Robert Browning - The Complete Works of Robert Browning - Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition

Another source of joy to Browning, and one that far exceeded that of any recognition of himself, was the increasing recognition of his son’s achievements in art. Barrett Browning was at this time a pupil of Rodin in Paris, devoting himself to sculpture with the same ardor that he gave to his painting. As to which expression in art was the more his métier, chi lo sa ? The young man was the child of the muses, and all forms of art were to him a temperamental inheritance.

Oxford again honored Browning, this time in the June of 1882, with the degree of D.C.L. “I never saw my father happier than on this occasion,” Mr. Barrett Browning said to the writer of this volume when questioned regarding it; and another observer who was present speaks of Browning’s distinction in his red Oxford gown, his shoulders thrown back, and his swift, light step. One of the humors of the occasion was the dangling of a red cotton night-cap over his head by one of the undergraduates, who was in danger of a not ill-merited rebuke, but Browning interceded with the Vice-Chancellor not to be too hard “on the harmless drolleries of the young man.” It was in this Oxford gown, holding in his hand “the square old yellow book,” that Robert Barrett Browning painted the portrait of his father, which he presented to Oxford, and which now hangs, a treasured possession, in Balliol Hall, to which portrait some allusion has already been made.

Portrait of Robert Browning, by his Son.

Painted in 1882, and presented to Oxford University by the artist.

One of the most beautiful of the friendships of the last decade of the poet’s life was that with Mrs. Arthur Bronson, a very cultivated and charming American woman who for more than twenty years made her home in Venice. Casa Alvisi, on the Grand Canal, opposite Santa Maria della Salute, came to be such a delightful center of social life for the choice circle that Mrs. Bronson gathered around her, that its records fairly enter into the modern history of Venice. Adjoining Casa Alvisi was the old Giustiniani Palace, in which Mrs. Bronson had taken a suite of rooms that she might use them in dispensing her hospitalities. No one who has been the privileged guest of Mrs. Bronson can ever lose the grateful appreciation of her genius as a hostess. Her lovely hospitality was dispensed with the quality that entitled it to be considered as absolutely a special gift of the gods, and when she invited Browning and his sister to occupy these rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanti, it was with a grace that forestalled any refusal. At first Miss Browning did a little housekeeping on their own account, except that they dined and passed the evening with Mrs. Bronson; later on, for several seasons, they were her house-guests in Casa Alvisi,—that unique and dream-enchanted interior crowded with lovely Venetian things, and bibelots and bric-à-brac picked up the world over. But the brother and sister always occupied the rooms in the palace. It was after the first one of this series of annual visits that Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson the following letter after his return to London:

19, Warwick Crescent, W.

Nov. 18, ’81.

I would not write at first arriving, Dear Friend, because I fancied that I might say too much all at once, and afterward be afraid of beginning again till some interval; this fortnight since I saw you, however, must pass for a very long interval indeed, I will try to tell you as quietly as possible that I never shall feel your kindness,—such kindness!—one whit less than I do now; perhaps I feel it “now” even more deeply than I could, at all events, realize that I was feeling.

You have given Venice an appreciation that will live in my mind with every delight of that dearest place in the world. But all the same you remain for me a dearest of friends, whether I see you framed by your Venice, or brightening up our bleak London, should you come there. In Venice, however, should I live and you be there next autumn, it will go hard with me if I do not meet you again.

What a book of memories, and instigations to get still more memories, does your most beautiful and precious book prove to me! I never supposed that photographers would have the good sense to use their art on so many out-of-the-way scenes and sights, just those I love most....

You—you have lost Lowell, and Field, and the rest of the good fellowship, but you will be sure of a succession of the sort.

On the poet’s seventieth birthday he received, from the Browning Societies of Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell University, and others, a gift of a complete set of his own works, bound in olive green morocco, in a beautifully carved oak case, with this inscription:

“To Robert Browning on his seventieth birthday, May 7th, 1882, from some members of the Browning Societies. These members having ascertained that the works of a Great Modern Poet are never in Robert Browning’s house, beg him to accept a set of these works which they assure him will be found worthy of his most serious attention.”

Dr. Corson has related that when he visited the poet at one time Browning showed him this case, placed against the wall of the drawing-room, with an almost boyish delight.

In August of 1882, on their leisurely way to Venice, Browning and his sister lingered at Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse and at Gressoney Saint-Jean, where his enchanting outlook upon Monte Rosa was a continual joy, Mr. Browning spent one night in the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse, in order to hear the midnight mass; while Miss Browning, denied hospitality in the monastery, received that of the convent near at hand, where she was cordially entertained by the Mother Superior.

The Prologue of “Ferishtah’s Fancies,” published the next year, is dated from Gressoney, Val d’Aosta, and the lines,

“A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee,

Delightful Gressoney!”

will recall themselves to the memory. Miss Browning was an ideal companion in these mountain wanderings. She was equal to endless walks, and she had the accomplishment of being able to ride a mule or a donkey as one to the manor born. From Gressoney they looked up to the glaciers of Monte Rosa, almost overhanging, and from Saint-Pierre Browning wrote to a friend that they were in the roughest and most primitive inn, “but my sister bears it bravely.”

Italian recognition of Browning was stimulated and extended, if not primarily inspired, by Il Signor Dottore Nancioni, who had the Chair of Literature in the University of Florence, and whom the Brownings had first met in the old Siena days. As Milsand first made Browning known in France, through his critical papers in the Revue , so Nancioni published, in the Nuova Antologia , and in the Fanfulla della Domenica of Rome, several papers devoted to serious and critical study and interpretation of Browning’s work; and he made the journey from Rome to Venice to meet the poet again. The recital of poetry was by no means ended in Italy in the days of the Improvvisatori , and Professor Nanciani frequently gave readings from Browning before cultivated Italian audiences.

When Venice honored Goldoni with a statue, Browning was invited to contribute to that wonderful “Album” of letters, with which Italy characteristically commemorates all scholarly events, with contributions from literary men. The sonnet so pleased the Venetians that they gave it the place of honor in the album.

The London seasons during all these years were of unrivaled brilliancy. Browning was seen in all the great houses, and often for two weeks he would dine out every consecutive night. Dr. Corson, whose first visit to Browning was made in the early eighties, gave to a friend in a personal letter this little transcription of his first meeting with the poet, with whom he had long been in correspondence: