The Brownings Part 18

Browning wrote that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a "sign of the times." She read Victor Hugo's "Contemplations," finding some of the personal poems "overcoming in their pathos"; they went to tea on the terrace at Bellosguardo, in April evenings, gazing over Florence veiled in transparent blue haze in the valley below.

In this April Mrs. Browning's father died; she had never ceased to hope for reconciliation, and her sorrow was great, but, as usual, she was gently serene, "not despondingly calm," she said. Mrs. Jameson again came to Florence, and there were more teas on overhanging terraces, and enjoyments of the divine sunsets.

In August they went with Miss Blagden, Mr. Lytton, and one or two others to again make _villeggiatura_ at Bagni di Lucca, where Mrs. Browning rose every morning at six to bathe in the rapid little mountain stream,--finding herself strengthened by this heroic practice,--and Penini flourished "like a rose possessed by a fairy."

The succeeding winter was pa.s.sed in Florence, Mrs. Browning instructing her little son in German, and herself reveled in French and German romances. Her rest was always gained in lying on the sofa and reading novels; Browning, who cared little for fiction, found his relaxation in drawing. He taught Penini on the piano, and the boy read French, German, and Italian every day, and played in the open air under the very shadow of the Palazzo Pitti.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLA PETRAJA, NEAR FLORENCE.

"_... Try if Petraja, cool and green._ _Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers._"

The Statue and the Bust.]

The Hawthornes, who had met the Brownings in London at a breakfast given by Lord Houghton, came up from Rome, and Mrs. Hawthorne declared that the grasp of Browning's hand "gives a new value to life." They pa.s.sed an evening at Casa Guidi, and Mrs. Hawthorne recorded that in the corridor, as they entered, was a little boy who answered in the affirmative as to whether he were "Penini," and who "looked like a waif of poetry, lovelier still in the bright light of the drawing-room." Mr. Browning instantly appeared with his cordial welcome, leading them into the salon that looked out on the terrace, filled with growing plants. From San Felice there came the chanting of music, and the flowers, the melody, the stars hanging low in the sky, all ablaze over San Miniato, with the poet and his child, all conspired to entrance the sensitive and poetic Mrs.

Hawthorne. Then Mrs. Browning came in, "delicate, like a spirit, the ethereal poet-wife, with a cloud of curls half concealing her face, and with the fairy fingers that gave a warm, human pressure,--a very embodiment of heart and intellect." Mrs. Hawthorne had brought her a branch of pink roses, which Mrs. Browning pinned on her black velvet gown.

They were taken into the drawing-room, a lofty, s.p.a.cious apartment where Gobelin tapestries, richly carved furniture, pictures, and _vertu_ all enchanted Mrs. Hawthorne, and they talked "on no very noteworthy topics,"

Hawthorne afterward recorded, though he added that he wondered that the conversation of Browning should be so clear and so much to the purpose, considering that in his poetry one ran "into the high gra.s.s of obscure allusion." The poet Bryant and his daughter were present that evening, a little to the regret of Mrs. Hawthorne, and there were tea and strawberries, Mrs. Browning presiding at the tray, and Penini, "graceful as Ganymede," pa.s.sing the cake.

The Brownings left Florence soon after this evening. The summer of 1858 was pa.s.sed in Normandy, in company with Mr. Browning's father and his sister Sarianna, all of them occupying together a house on the sh.o.r.e of the Channel, near Havre. They confessed themselves in a heavenly state of mind, equally appreciative of the French people,--manners, cooking, cutlets, and costumes, all regarded with perpetual admiration. Penini, too, was by no means behind in his pretty, childish enthusiasms. He was now nine years of age, reading easily French and German, as well as the two languages, English and Italian--each of which was as much his native tongue as the other--and with much proficiency at the piano. Browning already played duets with his little son, while the happy mother looked smilingly on. Mrs. Browning was one who lived daily her real life. For there is much truth in the Oriental truism that our real life is that which we do _not_ live,--in our present environment, at least. She always gave of her best because she herself dwelt in the perpetual atmosphere of high thought. Full of glancing humor and playfulness of expression, never scorning homely conditions, she yet lived constantly in the realm of n.o.bleness.

"Poets become such By scorning nothing,"

she has said.

