The second letter, from Cambridge, was short and written in haste, at the moment of Mr. Browning's departure; but it tells the same tale of general kindness and attention. Engagements for no less than six meals had absorbed the first day of the visit. The occasion was that of Professor Joachim's investiture with his Doctor's degree; and Mr. Browning declares that this ceremony, the concert given by the great violinist, and his society, were 'each and all' worth the trouble of the journey. He himself was to receive the Cambridge degree of LL.D. in 1879, the Oxford D.C.L. in 1882. A passage in another letter addressed to the same friend, refers probably to a practical reminiscence of 'Red Cotton Nightcap Country', which enlivened the latter experience, and which Mrs. Fitz-Gerald had witnessed with disapprobation.*

* An actual red cotton nightcap had been made to flutter down on to the Poet's head.

. . . You are far too hard on the very harmless drolleries of the young men, licensed as they are moreover by immemorial usage. Indeed there used to be a regularly appointed jester, 'Filius Terrae' he was called, whose business it was to jibe and jeer at the honoured ones, by way of reminder that all human glories are merely gilded bubbles and must not be fancied metal. You saw that the Reverend Dons escaped no more than the poor Poet—or rather I should say than myself the poor Poet—for I was pleased to observe with what attention they listened to the Newdigate. . . . Ever affectionately yours, R. Browning.

In 1875 he was unanimously nominated by its Independent Club, to the office of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; and in 1877 he again received the offer of the Rectorship of St. Andrews, couched in very urgent and flattering terms. A letter addressed to him from this University by Dr. William Knight, Professor of Moral Philosophy there, which I have his permission to publish, bears witness to what had long been and was always to remain a prominent fact of Mr. Browning's literary career: his great influence on the minds of the rising generation of his countrymen.

The University, St. Andrews N.B.: Nov. 17, 1877.

My dear Sir,—. . . The students of this University, in which I have the honour to hold office, have nominated you as their Lord Rector; and intend unanimously, I am told, to elect you to that office on Thursday.

I believe that hitherto no Rector has been chosen by the undivided suffrage of any Scottish University. They have heard however that you are unable to accept the office: and your committee, who were deeply disappointed to learn this afternoon of the way in which you have been informed of their intentions, are, I believe, writing to you on the subject. So keen is their regret that they intend respectfully to wait upon you on Tuesday morning by deputation, and ask if you cannot waive your difficulties in deference to their enthusiasm, and allow them to proceed with your election.

Their suffrage may, I think, be regarded as one sign of how the thoughtful youth of Scotland estimate the work you have done in the world of letters.

And permit me to say that while these Rectorial elections in the other Universities have frequently turned on local questions, or been inspired by political partisanship, St. Andrews has honourably sought to choose men distinguished for literary eminence, and to make the Rectorship a tribute at once of intellectual and moral esteem.

May I add that when the 'perfervidum ingenium' of our northern race takes the form not of youthful hero-worship, but of loyal admiration and respectful homage, it is a very genuine affair. In the present instance I may say it is no mere outburst of young undisciplined enthusiasm, but an honest expression of intellectual and moral indebtedness, the genuine and distinct tribute of many minds that have been touched to some higher issues by what you have taught them. They do not presume to speak of your place in English literature. They merely tell you by this proffered honour (the highest in their power to bestow), how they have felt your influence over them.

My own obligations to you, and to the author of Aurora Leigh, are such, that of them 'silence is golden'. Yours ever gratefully. William Knight.

Mr. Browning was deeply touched and gratified by these professions of esteem. He persisted nevertheless in his refusal. The Glasgow nomination had also been declined by him.

On August 17, 1877, he wrote to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald from La Saisiaz:

'How lovely is this place in its solitude and seclusion, with its trees and shrubs and flowers, and above all its live mountain stream which supplies three fountains, and two delightful baths, a marvel of delicate delight framed in with trees—I bathe there twice a day—and then what wonderful views from the chalet on every side! Geneva lying under us, with the lake and the whole plain bounded by the Jura and our own Saleve, which latter seems rather close behind our house, and yet takes a hard hour and a half to ascend—all this you can imagine since you know the environs of the town; the peace and quiet move me the most—And I fancy I shall drowse out the two months or more, doing no more of serious work than reading—and that is virtuous renunciation of the glorious view to my right here—as I sit aerially like Euripides, and see the clouds come and go and the view change in correspondence with them. It will help me to get rid of the pain which attaches itself to the recollections of Lucerne and Berne "in the old days when the Greeks suffered so much," as Homer says. But a very real and sharp pain touched me here when I heard of the death of poor Virginia March whom I knew particularly, and parted with hardly a fortnight ago, leaving her affectionate and happy as ever. The tones of her voice as on one memorable occasion she ejaculated repeatedly 'Good friend!' are fresh still. Poor Virginia! . . .'

Mr. Browning was more than quiescent during this stay in the Savoyard mountains. He was unusually depressed, and unusually disposed to regard the absence from home as a banishment; and he tried subsequently to account for this condition by the shadow which coming trouble sometimes casts before it. It was more probably due to the want of the sea air which he had enjoyed for so many years, and to that special oppressive heat of the Swiss valleys which ascends with them to almost their highest level. When he said that the Saleve seemed close behind the house, he was saying in other words that the sun beat back from, and the air was intercepted by it. We see, nevertheless, in his description of the surrounding scenery, a promise of the contemplative delight in natural beauty to be henceforth so conspicuous in his experience, and which seemed a new feature in it. He had hitherto approached every living thing with curious and sympathetic observation—this hardly requires saying of one who had animals for his first and always familiar friends. Flowers also attracted him by their perfume. But what he loved in nature was essentially its prefiguring of human existence, or its echo of it; and it never appeared, in either his works or his conversation, that he was much impressed by its inanimate forms—by even those larger phenomena of mountain and cloud-land on which the latter dwells. Such beauty as most appealed to him he had left behind with the joys and sorrows of his Italian life, and it had almost inevitably passed out of his consideration. During years of his residence in London he never thought of the country as a source of pleasurable emotions, other than those contingent on renewed health; and the places to which he resorted had often not much beyond their health-giving qualities to recommend them; his appetite for the beautiful had probably dwindled for lack of food. But when a friend once said to him: 'You have not a great love for nature, have you?' he had replied: 'Yes, I have, but I love men and women better;' and the admission, which conveyed more than it literally expressed, would have been true I believe at any, up to the present, period of his history. Even now he did not cease to love men and women best; but he found increasing enjoyment in the beauties of nature, above all as they opened upon him on the southern slopes of the Alps; and the delight of the aesthetic sense merged gradually in the satisfied craving for pure air and brilliant sunshine which marked his final struggle for physical life. A ring of enthusiasm comes into his letters from the mountains, and deepens as the years advance; doubtless enhanced by the great—perhaps too great—exhilaration which the Alpine atmosphere produced, but also in large measure independent of it. Each new place into which the summer carries him he declares more beautiful than the last. It possibly was so.

A touch of autumnal freshness had barely crept into the atmosphere of the Saleve, when a moral thunderbolt fell on the little group of persons domiciled at its base: Miss Egerton-Smith died, in what had seemed for her unusually good health, in the act of preparing for a mountain excursion with her friends—the words still almost on her lips in which she had given some directions for their comfort. Mr. Browning's impressionable nervous system was for a moment paralyzed by the shock. It revived in all the emotional and intellectual impulses which gave birth to 'La Saisiaz'.

This poem contains, besides its personal reference and association, elements of distinctive biographical interest. It is the author's first—as also last—attempt to reconstruct his hope of immortality by a rational process based entirely on the fundamental facts of his own knowledge and consciousness—God and the human soul; and while the very assumption of these facts, as basis for reasoning, places him at issue with scientific thought, there is in his way of handling them a tribute to the scientific spirit, perhaps foreshadowed in the beautiful epilogue to 'Dramatis Personae', but of which there is no trace in his earlier religious works. It is conclusive both in form and matter as to his heterodox attitude towards Christianity. He was no less, in his way, a Christian when he wrote 'La Saisiaz' than when he published 'A Death in the Desert' and 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day'; or at any period subsequent to that in which he accepted without questioning what he had learned at his mother's knee. He has repeatedly written or declared in the words of Charles Lamb:* 'If Christ entered the room I should fall on my knees;' and again, in those of Napoleon: 'I am an understander of men, and he was no man.' He has even added: 'If he had been, he would have been an impostor.' But the arguments, in great part negative, set forth in 'La Saisiaz' for the immortality of the soul, leave no place for the idea, however indefinite, of a Christian revelation on the subject. Christ remained for Mr. Browning a mystery and a message of Divine Love, but no messenger of Divine intention towards mankind.

