Life of Robert Browning

econd name, in remembrance of Browning's much-loved mother, having been substituted for the "Sarianna" wherewith the child, if a girl, was to have been christened. Therea

allombrosa, and then to the Bagni di Lucca. There they wandered

g's "Poetical Works" were

ul of his shorter poems

ck throughout, what ran

e any more treasurable t

om Abroad" and "N

be in

t April

er wakes

e morning

boughs and the

-tree bole ar

inch sings on t

gland

pril, when

oat builds, and

blossomed pear-

eld and scatter

drops - at the b

rush; he sings eac

think he never

ine careles

struck in "Meeting at Night

et

and the lon

w half-moon l

led little wa

nglets from

e cove with

s speed i' th

I

of warm sea-

o cross till a

ane, the quick

urt of a li

loud, through i

hearts beatin

rt

e of a sudden

oked over the

was a path of

of a world

close-reasoned presentation of the religious thought of the time. It is, however, for this reason that it is so widely known and admired: for it is ever easier to attr

o be merely personal. There is a gulf which not the profoundest search can fathom, which not the strongest-winged love can overreach: the gulf of individuality. It is those who have loved most deeply who recognise most acutely this always pathetic and often terrifying isolation of the soul. None save the weak can believe in the absolute union of two spirits. If this were demonstratable, immortality would be a palpable fiction. The moment individuality can lapse to fusion, that moment the tide has ebbed, the wind has fallen, the dream has been dreamed. So long as the soul remains inviolate amid al

gn with its

y grasses

passion, j

ing wash of

, through such

les perfor

naked form

nature have h

earth lies bare to heaven. Nothing is to be overlooked. But

I seemed ab

e thread no

ick! Only

assion, an

hearts t

rejoiced when they learned that the honour had devolved upon one whom each so ardently admired as Alfred Tennyson. In 1851 a visit was paid to England, not one very much looked forward to by Mrs. Browning, who had never had cause

, has put on record how he called upon the Brownings one afternoon in September, at

ry exclusive sense. Bayard Taylor describes him in reportorial fashion as being apparently about seven-and-thirty (a fairly close guess), with his dark hair already streaked with grey about the temples: with a fair complexion, just tinged with faintest olive: eyes large, clear, and grey, and nose strong and well-cut, mouth full and

et leading off the Champs Elysees. The pension he drew from the Bank of England was a small one, but, with what he otherwise had, was sufficien

have led a busy social life. Kenyon's friendship and good company never ceased to have a charm for both poets. Mrs. Browning loved him almost as a brother: her husband told Bayard Taylor, on the day when that good poet and charming man called upon them, and after another visitor had departed -

made, and after a few weeks in Paris and on the way the

ing his admiration for Shelley. When the letters reached him, he found that, genuine or not, though he never suspected they were forgeries, they contained nothing of particular import, nothing that afforded a just basis for what he had intended to say. Pledged as he was, however, to write something for Mr. Moxon's edition of the Letters, he set about the composition of an Essay, of a general as much as of an in

ement of his own aim in his own work, both as objective and subjective poet. The same clearsightedness and impartial sympathy, which are such distinguishing characteristics of his dramatic studies of human thought and emotion, are obvious in Browning's Shelley essay. "It would be idle to enquire," he writes, "of these two kinds of poetic faculty in operation, which is th

rges which, if substantiated to their wide breadth, would materially disturb, I do not deny, our reception and enjoyment of his works, however wonderful the artistic qualities of these. For we are not sufficiently supplied with instances of genius of his or

ne wish that the author had spared us a "Sludge the Medium" or a "Pacchiarotto", or even a "P

e-vines where the sunburnt vintagers were busy. Once Browning paid a visit to that remote hill-stream and waterfall, high up in a precipitous glen, where, more than three-score years earlier, Shelley had been wont to amuse himself by sitting naked on a rock in

ter, Heine sneered, and laughed and wept, and sneered again - drank tea with "la belle Irlandaise", flirted with Francesca "la ballerina", and wrote alternately with a feathered quill from the breast of a nightingale and with a lancet steeped in aquafortis: and here, a q

