our present residence we have taken for six
months, but we have dreams, and we discuss them like soothsayers over the
evening grapes and chestnuts."
That in London Mrs. Jameson, on her first call on Miss Barrett, should
have so winningly insisted on being admitted to her room as to be
successful, almost to Miss Barrett's own surprise, seems, when seen in
connection with the way in which Fate was to throw them together
afterward, in Italy, to have been one of those "foreordained" happenings
of life.
They heard a musical mass for the dead in the Campo Santo; they walked
under orange trees with golden fruit hanging above their heads; they took
drives to the foot of the mountains, and watched the reflections in the
little lake of Ascuno. Mrs. Browning, from her windows, could see the
cathedral summit glitter whitely, between the blue sky and its own yellow
marble walls. Beautiful and tender letters came to them both from Mr.
Kenyon, and they heard that Carlyle had said that he hoped more from
Robert Browning, for the people of England, than from any other living
English writer. All of these things entered into the very fiber of their
Pisan days. Pisa seemed to her a beautiful town,--it could not be less,
she felt, with Arno and its palaces, and it was to her full of repose, but
not desolate. Meantime, Mr. Browning was preparing for a new edition of
his collected poems.
Curiously, all the biographers of Robert Browning have recorded that it
was during this sojourn in Pisa that the "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
were first made known to him. Dr. Dowden quotes the story as given by Mr.
Edmund Gosse, and Mr. Gosse cites Browning himself as his authority. Yet
there was some mistake, as the Sonnets were not seen by Mr. Browning till
some time later.
Robert Barrett Browning, in Florence, in the spring of 1910, in reply to a
question asked by the writer of this book in regard to the accuracy of
this impression, replied that both Mr. Gosse and Dr. Dowden were mistaken;
as his mother did not show these "Sonnets" to his father until the summer
of 1849, when they were at Bagni di Lucca. Mr. Gosse must in some way have
mistaken Mr. Browning's words, and the error has perpetuated itself
through every successive biography of the poet.
The first home of the Brownings in Florence was in an apartment near
Santa Maria Novella, where the Italian sunshine burned fiercely, and where
Mrs. Browning exclaimed that she began to comprehend the possibility of
St. Lawrence's ecstasies on the gridiron. "Yet there have been cool
intermissions," she wrote, "and as we have spacious and airy rooms, and as
we can step out of the window on a balcony terrace which is quite private,
and swims over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon
watermelons, and iced water, and figs, and all manner of fruit, we bear
the heat with angelic patience."
There was a five days' interlude at Vallombrosa, which the poets vainly
entreated the monks to prolong to two months, but the brethren would have
none of the presence of two women,--Mrs. Browning and her maid, Wilson. So
they perforce left these fascinating hills, "a sea of hills looking alive
among the clouds." Still further up above the monastery was the old
Hermitage now transformed into a hotel. It was here that Migliorotti
passed many years, asserting that he could only think of it as Paradise,
and thus it came to be known as Paradisino, the name it still bears. Far
below in a dim distance lies Florence, with her domes and towers on which
the sunshine glitters, or the white moonlight of the Val d'Arno shines;
and on every hand are the deep valleys and crevasses, the Val di Sieve,
the Val di Casentino, and the height of San Miniato in Alpe. Castles and
convents, or their ruins, abound; and here Dante passed, and there St.
Benedict, and again is the path still holy with the footsteps of St.
Francis. The murmuring springs that feed the Arno are heard in the hills;
and the vast solitudes of the wood, with their ruined chapels and shrines,
made this sojourn to the Brownings something to be treasured in memory
forever. They even wandered to that beautiful old fifteenth-century
church, Santa Maria delle Grazie Vallombrosella, "a daughter of the
monastery of Vallombrosa," where were works of Robbia, and saw the blue
hills rise out of the green forests in their infinite expanse.
[Illustration: OLD MONASTERY AT VALLOMBROSA
"_And Vallombrosa we two went to see_
_Last June beloved companion..._"
Casa Guidi Windows.]
