The Brownings Part 10

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 s.p.a.cious 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 pa.s.sed many years, a.s.serting 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 suns.h.i.+ne glitters, or the white moonlight of the Val d'Arno s.h.i.+nes; and on every hand are the deep valleys and creva.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sed, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Ponta.s.sieve.

"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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 sanct.i.ty 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 G.o.d 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.ds 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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, ma.s.sive 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Sh.e.l.ley was his G.o.d."

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 friends.h.i.+p 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 subst.i.tuting 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 ma.s.ses" 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 inst.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l 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 friends.h.i.+p that endured "forty years, without a break," and that was one of the choicest social companions.h.i.+ps.

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 pa.s.sion of both husband and wife for poetry was now quite equaled by that for parental duties, which they "caught up," said Mrs.