The following winter found them again in Rome, where Mrs. Browning was much occupied with Italian politics. Her two deepest convictions were faith in the honest purposes of Louis Napoleon, and her enthusiasm for Italian liberty and unity. In her poem, "A Tale of Villafranca," she expressed her convictions and feelings. One of their nearer friends in Rome was Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio, the Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1849 to 1852, one of the purest of Italian patriots, who was full of hope for Italy. The English Minister Plenipotentiary to Rome at that time was Lord Odo Russell, and when the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) arrived in Rome, the Minister (later Lord Ampthill) invited (through Colonel Bruce) several gentlemen to meet him, Colonel Bruce said to Browning that he knew it "would gratify the Queen that the Prince should make the acquaintance of Mr. Browning." Mrs. Browning spoke of "the little prince"

in one of her letters to Isa Blagden as "a gentle, refined boy," and she notes how Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio came to see them, and talked n.o.bly, and confesses herself more proud of his visit "than of another personal distinction, though I don't pretend to have been insensible to that," she adds, evidently referring to the meeting with the young prince.

Mrs. Browning's love for novels seemed to have been inherited by her son, for this winter he was reading an Italian translation of "Monte Cristo"

with such enthusiasm as to resolve to devote his life to fiction. "Dear Mama," he gravely remarked, "for the future I mean to read novels. I shall read all Dumas's to begin."

On their return to Florence in the spring, Mrs. Browning gives William Page a letter of introduction to Ruskin, commending Mr. Page "as a man earnest, simple and n.o.ble, who "has not been successful in life, and when I say life I include art, which is life to him. You will recognize in this name _Page_," she continues, "the painter of Robert's portrait which you praised for its Venetian color, and criticised in other respects," she concluded. And she desires Ruskin to know the "wonder and light and color and s.p.a.ce and air" that Page had put into his "Venus Rising from the Sea,"

which the Paris salon of that summer had refused on the ground of its nudity,--a scruple that certainly widely differentiates the Salon of 1858 from that of 1911.

Salvini, even then already recognized as a great artist, was playing in a theater in Florence that spring, and the Brownings saw with great enjoyment and admiration his impersonations of Hamlet and Oth.e.l.lo.

On a glowing June morning Browning was crossing the Piazza San Lorenzo, when the market-folk had all their curious wares of odds and ends spread about on tables. At one of these he chanced on "the square old yellow book" which held the story of the Franceschini tragedy, which the poet's art trans.m.u.ted into his greatest poem, "The Ring and the Book." No other single work of Browning's can rival this in scope and power. It would seem as if he had, at the moment, almost a prescience of the incalculable value of this crumpled and dilapidated volume; as if he intuitively recognized what he afterward referred to as "the predestination." On his way homeward he opened the book;

"... through street and street, At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge; Till, by the time I stood at home again In Casa Guidi by Felice Church,

I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth."

In this brief time he had comprehended the entire story of the trial and execution of Count Guido Franceschino, n.o.bleman of Arezzo, for the murder of his wife, Pompilia, and apparently much of the conception of his great work of future years, "The Ring and the Book," took possession of him at once. But it was like the seed that must germinate and grow. Little indeed did he dream that in this chance purchase he had been led to the material for the supreme achievement of his art.

One evening before leaving Florence for Siena, where the Brownings had taken the Villa Alberti for the summer, they had Walter Savage Landor to tea, and also Miss Blagden and Kate Field, then a young girl, studying music in Florence, who was under Miss Blagden's charge. Just as the tea was placed on the table, Browning turned to his honored guest, and thanked him for his defense of old songs; and opening Landor's latest book, "Last Fruit," he read in a clear, vibrant voice from the "Idylls of Theocritus."

The chivalrous deference touched the aged poet. "Ah, you are kind," said he; "you always find out the best bits in my books."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF SAN MINIATO, NEAR FLORENCE.

"_Came she, our new crescent of a hair's breadth._ _Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato._"

One Word More.]

The loyal homage rendered by the younger poet, in all the glow of his power, to the "old master," was lovely to see. As will be recalled, Landor had been one of the first to recognize the genius of Browning when his youthful poem, "Paracelsus," appeared. Landor had then written to Southey: "G.o.d grant that Robert Browning live to be much greater, high as he now stands among most of the living."

It was one noon soon after this evening that Landor came to Casa Guidi, desolate and distraught, declaring he had left his villa on the Fiesolean slope never to return, because of his domestic difficulties. The Brownings were about leaving for Siena and Mr. Browning decided to engage an apartment for the venerable poet, when the Storys, who were making _villeggiatura_ in the strange old medieval city, invited Landor to be their guest. The villa where the Storys were domiciled was near the Brownings, and Landor was much in both households. "He made us a long visit," wrote Mrs. Story, "and was our honored and cherished guest. His courtesy and high breeding never failed him." Landor would often be seen astir in the early dawn, sitting under the olive trees in the garden, writing Latin verses. To Kate Field, who had become a great favorite with the Brownings, Mr. Browning wrote with some bit of verse of Landor's:

SIENA, VILLA ALBERTI, July 18.

