The Brownings Part 6

she concludes; and "Ion," which she finds beautiful morally rather than intellectually, and thinks that, as dramatic poetry, it lacks power, pa.s.sion, and condensation. Reading Combe's "Phrenology," she refers to his theory that slowness of the pulse is a sign of the poetical impulse. If this be true, she fears she has no hope of being a poet, "for my pulse is in a continual flutter," she notes; and she explains to Mr. Boyd that the line

"One making one in strong compa.s.s"

in "The Poet's Vow," which he found incomprehensible, really means that "the oneness of G.o.d, 'in Whom are all things,' produces a oneness, or sympathy, with all things. The unity of G.o.d preserves a unity in man."

All in all, Miss Barrett is coming to enjoy her London life. There was the Royal Academy, "and real live poets, with their heads full of the trees and birds, and suns.h.i.+ne of Paradise"; and she has "stood face to face with Wordsworth and Landor"; Miss Mitford has become a dear friend, but she visits London only at intervals, as she lives--shades of benighted days!--thirty miles from London. A twentieth century residence across the continent could hardly seem more remote.

The removal to Wimpole Street was decided upon, and to that house (No.

50), gloomy or the reverse, the Barretts migrated. Miss Barrett's new book, under the t.i.tle of "The Seraphim and Other Poems," was published, marking her first professional appearance before the public over her own name. "I feel very nervous about it," she said; "far more than I did when my 'Prometheus' crept out of the Greek."

Mr. Kenyon was about to go to Rydal Mount on a visit to Wordsworth, and Miss Barrett begs him to ask, as for himself, two garden cuttings of myrtle or geranium, and send to her--two, that she may be sure of saving one.

Autographs had value in those days, and in a note to Mr. Bray Miss Barrett alludes to one of Shakespeare's that had been sold for a hundred pounds and asks if he feels sure of the authenticity of his own Shakespearean autograph.

A new poetic era had dawned about the time that "The Seraphim" appeared.

Tennyson had written "Audley Court," and was beginning to be known in America, owing this first introduction to Emerson, who visited Landor in Florence and made some sojourn afterward in England. The Boston publis.h.i.+ng house of C. C. Little and Company (now Little, Brown, and Company) had written to Tennyson (under date of April 27, 1838) regarding a republis.h.i.+ng of his volume, as the future laureate was already recognized for the musical quality and perfection of art in his work. Browning had published only "Pauline," "Paracelsus," and "Strafford." Sh.e.l.ley and Keats were dead, their mortal remains reposing in the beautiful English cemetery in Rome, under the shadow of the tall cypresses, by the colossal pyramid of Caius Cestus. Byron and Scott and Coleridge had also died. There were Landor and Southey, Rogers and Campbell; but with Miss Barrett there came upon the scene a new minstrelsy that compelled its own recognition. Some of her shorter poems had caught the popular ear; notably, her "Cowper's Grave," which remains, to-day, one of her most appealing and exquisite lyrics.

"It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying; It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying."

The touching pathos of the line,

"O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging!"

moves every reader. And what music and touching appeal in the succeeding stanza:

"And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell and darkness on the glory, And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted."

In seeing, "on Cowper's grave,... his rapture in a vision," Miss Barrett pictured his strength--

"... to sanctify the poet's high vocation."

Her reverence for poetic art finds expression in almost every poem that she has written.

Among other shorter poems included with "The Seraphim" were "The Poet's Vow," "Isobel's Child," and others, including, also, "The Romaunt of Margret." _The Athenaeum_ p.r.o.nounced the collection an "extraordinary volume,--especially welcome as an evidence of female genius and accomplishment,--but hardly less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius is of a high order," the critic conceded; but he found her language "wanting in simplicity." One reviewer castigated her for presuming to take such a theme as "The Seraphim" "from which Milton would have shrank!" All the critics agree in giving her credit for genius of no ordinary quality; but the general consensus of opinion was that this genius manifested itself unevenly, that she was sometimes led into errors of taste. That she was ever intentionally obscure, she denied.

"Unfortunately obscure" she admitted that she might be, but "willingly so,--never."