When they fared forth for Vallombrosa, it was at four o'clock in the
morning, Mrs. Browning being all eagerness and enthusiasm for this
matutinal pilgrimage. Reaching Pelago, their route wound for five miles
along a "_via non rotabile_," through the most enchanting scenery, to
Pontassieve.
"Oh! such mountains," wrote Mrs. Browning of this
never-to-be-forgotten journey, "as if the whole world were alive with
mountains--such ravines--black in spite of flashing waters in
them--such woods and rocks--traveled in basket sledges drawn by four
white oxen--Wilson and I and the luggage--and Robert riding step by
step. We were four hours doing the five miles, so you may fancy what
rough work it was. Whether I was most tired or charmed was a _tug_
between body and soul.
"The worst was that," she continued, "there being a new abbot at the
monastery--an austere man, jealous of his sanctity and the approach of
women--our letter, and Robert's eloquence to boot, did nothing for us,
and we were ingloriously and ignominiously expelled at the end of five
days."
While the Brownings were in Vallombrosa Arnould wrote to Alfred Domett:
"Browning is spending a luxurious year in Italy--is, at this present
writing, with his poetess bride dwelling in some hermit hut in
Vallombrosa, where the Etruscan shades high overarched embower. He
never fails to ask pressingly about you, and I give him all your
messages. I would to God he would purge his style of
obscurities,--that the wide world would, and the gay world and even
the less illuminated part of the thinking world, know his greatness
even as we do. I find myself reading 'Paracelsus' and the 'Dramatic
Lyrics' more often than anything else in verse."
They descended, perforce, into Florence again, burning sunshine and all,
the abbot of the monastery having someway confounded their pleadings with
the temptation of St. Anthony, as something to be as heroically resisted.
They set up their household gods in the shades of the Via delle Belle
Donne, near the Duomo, where dinners, "unordered," Mrs. Browning said,
"come through the streets, and spread themselves on our table, as hot as
if we had smelt cutlets hours before." She found Florence "unspeakably
beautiful," both by grace of nature and of art, but they planned to go to
Rome in the early autumn, taking an apartment "over the Tarpeian rock."
Later this plan was relinquished, and with an apartment on their hands for
six months they yet abandoned it, for want of sunshine, and removed to
Casa Guidi.
"Think what we have done," wrote Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford; "taken
two houses, that is, two apartments, each for six months, pre-signing
the contract. You will set it down to excellent poet's work in the way
of domestic economy, but the fault was altogether mine, for my
husband, to please me, took rooms with which I was not pleased for
three days, through the absence of sunshine. The consequence was that
we had to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go, ourselves, but
you can scarcely fancy the wonderful difference which the sun makes in
Italy. So away we came into the blaze of him into the Piazza Pitti;
precisely opposite the Grand Duke's palace; I with my remorse, and
poor Robert without a single reproach. Any other man, a little lower
than the angels, would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere
relief of the thing,--but as for his being angry with me for any cause
except not eating enough dinner, the said sun would turn the wrong way
first."
Mrs. Browning's dog, Flush, was a member of the household not to be
ignored, and her one source of consolation, in being turned away from the
Vallombrosa summer, lay in the fact that "Flush hated it," and was
frightened by the vast and somber pine forests. "Flush likes civilized
life," said Mrs. Browning laughingly, "and the society of little dogs
with turned-up tails, such as abound in Florence."
So now they bestowed themselves in "rooms yellow with sunshine from
morning till night," in Casa Guidi, where, "for good omen," they looked
down on the old gray church of San Felice. There was a large, square
anteroom, where the piano was placed, with one large picture, picked up in
an obscure street in Florence; and a little dining-room, whose walls were
covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and
of Robert Browning; a long, narrow room, wraith-like with plaster casts
and busts, was Mr. Browning's study, while she had her place in the large
drawing-room, looking out upon the ancient church. Its old pictures of
saints, gazing sadly from their sepulchral frames of black wood, with here
and there a tapestry, and with the lofty, massive bookcases of Florentine
carving, all gave the room a medieval look. Almost could one fancy that it
enthroned the "fairy lady of Shalott," who might weave
"... from day to day,
A magic web of colors gay."