ady immortalised by Landor, has his third warrant of perpetuity; the `Epistle of Karshish' (in part); `Memorabilia' (composed on the Campagna); `Saul', a portion of which had been written and published ten years previously, that noble and lofty utterance, with its trumpet-like note of the regnant spirit; the concluding part of "In a Balcony"; and `Holy Cross Day' - besides, probably, one or two others. In the late spring (April 27th) also, he wrote the short dactylic lyric, `Ben Karshook's Wisdom'. This little poem was given to a friend for appearance in one of the then popular `Keepsakes' - literally given, for Browning never contributed to magazines. The very few exceptions to this rule were the result of a kindliness stron

man 'scape

n Karsho

t he tur

before h

ld a man

hall come

's eye sh

him turn

I

young Sa

of man

so cer

hey tell u

ere is n

i bit hi

, a soul

e none,' h

ok, the Hir

-Hand Tem

their grace

the simpl

erted, from his childi

edemann). But despit

it is impossible n

n by Nathaniel Hawth

ly definite proof tha

, called "Pennini", whi

Hawthorne states, was a

the boy in babyhood be

n Florence of colossal

and Letters of Robert

nt opinion. -

s of Saxe-Gotha", "Andrea del Sarto", "In a Balcony", "Saul", "A Grammarian's Funeral", to mention only ten now almost universally known, did not at once obtain a national popularity for the author. But lovers of literature were simply enthralled: and the two

-coloured end of

and

ry pastures w

f a

hrough the twilig

hey

e of a city grea

ten. She added a significant passage: that her husband had not seen a single line of it up to that time - significant, as one of the several indications that the union of Browning and his wife was indeed a marriage of true minds,

at once with humility and pride, Mrs. Browning placed in her husband's hands. The

, "One Word More", wherewith her husband, a few months earlier, sent

re, my fifty

he fifty po

e, the book an

lies, let the

.

II

me, but thin

yourself my

e world's side, t

, praise you, thi

stand with them

self, I dare

s when I glide

or two of dub

the other si

lights and dar

nd bless mysel

, and met with an almost unparalleled success: even Landor, most exigent of critics, declared that h

again they learned that their good friend had not forgotten them in the disposition of his large fortune. To Browning he bequeathed six thousand, to Mrs. Browning four thou

l, nursed day and night by his father and mother alternately - with pleasant occasionings, as the companionship for a season of Nathani

, and in her catching, fluttering breath. Even the motion of a visitor's fan perturbed her. But "her soul was mighty, and a great love kept her on earth a season longer. She was a s

he rude surge of winds and waves. But slowly, gradually, the spirit was o'erfretting its tenement. With the waning of her strength came back the old passion

renness of imaginative creative activity can be only very relatively affirmed, even of so long a period, of years wherein were written such memorable and treasurable poems as `James Lee's Wife', among Browning's writings what `Maud' is among Lord Tennyson's; `Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic'; `Dis Aliter Visum'; `Abt Vogler', the most notable production of its kind in the language; `A Death in the Desert', that singular and impressive study; `Caliban upon Setebos', in its strange potency of interest and stranger poetic note, absolutely unique; `Youth and Art'; `Apparent Failure'; `Prospice', that noble lyr

espair its

winds and

wn like a tire

he mists of remote antiquity, if there ha

bia

a, quam Ca

atque suos a

elections", in its lack of the three stanzas now numbered 21, 22, and 23) was printed for limited private circulation, though primarily for the purpose of securing American copyright. Browning several times printed single poems thus, and for the same reasons - that is, either for transatlantic copyright, or when the verses were not likely to be included in any volu

ew with the great hopes that animated her for her adopted country. Well indeed did she deserve, among the lines which the poet Tommaseo wrote and the Florence municipality caused to be engraved in g

n had we not Mr. Story's evidence, it would be a natural conclusion that this disastrous ending to the high hopes of the Italian p

the winter was spent. A temporary relief, however, was afforded by the more genial climate, and in the spring of 1860 she was able, with Browning's help, to see her Italian patriotic poems through the press. It goes without saying that these "Poems before Congress" had

tionate letters. Once more a winter in Rome proved temporally restorative. But at last the day came when she wrote her last p

alid caught a chill. For a few days she hovered like a tired bird - though her friends saw only the s

h would ere long fall upon his tear-wet face. Then, as a friend has told us, she passed into a state of ecstasy: yet not so rapt therein but that she could whisper many words of hope, even of