* These words have more significance when taken with their context. 'If Shakespeare was to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if that Person [meaning Christ] was to come into the room, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment.'

The dialogue between Fancy and Reason is not only an admission of uncertainty as to the future of the Soul: it is a plea for it; and as such it gathers up into its few words of direct statement, threads of reasoning which have been traceable throughout Mr. Browning's work. In this plea for uncertainty lies also a full and frank acknowledgment of the value of the earthly life; and as interpreted by his general views, that value asserts itself, not only in the means of probation which life affords, but in its existing conditions of happiness. No one, he declares, possessing the certainty of a future state would patiently and fully live out the present; and since the future can be only the ripened fruit of the present, its promise would be neutralized, as well as actual experience dwarfed, by a definite revelation. Nor, conversely, need the want of a certified future depress the present spiritual and moral life. It is in the nature of the Soul that it would suffer from the promise. The existence of God is a justification for hope. And since the certainty would be injurious to the Soul, hence destructive to itself, the doubt—in other words, the hope—becomes a sufficient approach to, a working substitute for it. It is pathetic to see how in spite of the convictions thus rooted in Mr. Browning's mind, the expressed craving for more knowledge, for more light, will now and then escape him.

Even orthodox Christianity gives no assurance of reunion to those whom death has separated. It is obvious that Mr. Browning's poetic creed could hold no conviction regarding it. He hoped for such reunion in proportion as he wished. There must have been moments in his life when the wish in its passion overleapt the bounds of hope. 'Prospice' appears to prove this. But the wide range of imagination, no less than the lack of knowledge, forbade in him any forecast of the possibilities of the life to come. He believed that if granted, it would be an advance on the present—an accession of knowledge if not an increase of happiness. He was satisfied that whatever it gave, and whatever it withheld, it would be good. In his normal condition this sufficed to him.

'La Saisiaz' appeared in the early summer of 1878, and with it 'The Two Poets of Croisic', which had been written immediately after it. The various incidents of this poem are strictly historical; they lead the way to a characteristic utterance of Mr. Browning's philosophy of life to which I shall recur later.

In 1872 Mr. Browning had published a first series of selections from his works; it was to be followed by a second in 1880. In a preface to the earlier volume, he indicates the plan which he has followed in the choice and arrangement of poems; and some such intention runs also through the second; since he declined a suggestion made to him for the introduction or placing of a special poem, on the ground of its not conforming to the end he had in view. It is difficult, in the one case as in the other, to reconstruct the imagined personality to which his preface refers; and his words on the later occasion pointed rather to that idea of a chord of feeling which is raised by the correspondence of the first and last poems of the respective groups. But either clue may be followed with interest.



Chapter 18

1878-1884

He revisits Italy; Asolo; Letters to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald—Venice—Favourite Alpine Retreats—Mrs. Arthur Bronson—Life in Venice—A Tragedy at Saint-Pierre—Mr. Cholmondeley—Mr. Browning's Patriotic Feeling; Extract from Letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow—'Dramatic Idyls'—'Jocoseria'—'Ferishtah's Fancies'.



The catastrophe of La Saisiaz closed a comprehensive chapter in Mr. Browning's habits and experience. It impelled him finally to break with the associations of the last seventeen autumns, which he remembered more in their tedious or painful circumstances than in the unexciting pleasure and renewed physical health which he had derived from them. He was weary of the ever-recurring effort to uproot himself from his home life, only to become stationary in some more or less uninteresting northern spot. The always latent desire for Italy sprang up in him, and with it the often present thought and wish to give his sister the opportunity of seeing it.

Florence and Rome were not included in his scheme; he knew them both too well; but he hankered for Asolo and Venice. He determined, though as usual reluctantly, and not till the last moment, that they should move southwards in the August of 1878. Their route lay over the Spluegen; and having heard of a comfortable hotel near the summit of the Pass, they agreed to remain there till the heat had sufficiently abated to allow of the descent into Lombardy. The advantages of this first arrangement exceeded their expectations. It gave them solitude without the sense of loneliness. A little stream of travellers passed constantly over the mountain, and they could shake hands with acquaintances at night, and know them gone in the morning. They dined at the table d'hote, but took all other meals alone, and slept in a detached wing or 'dependance' of the hotel. Their daily walks sometimes carried them down to the Via Mala; often to the top of the ascent, where they could rest, looking down into Italy; and would even be prolonged over a period of five hours and an extent of seventeen miles. Now, as always, the mountain air stimulated Mr. Browning's physical energy; and on this occasion it also especially quickened his imaginative powers. He was preparing the first series of 'Dramatic Idylls'; and several of these, including 'Ivan Ivanovitch', were produced with such rapidity that Miss Browning refused to countenance a prolonged stay on the mountain, unless he worked at a more reasonable rate.

They did not linger on their way to Asolo and Venice, except for a night's rest on the Lake of Como and two days at Verona. In their successive journeys through Northern Italy they visited by degrees all its notable cities, and it would be easy to recall, in order and detail, most of these yearly expeditions. But the account of them would chiefly resolve itself into a list of names and dates; for Mr. Browning had seldom a new impression to receive, even from localities which he had not seen before. I know that he and his sister were deeply struck by the deserted grandeurs of Ravenna; and that it stirred in both of them a memorable sensation to wander as they did for a whole day through the pinewoods consecrated by Dante. I am nevertheless not sure that when they performed the repeated round of picture-galleries and palaces, they were not sometimes simply paying their debt to opportunity, and as much for each other's sake as for their own. Where all was Italy, there was little to gain or lose in one memorial of greatness, one object of beauty, visited or left unseen. But in Asolo, even in Venice, Mr. Browning was seeking something more: the remembrance of his own actual and poetic youth. How far he found it in the former place we may infer from a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald.

Sept. 28, 1878.

And from 'Asolo', at last, dear friend! So can dreams come false.—S., who has been writing at the opposite side of the table, has told you about our journey and adventures, such as they were: but she cannot tell you the feelings with which I revisit this—to me—memorable place after above forty years' absence,—such things have begun and ended with me in the interval! It was too strange when we reached the ruined tower on the hill-top yesterday, and I said 'Let me try if the echo still exists which I discovered here,' (you can produce it from only one particular spot on a remainder of brickwork—) and thereupon it answered me plainly as ever, after all the silence: for some children from the adjoining 'podere', happening to be outside, heard my voice and its result—and began trying to perform the feat—calling 'Yes, yes'—all in vain: so, perhaps, the mighty secret will die with me! We shall probably stay here a day or two longer,—the air is so pure, the country so attractive: but we must go soon to Venice, stay our allotted time there, and then go homeward: you will of course address letters to Venice, not this place: it is a pleasure I promise myself that, on arriving I shall certainly hear you speak in a letter which I count upon finding.

The old inn here, to which I would fain have betaken myself, is gone—levelled to the ground: I remember it was much damaged by a recent earthquake, and the cracks and chasms may have threatened a downfall. This Stella d'Oro is, however, much such an unperverted 'locanda' as its predecessor—primitive indeed are the arrangements and unsophisticate the ways: but there is cleanliness, abundance of goodwill, and the sweet Italian smile at every mistake: we get on excellently. To be sure never was such a perfect fellow-traveller, for my purposes, as S., so that I have no subject of concern—if things suit me they suit her—and vice-versa. I daresay she will have told you how we trudged together, this morning to Possagno—through a lovely country: how we saw all the wonders—and a wonder of detestability is the paint-performance of the great man!—and how, on our return, we found the little town enjoying high market day, and its privilege of roaring and screaming over a bargain. It confuses me altogether,—but at Venice I may write more comfortably. You will till then, Dear Friend, remember me ever as yours affectionately, Robert Browning.

If the tone of this does not express disappointment, it has none of the rapture which his last visit was to inspire. The charm which forty years of remembrance had cast around the little city on the hill was dispelled for, at all events, the time being. The hot weather and dust-covered landscape, with the more than primitive accommodation of which he spoke in a letter to another friend, may have contributed something to this result.