Dante's grave profile, a cast of the face of Keats taken after death, and
a few portraits of friends, added their interest to the atmosphere of a
salon that seemed made for poets' uses. There were vast expanses of
mirrors in the old carved Florentine frames, a colossal green velvet sofa,
suggesting a catafalque, and a supernaturally deep easy-chair, in the same
green velvet, which was Mrs. Browning's favorite seat when she donned her
singing robes. Near this low arm-chair was always her little table, strewn
with writing materials, books, and newspapers. Other tables in the
_salotto_ bore gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. On the
floor of a bedroom were the arms (in scabola), of the last count who had
lived in this apartment, and there was a picturesque oil-jar, to hold
rain-water, which Mrs. Browning declared would just hold the Captain of
the Forty Thieves. All in all, the poets vowed they would not change homes
with the Grand Duke himself, who was their neighbor in the Palazzo Pitti
at the distance of a stone's throw. In the late afternoons they would
wander out to the Loggia dei Lanzi, where Mrs. Browning greatly admired
Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa, and they watched "the divine
sunsets on the Arno, turning it to pure gold under the bridges." Sometimes
they were joined by Hiram Powers, who was one of their earliest friends in
Florence, "our chief friend and favorite," Mrs. Browning said of him, and
she found him a "simple, straightforward, genial American, as simple as
the man of genius he has proved himself need be." Another friend of these
early days was Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, somewhat a poet,
withal, who, with her mother, was domiciled in the Villa Careggi, in which
Lorenzo il Magnifico died, and which was loaned to the Boyles by Lord
Holland. Miss Boyle frequently dropped in on them in the evening, "to
catch us at hot chestnuts and mulled wine," said Mrs. Browning, "and a
good deal of laughing she and Robert make between them." On the terrace of
Casa Guidi orange trees and camellias bloomed, and the salons with their
"rococo chairs, spring sofas, carved bookcases, and satin from Cardinals'
beds," were a picturesque haunt. The ideal and poetic life of Mrs.
Browning, so far from isolating her from the ordinary day and daylight
duties, invested these, instead, with glow and charm and playful repartee;
and, indeed, her never-failing sense of humor transformed any
inconvenience or inadvertence into amusement. She, who is conceded to have
written the finest sonnets since Shakespeare, could also mend a coat for
her husband with a smile and a Greek epigram.
[Illustration: THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
GUERCINO. CHURCH OF SAN AGOSTINO, FANO, ITALY
"_Guercino drew this angel I saw teach_
(_Alfred, dear friend!_) _that little child to pray._"
The Guardian Angel; A Picture at Fano.]
Joseph Arnould again wrote to their mutual friend, Domett:
"Browning and his wife are still in Florence; both ravished with Italy
and Italian life; so much so, that I think for some years they will
make it the Paradise of their poetical exile. I hold fast to my faith
in 'Paracelsus.' Browning and Carlyle are my two crowning men amongst
the highest English minds of the day. Third comes Alfred Tennyson....
By-the-bye, did you ever happen upon Browning's 'Pauline'? a strange,
wild (in parts singularly magnificent) poet-biography; his own early
life as it presented itself to his own soul viewed poetically; in
fact, psychologically speaking, his 'Sartor Resartus'; it was written
and published three years before 'Paracelsus,' when Shelley was his
God."
A little later Arnould wrote again:
"Browning and his wife are still in Florence, and stay there till the
summer; he is bringing out another edition of his poems (except
'Sordello'), Chapman and Hall being his publishers, Moxon having
declined. He writes always most affectionately, and never forgets kind
inquiries about and kind messages to you."
