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

Oct. 2 (‘46).

‘… and he, as you say, had done everything for me — he loved me for reasons which had helped to weary me of myself — loved me heart to heart persistently — in spite of my own will … drawn me back to life and hope again when I had done with both. My life seemed to belong to him and to none other, at last, and I had no power to speak a word. Have faith in me, my dearest friend, till you know him. The intellect is so little in comparison to all the rest — to the womanly tenderness, the inexhaustible goodness, the high and noble aspiration of every hour. Temper, spirits, manners — there is not a flaw anywhere. I shut my eyes sometimes and fancy it all a dream of my guardian angel. Only, if it had been a dream, the pain of some parts of it would have wakened me before now — it is not a dream… .’

The three next speak for themselves.

Pisa: (‘46).

‘… For Pisa, we both like it extremely. The city is full of beauty and repose, — and the purple mountains gloriously seem to beckon us on deeper into the vine land. We have rooms close to the Duomo, and leaning down on the great Collegio built by Facini. Three excellent bedrooms and a sitting-room matted and carpeted, looking comfortable even for England. For the last fortnight, except the last few sunny days, we have had rain; but the climate is as mild as possible, no cold with all the damp. Delightful weather we had for the travelling. Mrs. Jameson says she won’t call me improved but transformed rather… . I mean to know something about pictures some day. Robert does, and I shall get him to open my eyes for me with a little instruction — in this place are to be seen the first steps of Art… .’

Pisa: Dec. 19 (‘46).

‘… Within these three or four days we have had frost — yes, and a little snow — for the first time, say the Pisans, within five years. Robert says the mountains are powdered towards Lucca… .’

Feb. 3 (‘47).

‘… Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac and has read most of his books, but certainly he does not in a general way appreciate our French people quite with my warmth. He takes too high a standard, I tell him, and won’t listen to a story for a story’s sake — I can bear, you know, to be amused without a strong pull on my admiration. So we have great wars sometimes — I put up Dumas’ flag or Soulie’s or Eugene Sue’s (yet he was properly impressed by the ‘Mysteres de Paris’), and carry it till my arms ache. The plays and vaudevilles he knows far more of than I do, and always maintains they are the happiest growth of the French school. Setting aside the ‘masters’, observe; for Balzac and George Sand hold all their honours. Then we read together the other day ‘Rouge et Noir’, that powerful work of Stendhal’s, and he observed that it was exactly like Balzac ‘in the raw’ — in the material and undeveloped conception … We leave Pisa in April, and pass through Florence towards the north of Italy …’

(She writes out a long list of the ‘Comedie Humaine’ for Miss Mitford.)

Mr. and Mrs. Browning must have remained in Florence, instead of merely passing through it; this is proved by the contents of the two following letters:

Aug. 20 (‘47).

‘… We have spent one of the most delightful of summers notwithstanding the heat, and I begin to comprehend the possibility of St. Lawrence’s ecstasies on the gridiron. Very hot certainly it has been and is, yet there have been cool intermissions, and as we have spacious and airy rooms, as Robert lets me sit all day in my white dressing-gown without a single masculine criticism, and as we can step out of the window on a sort of balcony terrace which is quite private, and swims over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon water-melons and iced water and figs and all manner of fruit, we bear the heat with an angelic patience.

We tried to make the monks of Vallombrosa let us stay with them for two months, but the new abbot said or implied that Wilson and I stank in his nostrils, being women. So we were sent away at the end of five days. So provoking! Such scenery, such hills, such a sea of hills looking alive among the clouds — which rolled, it was difficult to discern. Such fine woods, supernaturally silent, with the ground black as ink. There were eagles there too, and there was no road. Robert went on horseback, and Wilson and I were drawn on a sledge — (i.e. an old hamper, a basket wine-hamper — without a wheel) by two white bullocks, up the precipitous mountains. Think of my travelling in those wild places at four o’clock in the morning! a little frightened, dreadfully tired, but in an ecstasy of admiration. It was a sight to see before one died and went away into another world. But being expelled ignominiously at the end of five days, we had to come back to Florence to find a new apartment cooler than the old, and wait for dear Mr. Kenyon, and dear Mr. Kenyon does not come after all. And on the 20th of September we take up our knapsacks and turn our faces towards Rome, creeping slowly along, with a pause at Arezzo, and a longer pause at Perugia, and another perhaps at Terni. Then we plan to take an apartment we have heard of, over the Tarpeian rock, and enjoy Rome as we have enjoyed Florence. More can scarcely be. This Florence is unspeakably beautiful …’

Oct. (‘47).

‘… Very few acquaintances have we made in Florence, and very quietly lived out our days. Mr. Powers, the sculptor, is our chief friend and favourite. A most charming, simple, straightforward, genial American — as simple as the man of genius he has proved himself to be. He sometimes comes to talk and take coffee with us, and we like him much. The sculptor has eyes like a wild Indian’s, so black and full of light — you would scarcely marvel if they clove the marble without the help of his hands. We have seen, besides, the Hoppners, Lord Byron’s friends at Venice; and Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, an authoress and poetess on her own account, having been introduced to Robert in London at Lady Morgan’s, has hunted us out, and paid us a visit. A very vivacious little person, with sparkling talk enough …’

In this year, 1847, the question arose of a British mission to the Vatican; and Mr. Browning wrote to Mr. Monckton Milnes begging him to signify to the Foreign Office his more than willingness to take part in it. He would be glad and proud, he said, to be secretary to such an embassy, and to work like a horse in his vocation. The letter is given in the lately published biography of Lord Houghton, and I am obliged to confess that it has been my first intimation of the fact recorded there. When once his ‘Paracelsus’ had appeared, and Mr. Browning had taken rank as a poet, he renounced all idea of more active work; and the tone and habits of his early married life would have seemed scarcely consistent with a renewed impulse towards it. But the fact was in some sense due to the very circumstances of that life: among them, his wife’s probable incitement to, and certain sympathy with, the proceeding.

The projected winter in Rome had been given up, I believe against the doctor’s advice, on the strength of the greater attractions of Florence. Our next extract is dated from thence, Dec. 8, 1847.

‘… Think what we have done since I last wrote to you. Taken two houses, that is, two apartments, each for six months, presigning the contract. You will set it down to excellent poet’s work in the way of domestic economy, but the fault was altogether mine, as usual. My husband, to please me, took rooms which I could not be pleased with three days through the absence of sunshine and warmth. The consequence was that we had to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go away ourselves — any alternative being preferable to a return of illness — and I am sure I should have been ill if we had persisted in staying there. You can scarcely fancy the wonderful difference which the sun makes in Italy. So away we came into the blaze of him in the Piazza Pitti; precisely opposite the Grand Duke’s palace; I with my remorse, and poor Robert without a single reproach. Any other man, a little lower than the angels, would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere relief of the thing — but as to his being angry with me for any cause except not eating enough dinner, the said sun would turn the wrong way first. So here we are in the Pitti till April, in small rooms yellow with sunshine from morning till evening, and most days I am able to get out into the piazza and walk up and down for twenty minutes without feeling a breath of the actual winter … and Miss Boyle, ever and anon, comes at night, at nine o’clock, to catch us at hot chestnuts and mulled wine, and warm her feet at our fire — and a kinder, more cordial little creature, full of talent and accomplishment never had the world’s polish on it. Very amusing she is too, and original; and a good deal of laughing she and Robert make between them. And this is nearly all we see of the Face Divine — I can’t make Robert go out a single evening… .’