At Venice the travellers fared better in some essential respects. A London acquaintance, who passed them on their way to Italy, had recommended a cool and quiet hotel there, the Albergo dell' Universo. The house, Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, was situated on the shady side of the Grand Canal, just below the Accademia and the Suspension Bridge. The open stretches of the Giudecca lay not far behind; and a scrap of garden and a clean and open little street made pleasant the approach from back and side. It accommodated few persons in proportion to its size, and fewer still took up their abode there; for it was managed by a lady of good birth and fallen fortunes whose home and patrimony it had been; and her husband, a retired Austrian officer, and two grown-up daughters did not lighten her task. Every year the fortunes sank lower; the upper storey of the house was already falling into decay, and the fine old furniture passing into the brokers' or private buyers' hands. It still, however, afforded sufficiently comfortable, and, by reason of its very drawbacks, desirable quarters to Mr. Browning. It perhaps turned the scale in favour of his return to Venice; for the lady whose hospitality he was to enjoy there was as yet unknown to him; and nothing would have induced him to enter, with his eyes open, one of the English-haunted hotels, in which acquaintance, old and new, would daily greet him in the public rooms or jostle him in the corridors.

He and his sister remained at the Universo for a fortnight; their programme did not this year include a longer stay; but it gave them time to decide that no place could better suit them for an autumn holiday than Venice, or better lend itself to a preparatory sojourn among the Alps; and the plan of their next, and, though they did not know it, many a following summer, was thus sketched out before the homeward journey had begun.

Mr. Browning did not forget his work, even while resting from it; if indeed he did rest entirely on this occasion. He consulted a Russian lady whom he met at the hotel, on the names he was introducing in 'Ivan Ivanovitch'. It would be interesting to know what suggestions or corrections she made, and how far they adapted themselves to the rhythm already established, or compelled changes in it; but the one alternative would as little have troubled him as the other. Mrs. Browning told Mr. Prinsep that her husband could never alter the wording of a poem without rewriting it, indeed, practically converting it into another; though he more than once tried to do so at her instigation. But to the end of his life he could at any moment recast a line or passage for the sake of greater correctness, and leave all that was essential in it untouched.

Seven times more in the eleven years which remained to him, Mr. Browning spent the autumn in Venice. Once also, in 1882, he had proceeded towards it as far as Verona, when the floods which marked the autumn of that year arrested his farther course. Each time he had halted first in some more or less elevated spot, generally suggested by his French friend, Monsieur Dourlans, himself an inveterate wanderer, whose inclinations also tempted him off the beaten track. The places he most enjoyed were Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse, and Gressoney Saint-Jean, where he stayed respectively in 1881 and 1882, 1883 and 1885. Both of these had the drawbacks, and what might easily have been the dangers, of remoteness from the civilized world. But this weighed with him so little, that he remained there in each case till the weather had broken, though there was no sheltered conveyance in which he and his sister could travel down; and on the later occasions at least, circumstances might easily have combined to prevent their departure for an indefinite time. He became, indeed, so attached to Gressoney, with its beautiful outlook upon Monte Rosa, that nothing I believe would have hindered his returning, or at least contemplating a return to it, but the great fatigue to his sister of the mule ride up the mountain, by a path which made walking, wherever possible, the easier course. They did walk down it in the early October of 1885, and completed the hard seven hours' trudge to San Martino d'Aosta, without an atom of refreshment or a minute's rest.

One of the great attractions of Saint-Pierre was the vicinity of the Grande Chartreuse, to which Mr. Browning made frequent expeditions, staying there through the night in order to hear the midnight mass. Miss Browning also once attempted the visit, but was not allowed to enter the monastery. She slept in the adjoining convent.

The brother and sister were again at the Universo in 1879, 1880, and 1881; but the crash was rapidly approaching, and soon afterwards it came. The old Palazzo passed into other hands, and after a short period of private ownership was consigned to the purposes of an Art Gallery.

In 1880, however, they had been introduced by Mrs. Story to an American resident, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, and entered into most friendly relations with her; and when, after a year's interval, they were again contemplating an autumn in Venice, she placed at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, which formed a supplement to her own house—making the offer with a kindly urgency which forbade all thought of declining it. They inhabited these for a second time in 1885, keeping house for themselves in the simple but comfortable foreign manner they both so well enjoyed, only dining and spending the evening with their friend. But when, in 1888, they were going, as they thought, to repeat the arrangement, they found, to their surprise, a little apartment prepared for them under Mrs. Bronson's own roof. This act of hospitality involved a special kindness on her part, of which Mr. Browning only became aware at the close of a prolonged stay; and a sense of increased gratitude added itself to the affectionate regard with which his hostess had already inspired both his sister and him. So far as he is concerned, the fact need only be indicated. It is fully expressed in the preface to 'Asolando'.

During the first and fresher period of Mr. Browning's visits to Venice, he found a passing attraction in its society. It held an historical element which harmonized well with the decayed magnificence of the city, its old-world repose, and the comparatively simple modes of intercourse still prevailing there. Mrs. Bronson's 'salon' was hospitably open whenever her health allowed; but her natural refinement, and the conservatism which so strongly marks the higher class of Americans, preserved it from the heterogeneous character which Anglo-foreign sociability so often assumes. Very interesting, even important names lent their prestige to her circle; and those of Don Carlos and his family, of Prince and Princess Iturbide, of Prince and Princess Metternich, and of Princess Montenegro, were on the list of her 'habitues', and, in the case of the royal Spaniards, of her friends. It need hardly be said that the great English poet, with his fast spreading reputation and his infinite social charm, was kindly welcomed and warmly appreciated amongst them.

English and American acquaintances also congregated in Venice, or passed through it from London, Florence, and Rome. Those resident in Italy could make their visits coincide with those of Mr. Browning and his sister, or undertake the journey for the sake of seeing them; while the outward conditions of life were such as to render friendly intercourse more satisfactory, and common social civilities less irksome than they could be at home. Mr. Browning was, however, already too advanced in years, too familiar with everything which the world can give, to be long affected by the novelty of these experiences. It was inevitable that the need of rest, though often for the moment forgotten, should assert itself more and more. He gradually declined on the society of a small number of resident or semi-resident friends; and, due exception being made for the hospitalities of his temporary home, became indebted to the kindness of Sir Henry and Lady Layard, of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Palazzo Barbaro, and of Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Eden, for most of the social pleasure and comfort of his later residences in Venice.

Part of a letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald gives an insight into the character of his life there: all the stronger that it was written under a temporary depression which it partly serves to explain.

Albergo dell' Universo, Venezia, Italia: Sept. 24, '81.

'Dear Friend,—On arriving here I found your letter to my great satisfaction—and yesterday brought the 'Saturday Review'—for which, many thanks.

'We left our strange but lovely place on the 18th, reaching Chambery at evening,—stayed the next day there,—walking, among other diversions to "Les Charmettes", the famous abode of Rousseau—kept much as when he left it: I visited it with my wife perhaps twenty-five years ago, and played so much of "Rousseau's Dream" as could be effected on his antique harpsichord: this time I attempted the same feat, but only two notes or thereabouts out of the octave would answer the touch. Next morning we proceeded to Turin, and on Wednesday got here, in the middle of the last night of the Congress Carnival—rowing up the Canal to our Albergo through a dazzling blaze of lights and throng of boats,—there being, if we are told truly, 50,000 strangers in the city. Rooms had been secured for us, however: and the festivities are at an end, to my great joy,—for Venice is resuming its old quiet aspect—the only one I value at all. Our American friends wanted to take us in their gondola to see the principal illuminations after the "Serenade", which was not over before midnight—but I was contented with that—being tired and indisposed for talking, and, having seen and heard quite enough from our own balcony, went to bed: S. having betaken her to her own room long before.

'Next day we took stock of our acquaintances,—found that the Storys, on whom we had counted for company, were at Vallombrosa, though the two sons have a studio here—other friends are in sufficient number however—and last evening we began our visits by a very classical one—to the Countess Mocenigo, in her palace which Byron occupied: she is a charming widow since two years,—young, pretty and of the prettiest manners: she showed us all the rooms Byron had lived in,—and I wrote my name in her album on the desk himself wrote the last canto of 'Ch. Harold' and 'Beppo' upon. There was a small party: we were taken and introduced by the Layards who are kind as ever, and I met old friends—Lord Aberdare, Charles Bowen, and others. While I write comes a deliciously fresh 'bouquet' from Mrs. Bronson, an American lady,—in short we shall find a week or two amusing enough; though—where are the pinewoods, mountains and torrents, and wonderful air? Venice is under a cloud,—dull and threatening,—though we were apprehensive of heat, arriving, as we did, ten days earlier than last year. . . .'