Allured by resplendent tales of Fano, the Brownings made a trip to that
seaside hamlet, but found it uninhabitable in the late summer heat. A
statue in the Piazza commemorated the ancient _Fanum Fortunae_ of
tradition, and in the cathedral of San Fortunato were frescoes by
Domenichino, and in the _chiesa_ of Sant' Agostino was the celebrated
painting of Sant' Angelo Custode, by Guercino, which suggested to Browning
his poem "The Guardian Angel." The tender constancy of Browning's
friendship for Alfred Domett is in evidence in this poem, and the beauty
of his reference to his wife,--
"My angel with me, too,..."
lingers with the reader.
In no poem of his entire work has Browning given so complete a revelation
of his own inner life as in this memorable lyric. The picture, dim as is
the light in which it is seen, is one of the most impressive of all
Guercino's works. In the little church of San Paterniano is a "Marriage of
the Virgin," by Guercino, and in the Palazzo del Municipio of Fano is
Guercino's "Betrothal of the Virgin," and the "David" of Domenichino.
The Brownings while in Fano made the excursion to the summit of Monte
Giove, an hour's drive from the Piazza, where was the old monastery and a
wonderful view of the Adriatic, and of the panorama of the Apennines. "We
fled from Fano after three days," wrote Mrs. Browning, "and finding
ourselves cheated out of our dream of summer coolness, we resolved on
substituting for it what the Italians call '_un bel giro_.' So we went to
Ancona ... where we stayed a week, living on fish and cold water." They
found Ancona "a straggling sea city, holding up against the brown rocks,
and elbowing out the purple tides," and Mrs. Browning felt an inclination
to visit it again when they might find a little air and shadow. They went
on to Loreto, and then to Ravenna, where in the early dawn of a summer
morning they stood by the tomb of Dante, deeply touched by the
inscription. All through this journey they had "wonderful visions of
beauty and glory." Returning to Florence, to their terraces, orange trees,
and divine sunsets, one of their earliest visitors in Casa Guidi was
Father Prout, who had chanced to be standing on the dock at Livorno when
they first landed in Italy, from the journey from France, and who now
appeared in Florence on his way to Rome. Mr. Browning had fallen ill after
their trip to Fano, and Father Prout prescribed for him "port wine and
eggs," which _regime_, combined with the racy conversation of the genial
priest, seemed efficacious.
In the meantime Mrs. Browning stood with her husband by the tomb of
Michael Angelo in Santa Croce; she saw the Venus, the "divine Raphaels."
The Peruzzi chapel had then recently been restored--some exquisite
frescoes by Giotto being among the successful restorations. The
"mountainous marble masses" of the Duomo, "tessellated marbles climbing
into the sky, self-crowned with that prodigy of marble domes," struck Mrs.
Browning as the wonder of all architecture.
The political conditions of Italy began to enlist her interest. In June of
1846 Pio Nono had ascended the Papal throne, preceded by a reputation for
a liberal policy, and it was even hoped that he would not oppose the
formation of a United Italy. The papal and the temporal government was
still one, but Pius IX was a statesman as well as a churchman. England had
especially commissioned Lord Minto to advocate reform, and the enthusiasts
for Italian liberty received him with acclaim. The disasters of 1848 were
still in the unrevealed future, and a new spirit was stirring all over the
Italian kingdom. Piedmont was looked to with hope; and the Grand Duke of
Tuscany had instituted a National Guard, as the first step toward popular
government. The great topic of the day was the new hope of Italy. In
Florence the streets and piazzas were vocal with praises of the Grand
Duke. On one night that Browning went to the opera the tumult grew
intense, and the Duke was escorted back to Palazzo Pitti with thousands of
wax torchlights and a blaze of glory and cries of "Eviva! Eviva!"
Browning, however, distrusted Pio Nono, thinking him weak, and events
proved that his opinion was justified.
The winter of 1847-1848 was passed by the Brownings in Casa Guidi. "I wish
you could see what rooms we have," wrote Mrs. Browning to her husband's
sister, Sarianna: "what ceilings, what height and breadth, what a double
terrace for orange trees; how cool, how likely to be warm, how perfect
every way!"
