The Brownings Part 14

it is a little difficult to quite comprehend, even in comprehending Mrs.

Browning's intense sensitiveness and the infinite sacredness of this grief, why she should have been so grieved at Miss Mitford's tender allusion to an accident that was, by its very nature, public, and which must have been reported in the newspapers of the day. Mrs. Browning was always singularly free from any morbid states, from any tendency to the _idee fixe_, to which a semi-invalid condition is peculiarly and pardonably liable; but she said, in an affectionate letter to Miss Mitford:

"I have lived heart to heart (for instance) with my husband these five years: I have never yet spoken out, in a whisper even, what is in me; never yet could find heart or breath; never yet could bear to hear a word of reference from his lips."

It is said there are no secrets in heaven, and in that respect, at least, the twentieth century is not unlike the celestial state; and it is almost as hard a task for the imagination to comprehend the reserve in all personal matters that characterized the mid-nineteenth century as it would be to enter into absolute comprehension of the medieval mind; but Mrs. Browning's own pathetic deprecation of her feelings regarding this is its own pa.s.sport to the sympathy of the reader. To Miss Mitford's reply, full of sympathetic comprehension and regret, Mrs. Browning replied that she understood, "and I thank you," she added, "and love you, which is better. Now, let us talk of reasonable things." For Mrs. Browning had that rare gift and grace of instantly closing the chapter, and turning the page, and ceasing from all allusion to any subject of regret, after the inevitable reference of the moment had been made. She had the mental energy and the moral buoyancy to drop the matter, and this characteristic reveals how normal she was, and how far from any morbidness.

Milsand, with a delicacy that Robert Browning never forgot, came to him to ask his counsel regarding the inclusion of this tragic accident that had left such traces on his wife's genius and character (traces that are revealed in immortal expression in her poem, "De Profundis," written some years later), and Browning was profoundly touched by his consideration.

Grasping both Milsand's hands, he exclaimed, "Only a Frenchman could have done this!" A friends.h.i.+p initiated under circ.u.mstances so unusual, and with such reverent intuition of Mrs. Browning's feelings, could not but hold its place apart to them both.

The Brownings found Paris almost as ineffable in beauty in the early spring as was their Florence. "It's rather dangerous to let the charm of Paris work," laughed Mrs. Browning; "the honey will be clogging our feet soon, and we shall find it difficult to go away."

They had a delightful winter socially, as well; they went to Ary Scheffer's and heard Madame Viardot, then in the height of her artistic fame; George Sand sent them tickets for the _premiere_ of "Les Vacances de Pandolphe"; they went to the Vaudeville to see the "Dame aux Camellias,"

of which Mrs. Browning said that she did not agree with the common cry about its immorality. To her it was both moral and human, "but I never will go to see it again," she says, "for it almost broke my heart. The exquisite acting, the too literal truth to nature...." They met Paul de Musset, but missed his brother Alfred that winter, whose poems they both cared for.

The elder Browning retained through his life that singular talent for caricature drawing that had amused and fascinated his son in the poet's childhood; and during his visit to the Brownings in Paris he had produced many of these drawings which became the delight of his grandson as well.

The Paris streets furnished him with some inimitable suggestions, and Robert Barrett Browning, to this day, preserves many of these keen and humorous and extremely clever drawings of his grandfather. Thierry, the historian, who was suffering from blindness, sent to the Brownings a request that they would call on him, with which they immediately complied, and they were much interested in his views on France. The one disappointment of that season was in not meeting Victor Hugo, whose fiery hostility to the new _regime_ caused it to be more expedient for him to reside quite beyond possible sight of the gilded dome of the Invalides.

In June the Brownings returned to London, where they domiciled themselves in Welbeck Street (No. 58), Mrs. Browning's sisters both being near, Mrs.

Surtees Cook having established herself only twenty doors away, and Miss Arabel Barrett being in close proximity in Wimpole Street. They were invited to Kenyon's house at Wimbledon, where Landor was a guest, whom Mrs. Browning found "looking as young as ever, and full of pa.s.sionate energy," and who talked with characteristic exaggeration of Louis Napoleon and of the President of the French nation. Landor "detested" the one and "loathed" the other; and as he did not accept Talleyrand's ideal of the use of language, he by no means concealed these sentiments. Mazzini immediately sought the Brownings, his "pale, spiritual face" s.h.i.+ning, and his "intense eyes full of melancholy illusions." He brought Mrs. Carlyle with him, Mrs. Browning finding her "full of thought, and feeling, and character." Miss Mulock, who had then written "The Ogilvies," and had also read her t.i.tle clear to some poetic recognition, was in evidence that season, as were Mr. and Mrs. Monckton Milnes, and f.a.n.n.y Kemble was also a brilliant figure in the social life. Nor was the London of that day apparently without a taste for the sorceress and the soothsayer, for no less a personage than Lord Stanhope was, it seems, showing to the elect the "spirits of the sun" in a crystal ball, which Lady Blessington had bought from an Egyptian magician and had sold again. Lady Blessington declared she had no understanding of the use of it, but it was on record that the initiated could therein behold Oremus, Spirit of the Sun. Both the crystal ball and the seers were immensely sought, notwithstanding the indignation expressed by Mr. Chorley, who regarded the combination of social festivities and crystal gazing as eminently scandalous. Which element he considered the more dangerous is not on the palimpsest that records the story of these days. Lord Stanhope invited the Brownings to these occult occasions of intermingled attractions, and Mrs. Browning writes: "For my part, I endured both luncheon and spiritual phenomena with great equanimity." An optician of London took advantage of the popular demand and offered a fine a.s.sortment of crystal ball spheres, at prices which quite restricted their sale to the possessors of comfortable rent-rolls, and Lord Stanhope a.s.serted that a great number of persons resorted to these b.a.l.l.s to divine the future, without the courage to confess it. One wonders as to whom "the American Corinna, in yellow silk,"

in London, that season, could have been?

The Brownings were invited to a country house in Farnham, to meet Charles Kingsley, who impressed them with his genial and tender kindness, and while they thought some of his social views wild and theoretical, they loved his earnestness and originality, and believed he could not be "otherwise than good and n.o.ble." It was during this summer (according to William Michael Rossetti) that Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti first met, Rossetti coming to call on them in company with William Allingham. On August 30, from Chapel House, Twickenham, Tennyson wrote to Mrs. Browning of the birth of his son, Hallam, to which she replied:

"Thank you and congratulate you from my heart. May G.o.d bless you all three.... Will you say to dear Mrs. Tennyson how deeply I sympathize in her happiness...."

To this letter Browning added a postscript saying:

"How happy I am in your happiness, and in the a.s.surance that it is greater than even you can quite know yet. G.o.d bless, dear Tennyson, you and all yours."

Tennyson wrote again to Mrs. Browning, saying, "... How very grateful your little note and Browning's epilogue made me." And he signs himself "Ever yours and your husband's." There was a brilliant christening luncheon at the home of Monckton Milnes, "and his baby," notes Mrs. Browning, "was made to sweep, in India muslin and Brussels lace, among a very large circle of admiring guests." The Brownings were especially invited to bring their little Penini with them, "and he behaved like an angel, everybody said," continued his mother, "and looked very pretty, I said myself; only he disgraced us all at last by refusing to kiss the baby on the ground of its being '_troppo grande_.'"

To Mrs. Tennyson's note of invitation to the Brownings to attend the christening of their child, Mrs. Browning replied that they had planned to leave England before that date; "but you offer us an irresistible motive for staying, in spite of fogs and cold," she continued, "and we would not miss the christening for the world." At the last, however, Mrs. Browning was unable to go, so that the poet went alone. After the little ceremony Browning took the boy in his arms and tossed him, while Tennyson, looking on, exclaimed: "Ah, that is as good as a gla.s.s of champagne for him."

Florence Nightingale was a not infrequent visitor of the Brownings that summer, and she always followed her calls by a gift of ma.s.ses of flowers.

While "Morte d'Arthur" had been written more than ten years previously, Tennyson was now evolving the entire plan of the "Idylls of the King."

Coventry Patmore, who brought the ma.n.u.script copy of his own poems, published later, for Mr. Browning to read, mentioned to the poets that Tennyson was writing a collection of poems on Arthur, which were to be united by their subject, after the manner of "In Memoriam," which project interested Mrs. Browning greatly. "The work will be full of beauty, I don't doubt," she said.

Ruskin invited the Brownings to Denmark Hill to see his Turners, and they found the pictures "divine." They liked Ruskin very much, finding him "gentle, yet earnest."

During this London sojourn Mr. Browning's old friend, William Johnson Fox, who had first encouraged the young poet by praising "not a little, which praise comforted me not a little," the verses of his "Incondita"; who had written a favorable review of "Pauline"; who had found a publisher for "Paracelsus," and had introduced the poet to Macready, again appears, and writes to his daughter that he has had "a charming hour" with the Brownings, and that he is more fascinated than ever with Mrs. Browning.