Of the personal friends of Elizabeth Barrett one of the nearest was Mary Russell Mitford, who was nineteen years her senior. Miss Mitford describes her at the time of their meeting as having "such a look of youthfulness that she had some difficulty in persuading a friend that Miss Barrett was old enough to be introduced into society." Miss Mitford added that she was "certainly one of the most interesting persons" she had ever seen; "of a slight, delicate figure,... large, tender eyes, and a smile like a sunbeam."

Mr. Kenyon brought Andrew Crosse, a noted electrician of the day, to see Miss Barrett; and in some reminiscences[4] written by Mrs. Andrew Crosse there is a chapter on "John Kenyon and his Friends" that offers the best comprehension, perhaps, of this man who was so charming and beloved a figure in London society,--a universal favorite. Born in 1784 in Jamaica, the son of a wealthy land-owner, he was sent to England as a lad, educated there, and in 1815 he set out for a tour of the continent. In 1817, in Paris, he met and became intimate with Professor George Ticknor of Harvard University, the Spanish historian; and through this friends.h.i.+p Mr.

Kenyon came to know many of the distinguished Americans of the day, including Emerson, Longfellow, and Willis. Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and Landor were among Kenyon's most intimate circle; and there is a record of one of his dinners at which the guests were Daniel Webster, Professor and Mrs. Ticknor, d.i.c.kens, Montalembert, and Lady Mary Shepherd. In 1823 Kenyon married Miss Curteis, and they lived for some years in Devons.h.i.+re Place, with frequent interludes of travel on the continent. Mrs. Kenyon died in 1835, but when the Barretts came up to London Kenyon had resumed his delightful hospitalities, of which he made fairly a fine art.

Professor Ticknor has left an allusion to another dinner at Kenyon's where he met Miss Barrett. In the autumn of 1839 Miss Barrett, accompanied by her brother Edward, went to Torquay, for the warmer climate, and Mr.

Kenyon also had gone there for the winter. Around him were gathered a group of notable friends, with whom Miss Barrett, his cousin (with one remove), was constantly a.s.sociated,--Landor, Andrew Crosse, Theodosia Garrow (afterwards the wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope), and Bezzi, an accomplished Italian, who was afterward a.s.sociated with Seymour Kirkup in discovering Dante's portrait concealed under the whitewash applied to the walls of the Bargello in Florence. Miss Barrett was at this time entering into that notable correspondence with Richard Hengist Horne, many of these letters containing pa.s.sages of interest. For instance, of poetry we find her saying:

"If poetry under any form be exhaustible, Nature is; and if Nature is, we are near a blasphemy, and I, for one, could not believe in the immortality of the soul.

'_Si l'ame est immortelle,_ _L'amour ne l'est-il-pas?_'

Extending _l'amour_ into all love of the ideal, and attendant power of idealizing.... I don't believe in mute, inglorious Miltons, and far less in mute, inglorious Shakespeares."

Referring to some correspondence with Miss Martineau, Miss Barrett characterizes her as "the n.o.blest female intelligence between the seas,"

and of Tennyson, in relation to some mention of him, she wrote that "if anything were to happen to Tennyson, the whole world should go into mourning."

A project (said to have originated with Wordsworth) was launched to "modernize" Chaucer, in which Miss Barrett, Leigh Hunt, Monckton Milnes, Mr. Horne, and one or two others enthusiastically united, the only dissenter being Landor, who characteristically observed that any one who was fit to read Chaucer at all could read him in the original. Later on the co-operation of Browning, Tennyson, Talfourd, Bulwer, Mary Howitt, and the Cowden Clarkes was solicited and in part obtained. But Landor held firm, and of his beloved Chaucer he said: "I will have no hand in breaking his dun, but rich-painted gla.s.s, to put in thinner (if clearer) panes." A great deal of correspondence ensued in connection with this Herculean labor, most of which is of less interest to the general reader than it might well be to the literary antiquarian.

The next special literary enthusiasm of Mr. Horne and Miss Barrett was the projection of a work of criticism, to be issued anonymously, and ent.i.tled "The New Spirit of the Age." They collaborated on the critique on Wordsworth and Leigh Hunt, and for the one on Landor Miss Barrett was mainly responsible, in which she says he "writes poetry for poets, and criticism for critics;... and as if poetry were not, in English, a sufficiently unpopular dead language, he has had recourse to writing poetry in Latin." She speaks of his "Pericles and Aspasia" and his "Pentameron" as "books for the world and for all time, complete in beauty of sentiment and subtlety of criticism." Two of Landor's works, very little known, the "Poems from the Arabic and Persian" and "A Satire upon Satirists," are here noted. "It will be delightful to me to praise Tennyson,--although, by Saint Eloy, I never imitated him," she writes to Mr. Horne; "and I take that oath because the _Quarterly_ was sure that if it had not been for him I should have hung a lady's hair 'blackly' instead of 'very blackly.'" Miss Mitford was somewhat concerned with this hazardous venture, but she had no desire to discuss d.i.c.kens, as she "could not admire his love of low life!" Miss Barrett's appreciation of Tennyson is much on record. She finds him "a divine poet." Monckton Milnes, whose first work she liked extremely, seemed to her in his later poems as wanting in fire and imagination, and as being too didactic. Barry Cornwall's lyrics impressed her "like embodied music." Mr. Horne finally wrote the critique on d.i.c.kens, and of it Miss Barrett said: "I think the only omission of importance in your admirable essay is the omission of the influence of the French school of imaginative literature upon the mind of d.i.c.kens, which is manifest and undeniable.... Did you ever read the powerful _Trois Jours d'un Cond.a.m.ne_, and will you confront that with the tragic saliences of 'Oliver Twist'?... We have no such romance writer as Victor Hugo ... George Sand is the greatest female genius of the world, at least since Sappho." (At this time George Eliot had not appeared.) Miss Barrett appreciatively alludes to Sir Henry Taylor (the author of "Philip van Artevelde") as "an infidel in poetry," and to the author of "Festus"

as "a man of great thoughts." She finds part of the poem "weak," but, "when all is said," she continues, "what poet-stuff remains! what power!

what fire of imagination, worth the stealing of Prometheus!"

In relation to some strictures on Carlyle, Miss Barrett vivaciously replies that his object is to discover the sun, not to specify the landscape, and that it would be a strange reproach to bring against the morning star that it does not s.h.i.+ne in the evening.

The idea of a lyrical drama, "Psyche Apocalypte," was entertained by Mr.

Horne and Miss Barrett, but, fortunately, no fragment of it was materialized into public light. There was a voluminous correspondence between them concerning this possible venture. Meanwhile Miss Barrett's poems won success past her "expectation or hope. _Blackwood's_ high help was much," she writes, "and I continue to have the kindest letters from unknown readers.... The American publisher has printed fifteen hundred copies. If I am a means of ultimate loss to him, I shall sit in sackcloth."

In another of her letters to Mr. Horne we read that Wordsworth is in a fever because of a projected railroad through the Lake Country, and that Carlyle calls Harriet Martineau "quite mad," because of her belief in Mesmerism. "For my own part," adds Miss Barrett, "I am not afraid to say that I almost believe in Mesmerism, and quite believe in Harriet Martineau." She is delighted that Horne's "Orion" is to be published in New York. "I love the Americans," she a.s.serts, "a n.o.ble and cordial people."

Miss Barrett remained for three years in Torquay, the climate being regarded as better for her health. But the tragedy of her life took place there in the drowning of her brother Edward, who went out one day with two friends in a boat and never returned. Three days later the boat was found floating, overturned, and the bodies of the three young men were recovered. This sad event occurred in the August of 1840, and it was more than a year before she was able to resume her literary work and her correspondence. In the September of 1841 she returned to London, and in a letter to Mr. Boyd soon after she replied to his references to Gregory as a poet, saying she has not much admiration even for his grand _De Virginitate_, and chiefly regards him as one who is only poetical in prose.

Miss Barrett's delicacy of health through all these years has been so universally recorded (and, according to her own words, so exaggerated) that it needs no more than pa.s.sing allusion here. So far as possible she herself ignored it, and while it was always a factor to be reckoned with, yet her boundless mental energy tided her over illness and weakness to a far greater degree than has usually been realized. "My time goes to the best music when I read or write," she says, "and whatever money I can spend upon my own pleasures flows away in books."