The poets were constantly engaged in their work. Mrs. Browning began her
long poem, "Casa Guidi Windows," and many of Browning's lyrics that
appeared in the collection called "Men and Women" were written at this
period. They passed much time in the galleries and churches. They drove in
the beautiful environs of Florence. The pictures, history, and legends
entered into their lives to serve in later days as poetic material. In the
brief twilight of winter days they often strolled into the old gray church
of San Felice, on which their windows looked out, where Browning would
gratify his passion for music by evolving from the throbbing keys of the
organ some faint Toccata of Galuppi's, while his wife smiled and listened,
and the tide of Florentine life flowed by in the streets outside. Casa
Guidi is almost opposite the Palazzo Pitti, so that Mrs. Browning had easy
access to her beloved Madonnas in the Pitti gallery, which to her husband,
also, was so unfailing a resource.
One of Mrs. Browning's American admirers, and one of the reviewers of her
poems, George Stillman Hillard, visited Florence that winter, and passed
more than one evening in Casa Guidi with the Brownings. Of Mrs. Browning
he wrote:
"Mrs. Browning is in many respects the correlative of her husband....
I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent
veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire
enclosed in a shell of pearl.... Nor is she more remarkable for genius
and learning than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth
of feeling, and purity of spirit.... A union so complete as theirs--in
which the mind has nothing to crave, nor the heart to sigh for--is
cordial to behold and cheering to remember."
Of all Italy Mr. Hillard perhaps best loved Florence, finding there an
indescribable charm, "a blending of present beauty and traditional
interest; but then Florence is alive," he added, "and not enslaved." It
was probably Hillard who suggested to William Wetmore Story that he
should meet Browning. At all events this meeting took place, initiating
the friendship that endured "forty years, without a break," and that was
one of the choicest social companionships.
The spring of 1849 brought new joy to Casa Guidi, for on March 9 was born
their son, who was christened Robert Wiedemann Barrett, the middle name
(which in his manhood he dropped) being the maiden name of the poet's
mother. The passion of both husband and wife for poetry was now quite
equaled by that for parental duties, which they "caught up," said Mrs.
Browning, "with a kind of rapture." Mr. Browning would walk the terraces
where orange trees and oleanders blossomed, with the infant in his arms,
and in the summer, when they visited Spezzia, and the haunt of Shelley at
Lurici, they wandered five miles into the mountains, the baby with them,
on horseback and donkey-back. The child grew rounder and rosier; and Mrs.
Browning was able to climb hills and help her husband to lose himself in
the forests.
The death of Browning's mother immediately after the birth of his son was
a great sadness to the poet, and one fully shared by his wife, who wrote
to Miss Browning: "I grieve with you, as well as for you; for though I
never saw her face, I loved that pure and tender spirit.... Robert and I
dwell on the hope that you and your father will come to us at once.... If
Florence is too far off, is there any other place where we could meet and
arrange for the future?"
The Brownings went for the summer to Bagni di Lucca, after the little
_detour_ on the Mediterranean coast, where they lingered in the white
marble mountains of Carrara. In Lucca they passed long summer hours in the
beautiful Duomo, which had been consecrated by Pope Alexander II in the
eleventh century. The beauty and the solitude charmed the poets; the
little Penini was the "most popular of babies," and when Wilson carried
the child out in the sunshine the Italians would crowd around him and
exclaim, "_Che bel bambino!_" They had given him the pet Italian name
"Penini," which always persisted. The Austrians had then taken possession
of Florence, and Leopoldo, "L'intrepido," as the Italians asserted,
remained quietly in the Palazzo Pitti. Browning, writing to Mrs. Jameson,
says there is little for his wife to tell, "for she is not likely to
encroach upon my story which I could tell of her entirely angel nature, as
divine a heart as God ever made." The poet with his wife and Wilson and
the baby made almost daily excursions into the forests and mountains, up
precipitous fays and over headlong ravines; dining "with the goats," while
the baby "lay on a shawl, rolling and laughing." The contrast of this
mountain-climbing Mrs. Browning, with her husband and child, and the Miss
Barrett of three or four years before, lying on a sofa in a darkened room,
is rather impressive. The picture of one day is suggested by Mrs.