The evening's programme was occasionally varied by a visit to one of the theatres. The plays given were chiefly in the Venetian dialect, and needed previous study for their enjoyment; but Mr. Browning assisted at one musical performance which strongly appealed to his historical and artistic sensibilities: that of the 'Barbiere' of Paisiello in the Rossini theatre and in the presence of Wagner, which took place in the autumn of 1880.

Although the manner of his sojourn in the Italian city placed all the resources of resident life at his command, Mr. Browning never abjured the active habits of the English traveller. He daily walked with his sister, as he did in the mountains, for walking's sake, as well as for the delight of what his expeditions showed him; and the facilities which they supplied for this healthful pleasurable exercise were to his mind one of the great merits of his autumn residences in Italy. He explored Venice in all directions, and learned to know its many points of beauty and interest, as those cannot who believe it is only to be seen from a gondola; and when he had visited its every corner, he fell back on a favourite stroll along the Riva to the public garden and back again; never failing to leave the house at about the same hour of the day. Later still, when a friend's gondola was always at hand, and air and sunshine were the one thing needful, he would be carried to the Lido, and take a long stretch on its farther shore.

The letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, from which I have already quoted, concludes with the account of a tragic occurrence which took place at Saint-Pierre just before his departure, and in which Mr. Browning's intuitions had played a striking part.

'And what do you think befell us in this abode of peace and innocence? Our journey was delayed for three hours in consequence of the one mule of the village being requisitioned by the 'Juge d'Instruction' from Grenoble, come to enquire into a murder committed two days before. My sister and I used once a day to walk for a couple of hours up a mountain-road of the most lovely description, and stop at the summit whence we looked down upon the minute hamlet of St.-Pierre d'Entremont,—even more secluded than our own: then we got back to our own aforesaid. And in this Paradisial place, they found, yesterday week, a murdered man—frightfully mutilated—who had been caught apparently in the act of stealing potatoes in a field: such a crime had never occurred in the memory of the oldest of our folk. Who was the murderer is the mystery—whether the field's owner—in his irritation at discovering the robber,—or one of a band of similar 'charbonniers' (for they suppose the man to be a Piedmontese of that occupation) remains to be proved: they began by imprisoning the owner, who denies his guilt energetically. Now the odd thing is, that, either the day of, or after the murder,—as I and S. were looking at the utter solitude, I had the fancy "What should I do if I suddenly came upon a dead body in this field? Go and proclaim it—and subject myself to all the vexations inflicted by the French way of procedure (which begins by assuming that you may be the criminal)—or neglect an obvious duty, and return silently." I, of course, saw that the former was the only proper course, whatever the annoyance involved. And, all the while, there was just about to be the very same incident for the trouble of somebody.'

Here the account breaks off; but writing again from the same place, August 16, 1882, he takes up the suspended narrative with this question:

'Did I tell you of what happened to me on the last day of my stay here last year?' And after repeating the main facts continues as follows:

'This morning, in the course of my walk, I entered into conversation with two persons of whom I made enquiry myself. They said the accused man, a simple person, had been locked up in a high chamber,—protesting his innocence strongly,—and troubled in his mind by the affair altogether and the turn it was taking, had profited by the gendarme's negligence, and thrown himself out of the window—and so died, continuing to the last to protest as before. My presentiment of what such a person might have to undergo was justified you see—though I should not in any case have taken that way of getting out of the difficulty. The man added, "it was not he who committed the murder, but the companions of the man, an Italian charcoal-burner, who owed him a grudge, killed him, and dragged him to the field—filling his sack with potatoes as if stolen, to give a likelihood that the field's owner had caught him stealing and killed him,—so M. Perrier the greffier told me." Enough of this grim story.

. . . . .

'My sister was anxious to know exactly where the body was found: "Vouz savez la croix au sommet de la colline? A cette distance de cela!" That is precisely where I was standing when the thought came over me.'

A passage in a subsequent letter of September 3 clearly refers to some comment of Mrs. Fitz-Gerald's on the peculiar nature of this presentiment:

'No—I attribute no sort of supernaturalism to my fancy about the thing that was really about to take place. By a law of the association of ideas—contraries come into the mind as often as similarities—and the peace and solitude readily called up the notion of what would most jar with them. I have often thought of the trouble that might have befallen me if poor Miss Smith's death had happened the night before, when we were on the mountain alone together—or next morning when we were on the proposed excursion—only then we should have had companions.'

The letter then passes to other subjects.

'This is the fifth magnificent day—like magnificence, unfit for turning to much account—for we cannot walk till sunset. I had two hours' walk, or nearly, before breakfast, however: It is the loveliest country I ever had experience of, and we shall prolong our stay perhaps—apart from the concern for poor Cholmondeley and his friends, I should be glad to apprehend no long journey—besides the annoyance of having to pass Florence and Rome unvisited, for S.'s sake, I mean: even Naples would have been with its wonderful environs a tantalizing impracticability.

'Your "Academy" came and was welcomed. The newspaper is like an electric eel, as one touches it and expects a shock. I am very anxious about the Archbishop who has always been strangely kind to me.'

He and his sister had accepted an invitation to spend the month of October with Mr. Cholmondeley at his villa in Ischia; but the party assembled there was broken up by the death of one of Mr. Cholmondeley's guests, a young lady who had imprudently attempted the ascent of a dangerous mountain without a guide, and who lost her life in the experiment.

A short extract from a letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow will show that even in this complete seclusion Mr. Browning's patriotism did not go to sleep. There had been already sufficient evidence that his friendship did not; but it was not in the nature of his mental activities that they should be largely absorbed by politics, though he followed the course of his country's history as a necessary part of his own life. It needed a crisis like that of our Egyptian campaign, or the subsequent Irish struggle, to arouse him to a full emotional participation in current events. How deeply he could be thus aroused remained yet to be seen.

'If the George Smiths are still with you, give them my love, and tell them we shall expect to see them at Venice,—which was not so likely to be the case when we were bound for Ischia. As for Lady Wolseley—one dares not pretend to vie with her in anxiety just now; but my own pulses beat pretty strongly when I open the day's newspaper—which, by some new arrangement, reaches us, oftener than not, on the day after publication. Where is your Bertie? I had an impassioned letter, a fortnight ago, from a nephew of mine, who is in the second division [battalion?] of the Black Watch; he was ordered to Edinburgh, and the regiment not dispatched, after all,—it having just returned from India; the poor fellow wrote in his despair "to know if I could do anything!" He may be wanted yet: though nothing seems wanted in Egypt, so capital appears to be the management.'

In 1879 Mr. Browning published the first series of his 'Dramatic Idyls'; and their appearance sent a thrill of surprised admiration through the public mind. In 'La Saisiaz' and the accompanying poems he had accomplished what was virtually a life's work. For he was approaching the appointed limit of man's existence; and the poetic, which had been nourished in him by the natural life—which had once outstripped its developments, but on the whole remained subject to them—had therefore, also, passed through the successive phases of individual growth. He had been inspired as dramatic poet by the one avowed conviction that little else is worth study but the history of a soul; and outward act or circumstance had only entered into his creations as condition or incident of the given psychological state. His dramatic imagination had first, however unconsciously, sought its materials in himself; then gradually been projected into the world of men and women, which his widening knowledge laid open to him; it is scarcely necessary to say that its power was only fully revealed when it left the remote regions of poetical and metaphysical self-consciousness, to invoke the not less mysterious and far more searching utterance of the general human heart. It was a matter of course that in this expression of his dramatic genius, the intellectual and emotional should exhibit the varying relations which are developed by the natural life: that feeling should begin by doing the work of thought, as in 'Saul', and thought end by doing the work of feeling, as in 'Fifine at the Fair'; and that the two should alternate or combine in proportioned intensity in such works of an intermediate period as 'Cleon', 'A Death in the Desert', the 'Epistle of Karshish', and 'James Lee's Wife'; the sophistical ingenuities of 'Bishop Blougram', and 'Sludge'; and the sad, appealing tenderness of 'Andrea del Sarto' and 'The Worst of It'.