DEAR MISS FIELD:--I have only a minute to say that Mr. Landor wrote these really pretty lines in your honor the other day,--you remember on what circ.u.mstances they turn. I know somebody who is ready to versify to double the extent at the same cost to you, and do his best, too, and you also know.

Yours Affectionately Ever,

R. B.

The servant waits for this and stops the expansion of soul!

P. S. ... What do you mean by pretending that we are not the obliged, the grateful people? Your stay had made us so happy, come and make us happy again, says (or would say were she not asleep) my wife, and yours also,--

R. B.

Of Landor, while they were in Siena, Mrs. Browning wrote to a friend that Robert always said he owed more to him than any other contemporary, and that Landor's genius insured him the grat.i.tude of all artists. In these idyllic days Mr. Story's young daughter, Edith, (now the Marchesa Peruzzi di Medici, of Florence,) had a birthday, which the poetic group all united to celebrate. In honor of the occasion Landor not only wrote a Latin poem for the charming girl, but he appeared in a wonderful flowered waistcoat, one that dated back to the days of Lady Blessington, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of all the group. From Isa Blagden, who remained in her villa on Bellosguardo, came almost daily letters to Mrs. Browning, who constantly gained strength in the life-giving air of Siena, where they looked afar over a panorama of purple hills, with scarlet sunsets flaming in the west, the wind blowing nearly every day, as now. The Cave of the Winds, as celebrated by Virgil, might well have been located in Siena.

Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Story would go back and forth to visit each other, mounted on donkeys, their husbands walking beside, as they had done in the Arcadian days at Bagni di Lucca. Odo Russell pa.s.sed two days with the Brownings on his way from Rome to London, to their great enjoyment.

Landor's health and peace of mind became so far restored that he was able to "write awful Latin alcaics." Penini, happy in his great friends, the Story children, Julian, Waldo, and Edith, and hardly less so with the _contadini_, whom he helped to herd the sheep and drive in the grape-carts, galloped through lanes on his own pony, insisted on reading to his _contadini_ from the poems of Dall' Ongaro, and grew apace in happiness and stature. For two hours every day his father taught him music, and the lad already played Beethoven sonatas, and music of difficult execution from German composers.

The Brownings and the Storys pa.s.sed many evenings together, "sitting on the lawn under the ilexes and the cypresses, with tea and talk, until the moon had made the circuit of the quarter of the sky." Mrs. Browning's health grew better, and Story writes to Charles Eliot Norton that "Browning is in good spirits about her, and Pen is well, and as I write,"

he continues, "I hear him laughing and playing with my boys and Edith on the terrace below."

It was late in October before they returned to Florence, and then only for a sojourn of six weeks before going to Rome for the winter. The Siena summer had been a period of unalloyed delight to Mrs. Browning, whose health was much improved, and not the least of the happiness of both had been due to the congenial companions.h.i.+p of the Storys, and to their delicate courtesies, which Mrs. Browning wrote to Mrs. Jameson that she could never forget. Browning wrote to Mrs. Story saying to her that she surely did not need to be told how entirely they owed "the delightful summer" to her own and Mr. Story's kindness. "Ba is hardly so well," he adds, "as when she was let thrive in that dear old villa and the pleasant country it hardly shut out."

Mrs. Browning's small book, the "Poems before Congress," only eight in all, was published in this early spring of 1860, and met with no cheering reception. She felt this keenly, but said, "If I were ambitious of any thing it would be to be wronged where, for instance, Cavour is wronged."

With Mrs. Browning a political question was equally a moral question. Her devotion to Italy, and faith in the regeneration of the country, were vital matters to her. She was deeply touched by the American att.i.tude toward her poem, "A Curse for a Nation," for the Americans, she noted, rendered thanks to the reprover of ill deeds, "understanding the pure love of the motive." These very "Poems before Congress" brought to her praises, and the offer of high prices as well, and of this nation she said it was generous.

A letter from Robert Browning written to Kate Field, who was then in Florence with Miss Blagden, and which has never before been published, is as follows:

ROME, VIA DEL TRITONE, 28,

March 29th, 1860.

DEAR MISS FIELD,--Do you really care to have the little photograph?

Here it is with all my heart. I wonder I dare be so frank this morning, however, for a note just rec'd from Isa mentions an instance of your acuteness, that strikes me with a certain awe. "Kate," she says, "persists that the 'Curse for a Nation' is for America, and not England." You persist, do you? No doubt against the combined intelligence of our friends who show such hunger and thirst for a new poem of Ba's--and, when they get it, digest the same as you see.