Browning's description in a letter to Miss Mitford, where she writes:
"... I have performed a great exploit, ridden on a donkey five miles
deep into the mountains, to an almost inaccessible volcanic ground not
far from the stars. Robert on horseback, Wilson and the nurse with
baby, on other donkeys; guides, of course. We set off at eight in the
morning and returned at six P. M., after dining on the mountain
pinnacle.... The scenery, sublime and wonderful,... innumerable
mountains bound faintly with the gray sea, and not a human
habitation."
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO DANTE, IN THE PIAZZA DI SANTA CROCE.
STEFANO RICCI.
"_....The architect and hewer_
_Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb._"
Casa Guidi Windows.]
It was during this _villeggiatura_ that Mrs. Browning, one morning after
their breakfast, with shy sweetness, tucked the pages of the "Sonnets"
into her husband's pocket and swiftly vanished. Robert Barrett Browning,
who, as already noted, gave the history of this poetic interlude _viva
voce_, has also recorded it in writing, as follows:
What earthly vocabulary can offer fit words in which to speak of
celestial beauty? How these exquisite "Sonnets" tell the story of that
romance of Genius and Love,--from the woman's first thrill of interest in
the poetry of an unknown poet, to the hour when he, "the princely giver,"
brought to her "the gold and purple" of his heart
"For such as I to take or leave withal,"
and she questions
"Can it be right to give what I can give?"
with the fear that her delicacy of health should make such gifts
"Be counted with the ungenerous."
But she thinks of how he "was in the world a year ago," and thus she
drinks
"Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech,--
* * * * *
... Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight."
And the questioning,--
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach,...
... I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."
Returning to Florence in October, Browning soon began the preparation for
his poem, "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," and Mrs. Browning arranged for a
new one-volume edition of her poems, to include "The Seraphim," and the
poems that had appeared in the same volume, and also the poems appearing
in 1844, many of them revised.
Marchesa d'Ossoli, whom the Brownings had heretofore known as Margaret
Fuller, surprised them by appearing in Florence with her husband and
child, the private marriage having taken place some two years before. The
Greenoughs, the Storys, and Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Pearse Cranch were
all in Florence, and were all habitues of Casa Guidi. Mr. Cranch, poet,
painter, and musician, was the kindly friend of Longfellow and of Lowell
in their Cambridge homes, and the Greenoughs and Storys were also of the
Cambridge circle. To friends at home the Marchesa wrote of going to the
opera with the Greenoughs, and that she saw the Brownings often, "and I
love and admire them more and more," she continued. "Mr. Browning enriches
every hour passed with him, and he is a most true, cordial, and noble
man."
The Florentine days have left their picturings: Mr. Story opens a studio,
and while he is modeling, Mrs. Story reads to him from Monckton Milnes's
Life of Keats, which Mr. Browning loaned them. Mrs. Story drives to Casa
Guidi to carry Mrs. Browning her copy of "Jane Eyre," and Mrs. Greenough
takes both Mrs. Story and Mrs. Browning to drive in the Cascine. Two
American painters, Frank Boott and Frank Heath, are in Florence, and are
more or less caught up in the Casa Guidi life; and the coterie all go to
Mrs. Trollope's to see fancy costumes arranged for a ball to be given at
Sir George Hamilton's. In one of the three villas on Bellosguardo Miss Isa
Blagden was now domiciled. For more than a quarter of a century Miss
Blagden was a central figure in English society in Florence. She became
Mrs. Browning's nearest and most intimate friend, and she was the ardently
prized friend of the Trollopes also, and of Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who
shared her villa during one spring when Florence was in her most radiant
beauty. "Isa was a very bright, warm-hearted, clever little woman," said
Thomas Adolphus Trollope of her; "who knew everybody, and was, I think,
more universally beloved among us than any other individual." Miss Blagden
had written one or two novels, of little claim, however, and after her
death a small volume of her poems was published, but all these had no more
than the mere _succes d'estime_, as apparently the pen was with her, as
with Margaret Fuller, a non-conductor; but as a choice spirit, of the most
beautiful and engaging qualities of companionship, "Isa," as she was
always caressingly called, is still held in memory. Madame Pasquale
Villari, the wife of the great historian and the biographer of Machiavelli
and of Savonarola, well remembers Miss Blagden, who died, indeed, in her
arms in the summer of 1872.
