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

His letters of that period are one continuous picture, glowing with his impressions of the things which they describe. The same words will repeat themselves as the same subject presents itself to his pen; but the impulse to iteration scarcely ever affects us as mechanical. It seems always a fresh response to some new stimulus to thought or feeling, which he has received. These reach him from every side. It is not only the Asolo of this peaceful later time which has opened before him, but the Asolo of ‘Pippa Passes’ and ‘Sordello’; that which first stamped itself on his imagination in the echoes of the Court life of Queen Catharine, *and of the barbaric wars of the Eccelini. Some of his letters dwell especially on these early historical associations: on the strange sense of reopening the ancient chronicle which he had so deeply studied fifty years before. The very phraseology of the old Italian text, which I am certain he had never glanced at from that distant time, is audible in an account of the massacre of San Zenone, the scene of which he has been visiting. To the same correspondent he says that his two hours’ drive to Asolo ‘seemed to be a dream;’ and again, after describing, or, as he thinks, only trying to describe some beautiful feature of the place, ‘but it is indescribable!’

*Catharine Cornaro, the dethroned queen of Cyprus.

A letter addressed to Mrs. FitzGerald, October 8, 1889, is in part a fitting sequel to that which he had written to her from the same spot, eleven years before.

‘… Fortunately there is little changed here: my old Albergo, — ruinous with earthquake — is down and done with — but few novelties are observable — except the regrettable one that the silk industry has been transported elsewhere — to Cornuda and other places nearer the main railway. No more Pippas — at least of the silk-winding sort!

‘But the pretty type is far from extinct.

‘Autumn is beginning to paint the foliage, but thin it as well; and the sea of fertility all round our height, which a month ago showed pomegranates and figs and chestnuts, — walnuts and apples all rioting together in full glory, — all this is daily disappearing. I say nothing of the olive and the vine. I find the Turret rather the worse for careful weeding — the hawks which used to build there have been “shot for food” — and the echo is sadly curtailed of its replies; still, things are the same in the main. Shall I ever see them again, when — as I suppose — we leave for Venice in a fortnight? …’

In the midst of this imaginative delight he carried into his walks the old keen habits of observation. He would peer into the hedges for what living things were to be found there. He would whistle softly to the lizards basking on the low walls which border the roads, to try his old power of attracting them.

On the 15th of October he wrote to Mrs. Skirrow, after some preliminary description:

Then — such a view over the whole Lombard plain; not a site in view, or approximate view at least, without its story. Autumn is now painting all the abundance of verdure, — figs, pomegranates, chestnuts, and vines, and I don’t know what else, — all in a wonderful confusion, — and now glowing with all the colours of the rainbow. Some weeks back, the little town was glorified by the visit of a decent theatrical troop who played in a theatre inside the old palace of Queen Catharine Cornaro — utilized also as a prison in which I am informed are at present full five if not six malefactors guilty of stealing grapes, and the like enormities. Well, the troop played for a fortnight together exceedingly well — high tragedy and low comedy — and the stage-box which I occupied cost 16 francs. The theatre had been out of use for six years, for we are out of the way and only a baiting-place for a company pushing on to Venice. In fine, we shall stay here probably for a week or more, — and then proceed to Pen, at the Rezzonico; a month there, and then homewards! …

I delight in finding that the beloved Husband and precious friend manages to do without the old yoke about his neck, and enjoys himself as never anybody had a better right to do. I continue to congratulate him on his emancipation and ourselves on a more frequent enjoyment of his company in consequence. *Give him my true love; take mine, dearest friend, — and my sister’s love to you both goes with it. Ever affectionately yours Robert Browning.

*Mr. Skirrow had just resigned his post of Master in Chancery.

The cry of ‘homewards!’ now frequently recurs in his letters. We find it in one written a week later to Mr. G. M. Smith, otherwise very expressive of his latest condition of mind and feeling.

Asolo, Veneto, Italia: Oct. 22, ‘89.

My dear Smith, — I was indeed delighted to get your letter two days ago — for there are such accidents as the loss of a parcel, even when it has been despatched from so important a place as this city — for a regular city it is, you must know, with all the rights of one, — older far than Rome, being founded by the Euganeans who gave their name to the adjoining hills. ‘Fortified’ is was once, assuredly, and the walls still surround it most picturesquely though mainly in utter ruin, and you even overrate the population, which does not now much exceed 900 souls — in the city Proper, that is — for the territory below and around contains some 10,000. But we are at the very top of things, garlanded about, as it were, with a narrow line of houses, — some palatial, such as you would be glad to see in London, — and above all towers the old dwelling of Queen Cornaro, who was forced to exchange her Kingdom of Cyprus for this pretty but petty dominion where she kept state in a mimic Court, with Bembo, afterwards Cardinal, for her secretary — who has commemorated the fact in his ‘Asolani’ or dialogues inspired by the place: and I do assure you that, after some experience of beautiful sights in Italy and elsewhere I know nothing comparable to the view from the Queen’s tower and palace, still perfect in every respect. Whenever you pay Pen and his wife the visit you are pledged to, * it will go hard but you spend five hours in a journey to Asolo. The one thing I am disappointed in is to find that the silk-cultivation with all the pretty girls who were engaged in it are transported to Cornuda and other places, — nearer the railway, I suppose: and to this may be attributed the decrease in the number of inhabitants. The weather when I wrote last was ‘blue and blazing — (at noonday) — ’ but we share in the general plague of rain, — had a famous storm yesterday: while to-day is blue and sunny as ever. Lastly, for your admonition: we have a perfect telegraphic communication; and at the passage above, where I put a * I was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram: thank you all the same for your desire to relieve my anxiety. And now, to our immediate business — which is only to keep thanking you for your constant goodness, present and future: do with the book just as you will. I fancy it is bigger in bulk than usual. As for the ‘proofs’ — I go at the end of the month to Venice, whither you will please to send whatever is necessary… . I shall do well to say as little as possible of my good wishes for you and your family, for it comes to much the same thing as wishing myself prosperity: no matter, my sister’s kindest regards shall excuse mine, and I will only add that I am, as ever, Affectionately yours Robert Browning.

A general quickening of affectionate impulse seemed part of this last leap in the socket of the dying flame.

Table of Contents

1889

Proposed Purchase of Land at Asolo — Venice — Letter to Mr. G. Moulton-Barrett — Lines in the ‘Athenaeum’ — Letter to Miss Keep — Illness — Death — Funeral Ceremonial at Venice — Publication of ‘Asolando’ — Interment in Poets’ Corner.