It was also almost inevitable that so vigorous a genius should sometimes falsify calculations based on the normal life. The long-continued force and freshness of Mr. Browning's general faculties was in itself a protest against them. We saw without surprise that during the decade which produced 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau', 'Fifine at the Fair', and 'Red Cotton Nightcap Country', he could give us 'The Inn Album', with its expression of the higher sexual love unsurpassed, rarely equalled, in the whole range of his work: or those two unique creations of airy fancy and passionate symbolic romance, 'Saint Martin's Summer', and 'Numpholeptos'. It was no ground for astonishment that the creative power in him should even ignore the usual period of decline, and defy, so far as is humanly possible, its natural laws of modification. But in the 'Dramatic Idyls' he did more than proceed with unflagging powers on a long-trodden, distinctive course; he took a new departure.

Mr. Browning did not forsake the drama of motive when he imagined and worked out his new group of poems; he presented it in a no less subtle and complex form. But he gave it the added force of picturesque realization; and this by means of incidents both powerful in themselves, and especially suited for its development. It was only in proportion to this higher suggestiveness that a startling situation ever seemed to him fit subject for poetry. Where its interest and excitement exhausted themselves in the external facts, it became, he thought, the property of the chronicler, but supplied no material for the poet; and he often declined matter which had been offered him for dramatic treatment because it belonged to the more sensational category.

It is part of the vital quality of the 'Dramatic Idyls' that, in them, the act and the motive are not yet finally identified with each other. We see the act still palpitating with the motive; the motive dimly striving to recognize or disclaim itself in the act. It is in this that the psychological poet stands more than ever strongly revealed. Such at least is the case in 'Martin Relph', and the idealized Russian legend, 'Ivan Ivanovitch'. The grotesque tragedy of 'Ned Bratts' has also its marked psychological aspects, but they are of a simpler and broader kind.

The new inspiration slowly subsided through the second series of 'Idyls', 1880, and 'Jocoseria', 1883. In 'Ferishtah's Fancies', 1884, Mr. Browning returned to his original manner, though carrying into it something of the renewed vigour which had marked the intervening change. The lyrics which alternate with its parables include some of the most tender, most impassioned, and most musical of his love-poems.

The moral and religious opinions conveyed in this later volume may be accepted without reserve as Mr. Browning's own, if we subtract from them the exaggerations of the figurative and dramatic form. It is indeed easy to recognize in them the under currents of his whole real and imaginative life. They have also on one or two points an intrinsic value which will justify a later allusion.



Chapter 19

1881-1887

The Browning Society; Mr. Furnivall; Miss E. H. Hickey—His Attitude towards the Society; Letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald—Mr. Thaxter, Mrs. Celia Thaxter—Letter to Miss Hickey; 'Strafford'—Shakspere and Wordsworth Societies—Letters to Professor Knight—Appreciation in Italy; Professor Nencioni—The Goldoni Sonnet—Mr. Barrett Browning; Palazzo Manzoni—Letters to Mrs. Charles Skirrow—Mrs. Bloomfield Moore—Llangollen; Sir Theodore and Lady Martin—Loss of old Friends—Foreign Correspondent of the Royal Academy—'Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their Day'.



This Indian summer of Mr. Browning's genius coincided with the highest manifestation of public interest, which he, or with one exception, any living writer, had probably yet received: the establishment of a Society bearing his name, and devoted to the study of his poetry. The idea arose almost simultaneously in the mind of Dr., then Mr. Furnivall, and of Miss E. H. Hickey. One day, in the July of 1881, as they were on their way to Warwick Crescent to pay an appointed visit there, Miss Hickey strongly expressed her opinion of the power and breadth of Mr. Browning's work; and concluded by saying that much as she loved Shakespeare, she found in certain aspects of Browning what even Shakespeare could not give her. Mr. Furnivall replied to this by asking what she would say to helping him to found a Browning Society; and it then appeared that Miss Hickey had recently written to him a letter, suggesting that he should found one; but that it had miscarried, or, as she was disposed to think, not been posted. Being thus, at all events, agreed as to the fitness of the undertaking, they immediately spoke of it to Mr. Browning, who at first treated the project as a joke; but did not oppose it when once he understood it to be serious. His only proviso was that he should remain neutral in respect to its fulfilment. He refused even to give Mr. Furnivall the name or address of any friends, whose interest in himself or his work might render their co-operation probable.

This passive assent sufficed. A printed prospectus was now issued. About two hundred members were soon secured. A committee was elected, of which Mr. J. T. Nettleship, already well known as a Browning student, was one of the most conspicuous members; and by the end of October a small Society had come into existence, which held its inaugural meeting in the Botanic Theatre of University College. Mr. Furnivall, its principal founder, and responsible organizer, was Chairman of the Committee, and Miss E. H. Hickey, the co-founder, was Honorary Secretary. When, two or three years afterwards, illness compelled her to resign this position, it was assumed by Mr. J. Dykes Campbell.

Although nothing could be more unpretending than the action of this Browning Society, or in the main more genuine than its motive, it did not begin life without encountering ridicule and mistrust. The formation of a Ruskin Society in the previous year had already established a precedent for allowing a still living worker to enjoy the fruits of his work, or, as some one termed it, for making a man a classic during his lifetime. But this fact was not yet generally known; and meanwhile a curious contradiction developed itself in the public mind. The outer world of Mr. Browning's acquaintance continued to condemn the too great honour which was being done to him; from those of the inner circle he constantly received condolences on being made the subject of proceedings which, according to them, he must somehow regard as an offence.

This was the last view of the case which he was prepared to take. At the beginning, as at the end, he felt honoured by the intentions of the Society. He probably, it is true, had occasional misgivings as to its future. He could not be sure that its action would always be judicious, still less that it would be always successful. He was prepared for its being laughed at, and for himself being included in the laughter. He consented to its establishment for what seemed to him the one unanswerable reason, that he had, even on the ground of taste, no just cause for forbidding it. No line, he considered, could be drawn between the kind of publicity which every writer seeks, which, for good or evil, he had already obtained, and that which the Browning Society was conferring on him. His works would still, as before, be read, analyzed, and discussed 'viva voce' and in print. That these proceedings would now take place in other localities than drawing-rooms or clubs, through other organs than newspapers or magazines, by other and larger groups of persons than those usually gathered round a dinner-or a tea-table, involved no real change in the situation. In any case, he had made himself public property; and those who thus organized their study of him were exercising an individual right. If his own rights had been assailed he would have guarded them also; but the circumstances of the case precluded such a contingency. And he had his reward. How he felt towards the Society at the close of its first session is better indicated in the following letter to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald than in the note to Mr. Yates which Mr. Sharp has published, and which was written with more reserve and, I believe, at a rather earlier date. Even the shade of condescension which lingers about his words will have been effaced by subsequent experience; and many letters written to Dr. Furnivall must, since then, have attested his grateful and affectionate appreciation of kindness intended and service done to him.

. . . They always treat me gently in 'Punch'—why don't you do the same by the Browning Society? I see you emphasize Miss Hickey's acknowledgement of defects in time and want of rehearsal: but I look for no great perfection in a number of kindly disposed strangers to me personally, who try to interest people in my poems by singing and reading them. They give their time for nothing, offer their little entertainment for nothing, and certainly get next to nothing in the way of thanks—unless from myself who feel grateful to the faces I shall never see, the voices I shall never hear. The kindest notices I have had, or at all events those that have given me most pleasure, have been educed by this Society—A. Sidgwick's paper, that of Professor Corson, Miss Lewis' article in this month's 'Macmillan'—and I feel grateful for it all, for my part,—and none the less for a little amusement at the wonder of some of my friends that I do not jump up and denounce the practices which must annoy me so much. Oh! my 'gentle Shakespeare', how well you felt and said—'never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it.' So, dear Lady, here is my duty and simplicity tendering itself to you, with all affection besides, and I being ever yours, R. Browning.