"She talked lots of George Sand, and so beautifully, and she silver-electroplated Louis Napoleon!" Mr. Fox adds:[6] "They came in to their lodgings late at night, and R. B. says that in the morning twilight he saw three pictures on the bedroom wall, and speculated as to whom they might be. Light gradually showed the first to be Beatrice Cenci. 'Good,'

said he; 'in a poetic region.' More light; the second, Lord Byron! Who can the third be? And what think you it was? Your (Fox's) sketch (engraved chalk portrait) of me?' He made quite a poem and picture of the affair.

She seems much better; and the young Florentine was gracious."

In November the Brownings again left London for Florence, pausing a week in Paris on the way, where they witnessed the picturesque pomp of the reception of Louis Napoleon, the day being brilliant with suns.h.i.+ne, and the hero of the hour producing an impression by riding entirely alone, with at least ten paces between himself and the nearest of his escort, till even Charlotte Cushman, sitting at the side of Mrs. Browning, watching the spectacle, declared this to be "fine." The "young Florentine"

was in a state of ecstasy, which he expressed in mingled French and Italian.

They journeyed to Florence by the Mont Cenis, stopping a week in Genoa, where Mrs. Browning lay ill on her sofa; but the warmth of the Italian suns.h.i.+ne soon restored her, and for two days before they left, she was able to walk all about the beautiful old city. They visited together the Andrea Doria palace, and enjoyed sauntering in a suns.h.i.+ne that was like that of June days dropped into the heart of November. They were delighted to hear the sound of their "dear Italian" again, and proceeded by diligence to Florence, where they took possession of their Casa Guidi home, which looked, wrote Mrs. Browning to her sister-in-law, as if they had only left it yesterday. The little Penini was "in a state of complete agitation" on entering Florence, through having heard so much talk of it, and expressed his emotion by repeated caresses and embraces. Mrs. Browning shared the same amazement at the contrast of climate between Turin and Genoa that twentieth-century travelers experience; Turin having been so cold that they were even obliged to have a fire all night, while at Genoa they were "gasping for breath, with all the windows and doors open, blue skies burning overhead, and no air stirring." But this very heat was life-giving to Mrs. Browning as they lingered on the terraces, gazing on the beautiful bay encircled by its sweep of old marble palaces. She even climbed half-way up the lighthouse for the view, resting there while Browning climbed to the top, for that incomparable outlook which every visitor endeavors to enjoy. In Florence there were the "divine sunsets"

over the Arno, and Penini's Italian nurse rus.h.i.+ng in to greet the child, exclaiming, "_Dio mio, come e bellino!_" They "caught up their ancient traditions" just where they left them, Mrs. Browning observes, though Mr.

Browning, "demoralized by the boulevards," missed the stir and intensity of Parisian life. They found Powers, the sculptor, changing his location, and Mr. Lytton (the future Earl), who was an attache at the English Emba.s.sy, became a frequent and a welcome visitor. In a letter to Mr.

Kenyon Mrs. Browning mentions that Mr. Lytton is interested in manifestations of spiritualism, and had informed her that, to his father's great satisfaction (his father being Sir E. Bulwer Lytton), these manifestations had occurred at Knebworth, the Lytton home in England.

Tennyson's brother, who had married an Italian lady, was in Florence, and the American Minister, Mr. Marsh. With young Lytton at this time, Poetry was an article of faith, and nothing would have seemed to him more improbable, even had any of his clairvoyants foretold it, than his future splendid career as Viceroy of India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PONTE VECCHIO AND THE ARNO, FLORENCE.]

Mrs. Browning was reading Prudhon that winter, and also Swedenborg, Lamartine, and other of the French writers. Browning was writing from time to time many of the lyrics that appear in the Collection ent.i.tled "Men and Women," while on Mrs. Browning had already dawned the plan of "Aurora Leigh." They read the novel of Dumas, _Diane de Lys_, Browning's verdict on it being that it was clever, but outrageous as to the morals; and Mrs.