Elizabeth Barrett was the most sympathetic and affectionate of friends, and her devotion to literature resulted in no mere academic and abnormal life. Her letters are filled with all the little inquiries and interests of household affection and sweetness of sympathy with the personal matters of relatives and friends, and if those are not here represented, it is simply that they are in their nature colloquial, and to be taken for granted rather than repeated for reading, when so long separated by time from the conditions and circ.u.mstances that called them forth. She was glad to return from Torquay to her family again. "Papa's domestic comfort is broken up by the separation," she said, "and the a.s.sociations of Torquay lie upon me, struggle against them as I may, like a nightmare.... Part of me is worn out; but the poetical part--that is, the love of poetry--is growing in me as freshly every day. Did anybody ever love poetry and stop in the middle? I wonder if any one ever could?... besides, I am becoming better. Dear Mr. Boyd," she entreats, "do not write another word about my illness either to me or to others. I am sure you would not willingly disturb me. I can't let ... prescribe anything for me except her own affection." These words ill.u.s.trate the spirit in which Miss Barrett referred to her own health. No one could be more remote from a morbid invalidism too often a.s.sociated with her.

One of her first efforts after her return from Torquay was to send to the _Athenaeum_ some Greek translations, which, to her surprise, were accepted, and she writes to Mr. Boyd that she would enclose to him the editor's letter "if it were legible to anybody except people used to learn reading from the Pyramids." It must have been due to a suggestion from the editor of the _Athenaeum_ at this time that she wrote her n.o.ble and affluent essay on "The Greek Christian Poets," which is perhaps her finest work in prose.

Something in the courteous editorial note suggested this to her, and she discusses the idea with Mr. Boyd.

Mr. Dilke was then the editor of the _Athenaeum_. He quite entered into the idea of this essay, only begging Miss Barrett to keep away from theology.

Mr. Dilke also suggests that she write a review of English poetical literature, from Chaucer to contemporary times, and this initiated her essay called "The Book of the Poets." For her Greek review she desired a copy of the _Poetae Christiani_, but found the price (fourteen guineas) ruinous. But whether she had all the needful data or not, the first paper was a signal success, and she fancied that some _bona avis_, as good as a nightingale, had shaken its wings over her. Of the three Greek tragedians, aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, Elizabeth Barrett had read every line.

Plato she loved and read exhaustively; of Aristotle at this time she had read his Ethics, Poetics, and his work on Rhetoric, and of Aristophanes a few, only, of his plays. But Miss Barrett was also a great novel-reader, keeping her "pillows stuffed with novels," as she playfully declared. Her room, in the upper part of the house, revealed the haunt of the scholar.

Upon a bracket the bust of Homer looked down; her bookcase showed one entire shelf occupied by the Greek poets; another relegated wholly to the English poets; and philosophy, ethics, science, and criticism were liberally represented. A bust of Chaucer companioned that of Homer. By her sofa nestled Flush, her dog, Miss Mitford's gift.

It was in this year of 1841 that there penetrated into her atmosphere and consciousness the first intimation of Robert Browning. "Pippa Pa.s.ses" had just been published, and John Kenyon, ever alert to bring any happiness into the lives of his friends (Kenyon, "the joy-giver," as he was well termed), suggested introducing the young poet to her, but on the plea of her ill-health she declined. A little later, in a letter to Mr. Boyd, she mentions one or two comments made on her essay, "The Greek Christian Poets,"--that Mr. Horne, and also "Mr. Browning, the poet," had both, as she was told, expressed approval. "Mr. Browning is said to be learned in Greek," she adds, "especially the dramatists." So already the air begins to stir and tremble with the coming of him of whom in later days she wrote:

"I yield the grave for thy sake, and resign My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee."

The entrancing thrill of that wonderful Wagner music that ushers in the first appearance of the knight in the music-drama of "Lohengrin" is typical of the vibrations that thrill the air in some etherial announcement of experiences that are on the very threshold, and which are recognized by a nature as sensitive and impressionable as was that of Elizabeth Barrett. A new element with its transfiguring power awaited her, and some undefined prescience of that

"... most gracious singer of high poems"

whose music was to fall at her door

"... in folds of golden fulness"

haunted her like "an odor from Dreamland sent."

She pondered on

"... how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,"