That general disposition of the London world which left the ranks of the little Society to be three-fourths recruited among persons, many living at a distance, whom the poet did not know, became also in its way a satisfaction. It was with him a matter of course, though never of indifference, that his closer friends of both sexes were among its members; it was one of real gratification that they included from the beginning such men as Dean Boyle of Salisbury, the Rev. Llewellyn Davies, George Meredith, and James Cotter Morison—that they enjoyed the sympathy and co-operation of such a one as Archdeacon Farrar. But he had an ingenuous pride in reading the large remainder of the Society's lists of names, and pointing out the fact that there was not one among them which he had ever heard. It was equivalent to saying, 'All these people care for me as a poet. No social interest, no personal prepossession, has attracted them to my work.' And when the unknown name was not only appended to a list; when it formed the signature of a paper—excellent or indifferent as might be—but in either case bearing witness to a careful and unobtrusive study of his poems, by so much was the gratification increased. He seldom weighed the intrinsic merit of such productions; he did not read them critically. No man was ever more adverse to the seeming ungraciousness of analyzing the quality of a gift. In real life indeed this power of gratitude sometimes defeated its own end, by neutralizing his insight into the motive or effort involved in different acts of kindness, and placing them all successively on the same plane.

In the present case, however, an ungraduated acceptance of the labour bestowed on him was part of the neutral attitude which it was his constant endeavour to maintain. He always refrained from noticing any erroneous statement concerning himself or his works which might appear in the Papers of the Society: since, as he alleged, if he once began to correct, he would appear to endorse whatever he left uncorrected, and thus make himself responsible, not only for any interpretation that might be placed on his poems, but, what was far more serious, for every eulogium that was bestowed upon them. He could not stand aloof as entirely as he or even his friends desired, since it was usual with some members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages which, without these, it was declared, would be a stumbling-block to future readers. But he disliked being even to this extent drawn into its operation; and his help was, I believe, less and less frequently invoked. Nothing could be more false than the rumour which once arose that he superintended those performances of his plays which took place under the direction of the Society. Once only, and by the urgent desire of some of the actors, did he witness a last rehearsal of one of them.

It was also a matter of course that men and women brought together by a pre-existing interest in Mr. Browning's work should often ignore its authorized explanations, and should read and discuss it in the light of personal impressions more congenial to their own mind; and the various and circumstantial views sometimes elicited by a given poem did not serve to render it more intelligible. But the merit of true poetry lies so largely in its suggestiveness, that even mistaken impressions of it have their positive value and also their relative truth; and the intellectual friction which was thus created, not only in the parent society, but in its offshoots in England and America, was not their least important result.

These Societies conferred, it need hardly be said, no less real benefits on the public at large. They extended the sale of Mr. Browning's works, and with it their distinct influence for intellectual and moral good. They not only created in many minds an interest in these works, but aroused the interest where it was latent, and gave it expression where it had hitherto found no voice. One fault, alone, could be charged against them; and this lay partly in the nature of all friendly concerted action: they stirred a spirit of enthusiasm in which it was not easy, under conditions equally genuine, to distinguish the individual element from that which was due to contagion; while the presence among us of the still living poet often infused into that enthusiasm a vaguely emotional element, which otherwise detracted from its intellectual worth. But in so far as this was a drawback to the intended action of the Societies, it was one only in the most negative sense; nor can we doubt, that, to a certain extent, Mr. Browning's best influence was promoted by it. The hysterical sensibilities which, for some years past, he had unconsciously but not unfrequently aroused in the minds of women, and even of men, were a morbid development of that influence, which its open and systematic extension tended rather to diminish than to increase.

It is also a matter of history that Robert Browning had many deep and constant admirers in England, and still more in America,* long before this organized interest had developed itself. Letters received from often remote parts of the United States had been for many years a detail of his daily experience; and even when they consisted of the request for an autograph, an application to print selections from his works, or a mere expression of schoolboy pertness or schoolgirl sentimentality, they bore witness to his wide reputation in that country, and the high esteem in which he was held there.** The names of Levi and Celia Thaxter of Boston had long, I believe, been conspicuous in the higher ranks of his disciples, though they first occur in his correspondence at about this date. I trust I may take for granted Mrs. Thaxter's permission to publish a letter from her.

* The cheapening of his works in America, induced by the absence of international copyright, accounts of course in some degree for their wider diffusion, and hence earlier appreciation there.

** One of the most curious proofs of this was the Californian Railway time-table edition of his poems.

Newtonville, Massachusetts: March 14, 1880.

My dear Mr. Browning:

Your note reached me this morning, but it belonged to my husband, for it was he who wrote to you; so I gave it to him, glad to put into his hands so precious a piece of manuscript, for he has for you and all your work an enthusiastic appreciation such as is seldom found on this planet: it is not possible that the admiration of one mortal for another can exceed his feeling for you. You might have written for him,

I've a friend over the sea, . . . .

It all grew out of the books I write, &c.

You should see his fine wrath and scorn for the idiocy that doesn't at once comprehend you!

He knows every word you have ever written; long ago 'Sordello' was an open book to him from title-page to closing line, and all you have printed since has been as eagerly and studiously devoured. He reads you aloud (and his reading is a fine art) to crowds of astonished people, he swears by you, he thinks no one save Shakspere has a right to be mentioned in the same century with you. You are the great enthusiasm of his life.

Pardon me, you are smiling, I dare say. You hear any amount of such things, doubtless. But a genuine living appreciation is always worth having in this old world, it is like a strong fresh breeze from off the brine, that puts a sense of life and power into a man. You cannot be the worse for it. Yours very sincerely, Celia Thaxter.

When Mr. Thaxter died, in February 1885, his son wrote to Mr. Browning to beg of him a few lines to be inscribed on his father's tombstone. The little poem by which the request was answered has not yet, I believe, been published.

'Written to be inscribed on the gravestone of Levi Thaxter.'

Thou, whom these eyes saw never,—say friends true Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too? I gave but of the little that I knew: How were the gift requited, while along Life's path I pace, could'st thou make weakness strong, Help me with knowledge—for Life's old, Death's new! R. B. April 19, '85.

A publication which connected itself with the labours of the Society, without being directly inspired by it, was the annotated 'Strafford' prepared by Miss Hickey for the use of students. It may be agreeable to those who use the little work to know the estimate in which Mr. Browning held it. He wrote as follows:

19, Warwick Crescent, W.: February 15, 1884.

Dear Miss Hickey,—I have returned the Proofs by post,—nothing can be better than your notes—and with a real wish to be of use, I read them carefully that I might detect never so tiny a fault,—but I found none—unless (to show you how minutely I searched,) it should be one that by 'thriving in your contempt,' I meant simply 'while you despise them, and for all that, they thrive and are powerful to do you harm.' The idiom you prefer—quite an authorized one—comes to much the same thing after all.

You must know how much I grieve at your illness—temporary as I will trust it to be—I feel all your goodness to me—or whatever in my books may be taken for me—well, I wish you knew how thoroughly I feel it—and how truly I am and shall ever be Yours affectionately, Robert Browning.

From the time of the foundation of the New Shakspere Society, Mr. Browning was its president. In 1880 he became a member of the Wordsworth Society. Two interesting letters to Professor Knight, dated respectively 1880 and 1887, connect themselves with the working of the latter; and, in spite of their distance in time, may therefore be given together. The poem which formed the subject of the first was 'The Daisy';* the selection referred to in the second was that made in 1888 by Professor Knight for the Wordsworth Society, with the co-operation of Mr. Browning and other eminent literary men.

* That beginning 'In youth from rock to rock, I went.'

19, Warwick Crescent, W.: July 9, '80.

My dear Sir,—You pay me a compliment in caring for my opinion—but, such as it is, a very decided one it must be. On every account, your method of giving the original text, and subjoining in a note the variations, each with its proper date, is incontestably preferable to any other. It would be so, if the variations were even improvements—there would be pleasure as well as profit in seeing what was good grow visibly better. But—to confine ourselves to the single 'proof' you have sent me—in every case the change is sadly for the worse: I am quite troubled by such spoilings of passage after passage as I should have chuckled at had I chanced upon them in some copy pencil-marked with corrections by Jeffrey or Gifford: indeed, they are nearly as wretched as the touchings-up of the 'Siege of Corinth' by the latter. If ever diabolic agency was caught at tricks with 'apostolic' achievement (see page 9)—and 'apostolic', with no 'profanity' at all, I esteem these poems to be—surely you may bid it 'aroint' 'about and all about' these desecrated stanzas—each of which, however, thanks to your piety, we may hail, I trust, with a hearty

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain Nor be less dear to future men Than in old time!

Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, Robert Browning.



19, Warwick Crescent, W.: March 23, '87.

Dear Professor Knight,—I have seemed to neglect your commission shamefully enough: but I confess to a sort of repugnance to classifying the poems as even good and less good: because in my heart I fear I should do it almost chronologically—so immeasureably superior seem to me the 'first sprightly runnings'. Your selection would appear to be excellent; and the partial admittance of the later work prevents one from observing the too definitely distinguishing black line between supremely good and—well, what is fairly tolerable—from Wordsworth, always understand! I have marked a few of the early poems, not included in your list—I could do no other when my conscience tells me that I never can be tired of loving them: while, with the best will in the world, I could never do more than try hard to like them.*

* By 'them' Mr. Browning clearly means the later poems, and probably has omitted a few words which would have shown this.

You see, I go wholly upon my individual likings and distastes: that other considerations should have their weight with other people is natural and inevitable. Ever truly yours, Robert Browning.

Many thanks for the volume just received—that with the correspondence. I hope that you restore the swan simile so ruthlessly cut away from 'Dion'.

In 1884 he was again invited, and again declined, to stand for the Lord Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews. In the same year he received the LL.D. degree of the University of Edinburgh; and in the following was made Honorary President of the Associated Societies of that city.* During the few days spent there on the occasion of his investiture, he was the guest of Professor Masson, whose solicitous kindness to him is still warmly remembered in the family.

* This Association was instituted in 1833, and is a union of literary and debating societies. It is at present composed of five: the Dialectic, Scots Law, Diagnostic, Philosophical, and Philomathic.

The interest in Mr. Browning as a poet is beginning to spread in Germany. There is room for wonder that it should not have done so before, though the affinities of his genius are rather with the older than with the more modern German mind. It is much more remarkable that, many years ago, his work had already a sympathetic exponent in Italy. Signor Nencioni, Professor of Literature in Florence, had made his acquaintance at Siena, and was possibly first attracted to him through his wife, although I never heard that it was so. He was soon, however, fascinated by Mr. Browning's poetry, and made it an object of serious study; he largely quoted from, and wrote on it, in the Roman paper 'Fanfulla della Domenica', in 1881 and 1882; and published last winter what is, I am told, an excellent article on the same subject, in the 'Nuova Antologia'. Two years ago he travelled from Rome to Venice (accompanied by Signor Placci), for the purpose of seeing him. He is fond of reciting passages from the works, and has even made attempts at translation: though he understands them too well not to pronounce them, what they are for every Latin language, untranslatable.

In 1883 Mr. Browning added another link to the 'golden' chain of verse which united England and Italy. A statue of Goldoni was about to be erected in Venice. The ceremonies of the occasion were to include the appearance of a volume—or album—of appropriate poems; and Cavaliere Molmenti, its intending editor, a leading member of the 'Erection Committee', begged Mr. Browning to contribute to it. It was also desired that he should be present at the unveiling.* He was unable to grant this request, but consented to write a poem. This sonnet to Goldoni also deserves to be more widely known, both for itself and for the manner of its production. Mr. Browning had forgotten, or not understood, how soon the promise concerning it must be fulfilled, and it was actually scribbled off while a messenger, sent by Signor Molmenti, waited for it.

* It was, I think, during this visit to Venice that he assisted at a no less interesting ceremony: the unveiling of a commemorative tablet to Baldassaro Galuppi, in his native island of Burano.

Goldoni,—good, gay, sunniest of souls,—Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine,—What though it just reflect the shade and shine Of common life, nor render, as it rolls Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals Was Carnival: Parini's depths enshrine Secrets unsuited to that opaline Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,—see,—On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, Be honoured! Thou that didst love Venice so, Venice, and we who love her, all love thee!

Venice, Nov. 27, 1883.

A complete bibliography would take account of three other sonnets, 'The Founder of the Feast', 1884, 'The Names', 1884, and 'Why I am a Liberal', 1886, to which I shall have occasion to refer; but we decline insensibly from these on to the less important or more fugitive productions which such lists also include, and on which it is unnecessary or undesirable that any stress should be laid.

In 1885 he was joined in Venice by his son. It was 'Penini's' first return to the country of his birth, his first experience of the city which he had only visited in his nurse's arms; and his delight in it was so great that the plan shaped itself in his father's mind of buying a house there, which should serve as 'pied-a-terre' for the family, but more especially as a home for him. Neither the health nor the energies of the younger Mr. Browning had ever withstood the influence of the London climate; a foreign element was undoubtedly present in his otherwise thoroughly English constitution. Everything now pointed to his settling in Italy, and pursuing his artist life there, only interrupting it by occasional visits to London and Paris. His father entered into negotiations for the Palazzo Manzoni, next door to the former Hotel de l'Univers; and the purchase was completed, so far as he was concerned, before he returned to England. The fact is related, and his own position towards it described in a letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow, written from Venice.

Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, S. Moise: Nov. 15, '85.

My two dear friends will have supposed, with plenty of reason, that I never got the kind letter some weeks ago. When it came, I was in the middle of an affair, conducted by letters of quite another kind, with people abroad: and as I fancied that every next day might bring me news very interesting to me and likely to be worth telling to the dear friends, I waited and waited—and only two days since did the matter come to a satisfactory conclusion—so, as the Irish song has it, 'Open your eyes and die with surprise' when I inform you that I have purchased the Manzoni Palace here, on the Canal Grande, of its owner, Marchese Montecucculi, an Austrian and an absentee—hence the delay of communication. I did this purely for Pen—who became at once simply infatuated with the city which won my whole heart long before he was born or thought of. I secure him a perfect domicile, every facility for his painting and sculpture, and a property fairly worth, even here and now, double what I gave for it—such is the virtue in these parts of ready money! I myself shall stick to London—which has been so eminently good and gracious to me—so long as God permits; only, when the inevitable outrage of Time gets the better of my body—(I shall not believe in his reaching my soul and proper self)—there will be a capital retreat provided: and meantime I shall be able to 'take mine ease in mine own inn' whenever so minded. There, my dear friends! I trust now to be able to leave very shortly; the main business cannot be formally concluded before two months at least—through the absence of the Marchese,—who left at once to return to his duties as commander of an Austrian ship; but the necessary engagement to sell and buy at a specified price is made in due legal form, and the papers will be sent to me in London for signature. I hope to get away the week after next at latest,—spite of the weather in England which to-day's letters report as 'atrocious',—and ours, though variable, is in the main very tolerable and sometimes perfect; for all that, I yearn to be at home in poor Warwick Crescent, which must do its best to make me forget my new abode. I forget you don't know Venice. Well then, the Palazzo Manzoni is situate on the Grand Canal, and is described by Ruskin,—to give no other authority,—as 'a perfect and very rich example of Byzantine Renaissance: its warm yellow marbles are magnificent.' And again—'an exquisite example (of Byzantine Renaissance) as applied to domestic architecture.' So testify the 'Stones of Venice'. But we will talk about the place, over a photograph, when I am happy enough to be with you again.

Of Venetian gossip there is next to none. We had an admirable Venetian Company,—using the dialect,—at the Goldoni Theatre. The acting of Zago, in his various parts, and Zenon-Palladini, in her especial character of a Venetian piece of volubility and impulsiveness in the shape of a servant, were admirable indeed. The manager, Gallina, is a playwright of much reputation, and gave us some dozen of his own pieces, mostly good and clever. S. is very well,—much improved in health: we walk sufficiently in this city where walking is accounted impossible by those who never attempt it. Have I tired your good temper? No! you ever wished me well, and I love you both with my whole heart. S.'s love goes with mine—who am ever yours Robert Browning.

He never, however, owned the Manzoni Palace. The Austrian gentlemen* whose property it was, put forward, at the last moment, unexpected and to his mind unreasonable claims; and he was preparing to contest the position, when a timely warning induced him to withdraw from it altogether. The warning proceeded from his son, who had remained on the spot, and was now informed on competent authority that the foundations of the house were insecure.

* Two or three brothers.

