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

“Pacchiarotto,” 232

Page, William, 152, 155, 181Palazzo Giustiniani, 242

—— Peruzzi, 265

—— Pitti, 102, 105, 106

—— Rezzonico, 262-264, 290, 293, 295

“Paracelsus,” 14, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 57, 69, 168, 237

“Parleyings,” 269

“Parting at Morning,” 120

Patmore, Coventry, 140

“Pauline,” 12, 14, 15, 28, 34, 57, 169, 172, 267

“Penini.” See Browning, Robert Barrett

“Pippa Passes,” 36, 65, 67, 69, 271, 286-287

Pius IX (Pio Nono), 105, 115, 117, 118, 121

Poe, Edgar Allan, 52

“Poems before Congress,” 185

“Poet’s Vow, The,” 53, 55, 57

“Pompilia,” 206, 218, 219

“Portrait, A,” 18, 164

Powers, Hiram, 102, 112, 118, 142

Prince of Wales (Edward VII), 180-181

Proctor (“Barry Cornwall”), 30, 33, 40, 61, 69, 129

“Prometheus Bound,” 23, 25, 44

“Proof and Disproof,” 84

“Prospice,” 123, 205

“Question and Answer,” 84

“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” 205

“Recollections of a Literary Life,” 135

“Red Cotton Night-cap Country,” 226, 230

“Return of the Druses, The,” 69

“Rhapsody of Life’s Progress, A,” 47, 48, 83

“Rhyme of the Duchess May, The,” 227

“Ring and the Book, The,” 182, 203 205, 214-220

Ripert-Monclar, Marquis Amédée de, 28, 38, 153

Ritchie, Lady, 153, 154, 226

Robertson, John, 35, 39

Rogers, Arthur, 273

“Romances and Lyrics,” 67

“Romaunt of Margret, The,” 53, 58

“Rosny,” 267

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 139, 165, 166, 169, 174

Sand, George, 131, 136

“Saul,” 120, 157

Scotti, Signor, 71

“Seraphim, The,” 46, 56, 58, 110

Sharp, William, quoted, 6; suggested origin of “Flight of the Duchess,” 12; quoted, 28; description of Browning, 31; 43

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 13, 133, 134

Silverthorne, Mrs., 14

“Sleep, The,” 46, 83

Smith, Alexander, 151

Smith, George Murray, 247, 270, 296

“Sonnets from the Portuguese,” 50, 71, 97, 108, 109, 110, 123, 168

“Sordello,” 14, 27, 28, 35, 41-42, 69, 171, 207, 237

“Soul’s Tragedy, A,” 69

“Statue and the Bust, The,” 152, 173

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 90

Story, Edith. See Medici, Marchessa Peruzzi di

——, William Wetmore and Emeline, Browning’s first meeting, 107, 111; characteristics, 118, 119; associations with the Brownings, 148-152, 155, 184, 185, 192, 196, 197, 199, 221, 239; entertain Landor, 183; characterization of Hawthorne, 150; last meeting with Browning, 289-290

“Strafford,” 33, 34, 35, 57

Talfourd, Field, 39

Talfourd, Sergeant, 30, 32, 40, 60, 69

Taylor, Bayard, 129

Tennyson, Alfred, 15; comment on “Sordello,” 41; 60; works, 56, 68; Miss Barrett’s comments on, 61, 67, 120; becomes Laureate, 122; letter to Mrs. Browning, 139, 140; reads “Maud” to the poets, 165; letters from Browning, 209, 230, 284; friendship with Browning, 231; dedication, 213; regarding Browning’s lines, 232

——, Frederick, 144, 158

——, Hallam, 296

“Tertium Quid,” 218

Thackeray, Anne. See Ritchie, Lady

Ticknor and Fields, 156

Tittle, Margaret, 4

“Toccata of Galuppi’s, A,” 120

Trollope, Thomas Adolphus and Theodosia, 59, 111, 112, 190, 229

“Two Poets of Croisic,” 236

“Valediction, A,” 84

Vallombrosa, 98, 99

Villari, Mme. Pasquale, 112

“Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus, The,” 46

“Vision of Poets, A,” 71

Wiedemann, Sarah Anna, 4-6

“Wine of Cyprus,” 23, 86

“Woman’s Last Word, A,” 120

Wordsworth, William, 30, 32, 55, 56, 59, 68, 94

Zampini, Fanny (Contessa Salazar), 161

Table of Contents

[1]Letters of Robert Browning and Alfred Domett. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co.

[2]Life of Robert Browning. London: Walter Scott, Limited.

[3]La Vie et l’œuvre de Elizabeth Browning, par Germaine-Marie Merlette; Licencie des lettres; Docteur de l’Université de Paris.

[4]Red Letter Days of my Life. London: Richard Bentley and Son.

[5]“Letters of Robert Browning and Alfred Domett.” New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company.

[6]Robert Browning: Life and Letters. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company.

[7]“La Vita e le Opere di Roberto et Elisabetta Barrett Browning. Rome: Societa Typografico-Editrice Nazionale.”

[8]William Wetmore Story and his Friends. Boston: The Houghton-Mifflin Co.

[9]Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett. London: John Murray.

[10]Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Co.

[11]Life of Phillips Brooks. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.

[12]Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. London: The Macmillan Company.

[13]Life and Letters of Sir John Millais. London: Methuen and Co.

[14]What I Remember. New York: Harper and Brothers.

[15]Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Company.

[16]William Wetmore Story. Boston: The Houghton-Mifflin Company.

[17]Alfred Lord Tennyson. London and New York: The Macmillan Co.

Table of Contents

In considering the question of publishing these letters, which are all that ever passed between my father and mother, for after their marriage they were never separated, it seemed to me that my only alternatives were to allow them to be published or to destroy them. I might, indeed, have left the matter to the decision of others after my death, but that would be evading a responsibility which I feel that I ought to accept.

Ever since my mother's death these letters were kept by my father in a certain inlaid box, into which they exactly fitted, and where they have always rested, letter beside letter, each in its consecutive order and numbered on the envelope by his own hand.

My father destroyed all the rest of his correspondence, and not long before his death he said, referring to these letters: 'There they are, do with them as you please when I am dead and gone!'

A few of the letters are of little or no interest, but their omission would have saved only a few pages, and I think it well that the correspondence should be given in its entirety.

I wish to express my gratitude to my father's friend and mine, Mrs. Miller Morison, for her unfailing sympathy and assistance in deciphering some words which had become scarcely legible owing to faded ink.

R.B.B.

1898.

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.

[Post-mark, January 10, 1845.]

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,—and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,—whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me, for in the first flush of delight I thought I would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration—perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of hereafter!—but nothing comes of it all—so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew—Oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, and shut up and put away ... and the book called a 'Flora,' besides! After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought; but in this addressing myself to you—your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart—and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing—really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to announce me,—then he returned ... you were too unwell, and now it is years ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be?