Browning rejoiced greatly in Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," saying of Mrs. Stowe, "No woman ever had such a success, such a fame." All in all, this winter of 1852-1853 was a very happy one to the poets, what with their work, their friends, playing with the little Wiedemann (Penini), the names seeming interchangeably used, and their reading, which included everything from poetry and romance to German mysticism, social economics, and French criticism. Mrs. Browning found one of the best apologies for Louis Napoleon in Lamartine's work on the Revolution of '48; and she read, with equal interest, that of Louis Blanc on the same period. In April "Colombe's Birthday" was produced at the Haymarket Theater in London, the role of the heroine being taken by Miss Helen Faucit, afterward Lady Martin. The author had no financial interest in this production, which ran for two weeks, and was spoken of by London critics as holding the house in fascinated attention, with other appreciative phrases.

Mrs. Browning watches the drama of Italian politics, and while she regarded Mazzini as n.o.ble, she also felt him to be unwise, a verdict that time has since justified. "We see a great deal of Frederick Tennyson,"

she writes; "Robert is very fond of him, and so am I. He too writes poems, and prints them, though not for the public." Their mutual love of music was a strong bond between Browning and Mr. Tennyson, who had a villa on the Fiesolean slope, with a large hall in which he was reported to "sit in the midst of his forty fiddlers."

For the coming summer they had planned a retreat into Giotto's country, the Casentino, but they finally decided on Bagni di Lucca again, where they remained from July till October, Mr. Browning writing "In a Balcony"

during this _villeggiatura_. Before leaving Florence they enjoyed an idyllic day at Pratolina with Mrs. Kinney, the wife of the American Minister to the Court of Turin, and the mother of Edmund Clarence Stedman.

The royal residences of the old Dukes of Tuscany were numerous, but among them all, that at Pratolina, so a.s.sociated with Francesco Primo and Bianca Capella, is perhaps the most interesting, and here Mrs. Kinney drove her guests, where they picnicked on a hillside which their hostess called the Mount of Vision because Mrs. Browning stood on it; Mr. Browning spoke of the genius of his wife, "losing himself in her glory," said Mrs. Kinney afterward, while Mrs. Browning lay on the gra.s.s and slept. The American Minister and Mrs. Kinney were favorite guests in Casa Guidi, where they pa.s.sed with the Brownings the last evening before the poets set out for their summer retreat. Mrs. Browning delighted in Mr. Kinney's views of Italy, and his belief in its progress and its comprehension of liberty.

The youthful Florentine, Penini, was delighted at the thought of the change, and his devotion to his mother was instanced one night when Browning playfully refused to give his wife a letter, and Pen, taking the byplay seriously, fairly smothered her in his clinging embrace, exclaiming, "Never mind, mine darling Ba!" He had caught up his mother's pet name, "Ba," and often used it. It was this name to which she refers in the poem beginning,

"I have a name, a little name, Uncadenced for the ear."

Beside the Pratolina excursion, Mr. Lytton gave a little reception for them before the Florentine circle dissolved for the summer, asking a few friends to meet the Brownings at his villa on Bellosguardo, where they all sat out on the terrace, and Mrs. Browning made the tea, and they feasted on nectar and ambrosia in the guise of cream and strawberries.

"Such a view!" said Mrs. Browning of that evening. "Florence dissolving in the purple of the hills, and the stars looking on." Mrs. Browning's love for Florence grew stronger with every year. That it was her son's native city was to her a deeply significant fact, for playfully as they called him the "young Florentine," there was behind the light jest a profound recognition of the child's claim to his native country. Still, with all this response to the enchantment of Florence, they were planning to live in Paris, after another winter (which they wished to pa.s.s in Rome), as the elder Browning and his daughter Sarianna were now to live in the French capital, and Robert Browning was enamored of the brilliant, abounding life, and the art, and splendor of privilege, and opportunity in Paris. "I think it too probable that I may not be able to bear two successive winters in the North," said Mrs. Browning, "but in that case it will be easy to take a flight for a few winter months into Italy, and we shall regard Paris, where Robert's father and sister are waiting for us, as our fixed place of residence." This plan, however, was never carried out, as Italy came to lay over them a still deeper spell, which it was impossible to break. Mr. Lytton, with whom Mrs. Browning talked of all these plans and dreams that evening on his terrace, had just privately printed his drama, "Clytemnestra," which Mrs. Browning found "full of promise,"

although "too ambitious" because after aeschylus. But this young poet, afterward to be so widely known in the realm of poetry as "Owen Meredith,"

and as Lord Lytton in the realm of diplomacy and statesmans.h.i.+p, impressed her at the time as possessing an incontestable "faculty" in poetry, that made her expect a great deal from him in the future. She invited him to visit them in their sylvan retreat that summer at Bagni di Lucca, an invitation that he joyously accepted. Some great _savant_, who was "strong in veritable Chinese," found his way to Casa Guidi, as most of the wandering minstrels of the time did, and "nearly a.s.sa.s.sinated" the mistress of the _menage_ with an interminable a.n.a.lysis of a j.a.panese novel. Mr. Lytton, who was present, declared she grew paler and paler every moment, which she afterward a.s.serted was not because of sympathy with the heroine of this complex tale! But this formidable scholar had a pa.s.sport to Mrs. Browning's consideration by bringing her a little black profile of her beloved Isa, which gave "the air of her head," and then, said Mrs. Browning, laughingly, "how could I complain of a man who rather flattered me than otherwise, and compared me to Isaiah?"

But at last, after the middle of July, what with poets, and sunsets from terraces, and savants, and stars, they really left their Florence "dissolving in her purple hills" behind them, and bestowed themselves in Casa Tolomei, at the Baths, where a row of plane trees stood before the door, in which the cicale sang all day, and solemn, mysterious mountains kept watch all day and night. There was a garden, lighted by the fireflies at night, and Penini mistook the place for Eden. His happiness overflowed in his prayers, and he thriftily united the pet.i.tion that G.o.d would "mate him dood" with the supplication that G.o.d would also "tate him on a dontey," thus uniting all possible spiritual and temporal aspirations. The little fellow was wild with happiness in this enchanted glade, where the poets were "safe among mountains, shut in with a row of seven plane-trees joined at top." Mr. Browning was still working on his lyrics, of which his wife had seen very few. "We neither of us show our work to the other till it is finished," she said. She recognized that an artist must work in solitude until the actual result is achieved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASA GUIDI

"_I heard last night a little child go singing_ _'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church._"

Casa Guidi Windows.]

It seems that Mr. Chorley in London had fallen into depressed spirits that summer, indulging in the melancholy meditations that none of his friends loved him, beyond seeing in him a "creature to be eaten," and that, having furnished them with a banquet, their attentions to him were over (a most regrettable state of mind, one may observe, _en pa.s.sant_, and one of those spiritual pitfalls which not only Mr. Chorley in particular, but all of us in general would do particularly well to avoid). The letter that Mrs.

Browning wrote to him wonderfully reveals her all-comprehending sympathy and her spiritual buoyancy and intellectual poise. "You are very wrong,"

she says to him, "and I am very right to upbraid you. I take the pen from Robert--he would take it if I did not. We scramble a little for the pen which is to tell you this, and be dull in the reiteration, rather than not to instruct you properly.... I quite understand how a whole life may seem rumpled and creased--torn for the moment; only you will live it smooth again, dear Mr. Chorley, take courage. You have time and strength and good aims; and human beings have been happy with much less.... I think we belied ourselves to you in England. If you knew how, at that time, Robert was vexed and worn! why, he was not the same, even to me!... But then and now believe that he loved and loves you. Set him down as a friend, as somebody to rest on, after all; and don't fancy that because we are away here in the wilderness (which blossoms as the rose, to one of us, at least) we may not be full of affectionate thoughts and feelings toward you in your different sort of life in London." The lovely spirit goes on to remind Mr. Chorley that they have a spare bedroom "which opens of itself at the thought of you," and that if he can trust himself so far from home, she begs him to try it for their sakes. "Come and look in our faces, and learn us more by heart, and see whether we are not two friends?"

Surely, that life was rich, whatever else it might be denied, that had Elizabeth Browning for a friend. Her genius for friends.h.i.+p was not less marvelous, nor less to be considered, than her genius as a poet. Indeed, truly speaking, the one, in its ideal fullness and completeness, comprehends the other.

The summer days among the beautiful hills, and by the green, rus.h.i.+ng river, were made aboundingly happy to the Brownings by the presence of their friends, the Storys, who shared these vast solitudes. The Storys had a villa perched on the top of the hill, just above the Brownings', the terrace shaded with vines, and the great mountains towering all around them, while a swift mountain brook swept by under an arched bridge, its force turning picturesque mills far down the valley. Under the shadow of the chestnut trees fringing its banks, Sh.e.l.ley had once pushed his boat.

"Of society," wrote Story to Lowell, "there is none we care to meet but the Brownings, and with them we have constant and delightful intercourse, interchanging long evenings, two or three times a week, and driving and walking whenever we meet. They are so simple, unaffected, and sympathetic.