The intimate friendship between Mrs. Browning and Miss Blagden was
initiated in the early months of the residence of the Brownings in
Florence; but it was in this winter of 1849-1850 that they began to see
each other so constantly. The poems of Matthew Arnold were published that
winter, among which Mrs. Browning especially liked "The Deserted Merman"
and "The Sick King of Bokkara," and about this time the authorship of
"Jane Eyre" was revealed, and Charlotte Bronte discovered under the
_nom-de-plume_ of Currer Bell.
During the time that Mrs. Browning had passed at Torquay, before her
marriage, she had met Theodosia Garrow, whose family were on intimate
terms with Mr. Kenyon. Miss Barrett and Miss Garrow became friends, and
when they met again it was in Florence, Miss Garrow having become the wife
of Thomas Adolphus Trollope. Hiram Powers in these days was domiciled in
the Via dei Serragli, in close proximity to Casa Guidi, and he frequently
dropped in to have his morning coffee with the Brownings.
[Illustration: THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.]
Landor had been for some years in his villa on the Fiesolean slope, not
far from Maiano, where Leigh Hunt had wandered, dreaming of Boccaccio. Two
scenes of the "Decameron" were laid in this region, and the deep ravine
at the foot of one of the neighboring hills was the original of the
"Valley of the Ladies." Not far away had been the house of Machiavelli;
and nestling among the blue hills was the little white village of
Settignano, where Michael Angelo was born. Leigh Hunt had been on terms of
the most cordial intimacy with Landor, whom he described as "living among
his paintings and hospitalities"; and Landor had also been visited by
Emerson, and by Lord and Lady Blessington, by Nathaniel Parker Willis
(introduced by Lady Blessington), by Greenough, Francis and Julius Hare,
and by that universal friend of every one, Mr. Kenyon, all before the
arrival of the Brownings in Florence. Landor had, however, been again in
England for several years, where Browning and Miss Barrett had both met
and admired him, as has been recorded.
The Florence on which the Brownings had entered differed little from the
Florence of to-day. The Palazzo Pitti, within a stone's throw of Casa
Guidi, stood in the same cyclopean massiveness as now; the piazza and
church of San Miniato, cypress-shaded, rose from the sweep of the hills,
and the miraculous crucifix of San Giovanni Gualberto was then, as now, an
object of pilgrimage. The wonder of the Italian sunsets, that "perished
silently of their own glory," burned away over the far hills, and the
strange, lofty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio caught the lingering rays.
Beyond the Porta Romana, not far from Casa Guidi, was the road to the Val
d'Emo, where the Certosa crowns an eminence. The stroll along the Arno at
sunset was a favorite one with the poets, and in late afternoons they
often climbed the slope to the Boboli Gardens for the view over Florence
and the Val d'Arno. Nor did they ever tire of lingering in the Piazza
della Signoria, before the marvelous palace with its medieval tower, and
standing before the colossal fountain of Neptune, just behind the spot
that is commemorated by a tablet in the pavement marking the martyrdom of
Savonarola. The great equestrian statue of Cosimo I always engaged their
attention in this historic piazza, which for four centuries had been the
center of the political life of the Florentines. All these places, the
churches, monuments, palaces, and the art of Florence, were fairly
mirrored in the minds of the wedded poets, impressing their imagination
with the fidelity of an image falling on a sensitized plate. To them, as
to all who love and enter into the ineffable beauty of the City of Lilies,
it was an atmosphere of enchantment.