The Brownings Part 11

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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 pa.s.sed 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 a.s.serted, 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 G.o.d 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 Pea.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed with him, and he is a most true, cordial, and n.o.ble 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 companions.h.i.+p, "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 friends.h.i.+p 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 authors.h.i.+p of "Jane Eyre" was revealed, and Charlotte Bronte discovered under the _nom-de-plume_ of Currer Bell.

During the time that Mrs. Browning had pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ma.s.siveness 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.

CHAPTER VII

1850-1855

"I heard last night a little child go singing 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, _O bella liberta, O bella!..._"

"But Easter-Day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,--and who can say?"

"CASA GUIDI WINDOWS"--SOCIETY IN FLORENCE--MARCHESA D'OSSOLI--BROWNING'S POETIC CREED--VILLEGGIATURA IN SIENA--VENICE--BRILLIANT LIFE IN LONDON--PARIS AND MILSAND--BROWNING ON Sh.e.l.lEY--IN FLORENCE--IDYLLIC DAYS IN BAGNI DI LUCCA--MRS. BROWNING'S SPIRITUAL OUTLOOK--DELIGHTFUL WINTER IN ROME--A POETIC PILGRIMAGE--HARRIET HOSMER--CHARACTERISTICS OF MRS. BROWNING.

The Brownings were never for a moment caught up in the wave of popular enthusiasm for Pio Nono that swept over Italy. Yet Mrs. Browning confessed herself as having been fairly "taken in" by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Had _Blackwood's Magazine_ published Part I of her "Casa Guidi Windows" at the time that she sent it to this periodical, the poem would have been its own proof of her distrust of the Pope, but it would also have offered the same proof of her ill-founded trust in the Grand Duke; so that, on the whole, she was well content to fail in having achieved the distinction of a prophet regarding Pio Nono, as no Ca.s.sandra can afford to be convicted of delusion in some portion of the details of her prophecy. To achieve lasting reputation as a soothsayer, the prophecy must be accurate throughout. The fact that there was an interval of three years between the first and the second parts of this poem accounts for the discrepancy between them. In her own words she confessed:

"I wrote a meditation and a dream, Hearing a little child sing in the street: I leant upon his music as a theme, Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat Which tried at an exultant prophecy, But dropped before the measure was complete-- Alas for songs and hearts! O Tuscany, O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain?"

The flas.h.i.+ng lightnings of a betrayed people gleam like an unsheathed sword in another canto beginning:

"From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth, And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north."

These ardent lines explain how she had been misled, for who could dream at the time that Leopoldo ("_l'Intrepido_," as a poet of Viareggio called him in a truly Italian fervor of enthusiasm) could have proved himself a traitor to these trusting people,--these tender-hearted, gentle, courteous, refined Italians? All these attributes pre-eminently characterize the people; but also Mrs. Browning's insight that "the patriots are not instructed, and the instructed are not patriots," was too true. The adherents of the papal power were strong and influential, and the personal character, whatever might be said of his political principles,--the personal character of Pio Nono was singularly winning, and this was by no means a negligible factor in the great problem then before Italy.