In the early summer of 1884, and again in 1886, Miss Browning had a serious illness; and though she recovered, in each case completely, and in the first rapidly, it was considered desirable that she should not travel so far as usual from home. She and her brother therefore accepted for the August and September of 1884 the urgent invitation of an American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, to stay with her at a villa which she rented for some seasons at St. Moritz. Mr. Browning was delighted with the Engadine, where the circumstances of his abode, and the thoughtful kindness of his hostess, allowed him to enjoy the benefits of comparative civilization together with almost perfect repose. The weather that year was brilliant until the end of September, if not beyond it; and his letters tell the old pleasant story of long daily walks and a general sense of invigoration. One of these, written to Mr. and Mrs. Skirrow, also contains some pungent remarks on contemporary events, with an affectionate allusion to one of the chief actors in them.

'Anyhow, I have the sincerest hope that Wolseley may get done as soon, and kill as few people, as possible,—keeping himself safe and sound—brave dear fellow—for the benefit of us all.'

He also speaks with great sympathy of the death of Mr. Charles Sartoris, which had just taken place at St.-Moritz.

In 1886, Miss Browning was not allowed to leave England; and she and Mr. Browning established themselves for the autumn at the Hand Hotel at Llangollen, where their old friends, Sir Theodore and Lady Martin, would be within easy reach. Mr. Browning missed the exhilarating effects of the Alpine air; but he enjoyed the peaceful beauty of the Welsh valley, and the quiet and comfort of the old-fashioned English inn. A new source of interest also presented itself to him in some aspects of the life of the English country gentleman. He was struck by the improvements effected by its actual owner* on a neighbouring estate, and by the provisions contained in them for the comfort of both the men and the animals under his care; and he afterwards made, in reference to them, what was for a professing Liberal, a very striking remark: 'Talk of abolishing that class of men! They are the salt of the earth!' Every Sunday afternoon he and his sister drank tea—weather permitting—on the lawn with their friends at Brintysilio; and he alludes gracefully to these meetings in a letter written in the early summer of 1888, when Lady Martin had urged him to return to Wales.

* I believe a Captain Best.

The poet left another and more pathetic remembrance of himself in the neighbourhood of Llangollen: his weekly presence at the afternoon Sunday service in the parish church of Llantysilio. Churchgoing was, as I have said, no part of his regular life. It was no part of his life in London. But I do not think he ever failed in it at the Universities or in the country. The assembling for prayer meant for him something deeper in both the religious and the human sense, where ancient learning and piety breathed through the consecrated edifice, or where only the figurative 'two or three' were 'gathered together' within it. A memorial tablet now marks the spot at which on this occasion the sweet grave face and the venerable head were so often seen. It has been placed by the direction of Lady Martin on the adjoining wall.

It was in the September of this year that Mr. Browning heard of the death of M. Joseph Milsand. This name represented for him one of the few close friendships which were to remain until the end, unclouded in fact and in remembrance; and although some weight may be given to those circumstances of their lives which precluded all possibility of friction and risk of disenchantment, I believe their rooted sympathy, and Mr. Browning's unfailing powers of appreciation would, in all possible cases, have maintained the bond intact. The event was at the last sudden, but happily not quite unexpected.

Many other friends had passed by this time out of the poet's life—those of a younger, as well as his own and an older generation. Miss Haworth died in 1883. Charles Dickens, with whom he had remained on the most cordial terms, had walked between him and his son at Thackeray's funeral, to receive from him, only seven years later, the same pious office. Lady Augusta Stanley, the daughter of his old friend, Lady Elgin, was dead, and her husband, the Dean of Westminster. So also were 'Barry Cornwall' and John Forster, Alfred Domett, and Thomas Carlyle, Mr. Cholmondeley and Lord Houghton; others still, both men and women, whose love for him might entitle them to a place in his Biography, but whom I could at most only mention by name.

For none of these can his feeling have been more constant or more disinterested than that which bound him to Carlyle. He visited him at Chelsea in the last weary days of his long life, as often as their distance from each other and his own engagements allowed. Even the man's posthumous self-disclosures scarcely availed to destroy the affectionate reverence which he had always felt for him. He never ceased to defend him against the charge of unkindness to his wife, or to believe that in the matter of their domestic unhappiness she was the more responsible of the two.* Yet Carlyle had never rendered him that service, easy as it appears, which one man of letters most justly values from another: that of proclaiming the admiration which he privately expresses for his works. The fact was incomprehensible to Mr. Browning—it was so foreign to his own nature; and he commented on it with a touch, though merely a touch, of bitterness, when repeating to a friend some almost extravagant eulogium which in earlier days he had received from him tete-a-tete. 'If only,' he said, 'those words had been ever repeated in public, what good they might have done me!'

* He always thought her a hard and unlovable woman, and I believe little liking was lost between them. He told a comical story of how he had once, unintentionally but rather stupidly, annoyed her. She had asked him, as he was standing by her tea-table, to put the kettle back on the fire. He took it out of her hands, but, preoccupied by the conversation he was carrying on, deposited it on the hearthrug. It was some time before he could be made to see that this was wrong; and he believed Mrs. Carlyle never ceased to think that he had a mischievous motive for doing it.

In the spring of 1886, he accepted the post of Foreign Correspondent to the Royal Academy, rendered vacant by the death of Lord Houghton. He had long been on very friendly terms with the leading Academicians, and a constant guest at the Banquet; and his fitness for the office admitted of no doubt. But his nomination by the President, and the manner in which it was ratified by the Council and general body, gave him sincere pleasure.

Early in 1887, the 'Parleyings' appeared. Their author is still the same Robert Browning, though here and there visibly touched by the hand of time. Passages of sweet or majestic music, or of exquisite fancy, alternate with its long stretches of argumentative thought; and the light of imagination still plays, however fitfully, over statements of opinion to which constant repetition has given a suggestion of commonplace. But the revision of the work caused him unusual trouble. The subjects he had chosen strained his powers of exposition; and I think he often tried to remedy by mere verbal correction, what was a defect in the logical arrangement of his ideas. They would slide into each other where a visible dividing line was required. The last stage of his life was now at hand; and the vivid return of fancy to his boyhood's literary loves was in pathetic, perhaps not quite accidental, coincidence with the fact. It will be well to pause at this beginning of his decline, and recall so far as possible the image of the man who lived, and worked, and loved, and was loved among us, during that brief old age, and the lengthened period of level strength which had preceded it. The record already given of his life and work supplies the outline of the picture; but a few more personal details are required for its completion.



Chapter 20

Constancy to Habit—Optimism—Belief in Providence—Political Opinions—His Friendships—Reverence for Genius—Attitude towards his Public—Attitude towards his Work—Habits of Work—His Reading—Conversational Powers—Impulsiveness and Reserve—Nervous Peculiarities—His Benevolence—His Attitude towards Women.



When Mr. Browning wrote to Miss Haworth, in the July of 1861, he had said: 'I shall still grow, I hope; but my root is taken, and remains.' He was then alluding to a special offshoot of feeling and association, on the permanence of which it is not now necessary to dwell; but it is certain that he continued growing up to a late age, and that the development was only limited by those general roots, those fixed conditions of his being, which had predetermined its form. This progressive intellectual vitality is amply represented in his works; it also reveals itself in his letters in so far as I have been allowed to publish them. I only refer to it to give emphasis to a contrasted or corresponding characteristic: his aversion to every thought of change. I have spoken of his constancy to all degrees of friendship and love. What he loved once he loved always, from the dearest man or woman to whom his allegiance had been given, to the humblest piece of furniture which had served him. It was equally true that what he had done once he was wont, for that very reason, to continue doing. The devotion to habits of feeling extended to habits of life; and although the lower constancy generally served the purposes of the higher, it also sometimes clashed with them. It conspired with his ready kindness of heart to make him subject to circumstances which at first appealed to him through that kindness, but lay really beyond its scope. This statement, it is true, can only fully apply to the latter part of his life. His powers of reaction must originally have been stronger, as well as freer from the paralysis of conflicting motive and interest. The marked shrinking from effort in any untried direction, which was often another name for his stability, could scarcely have coexisted with the fresher and more curious interest in men and things; we know indeed from recorded facts that it was a feeling of later growth; and it visibly increased with the periodical nervous exhaustion of his advancing years. I am convinced, nevertheless, that, when the restiveness of boyhood had passed away, Mr. Browning's strength was always more passive than active; that he habitually made the best of external conditions rather than tried to change them. He was a 'fighter' only by the brain. And on this point, though on this only, his work is misleading.