When Mrs. Browning first looked into Lord Stanhope’s crystal ball at a luncheon party she saw nothing — except indeed that it was a remarkable sign of the times. The spirit of the sun indeed told her that she was about to go to Rome; but as she was not about to go to Rome, she contradicted the spirits of the sun. “But,” she added, with truth, “I love the marvellous.” She was nothing if not adventurous. She had gone to Manning Street at the risk of her life. She had discovered a world that she had never dreamt of within half an hour’s drive from Wimpole Street. Why should there not be another world only half a moment’s flight from Florence — a better world, a more beautiful world, where the dead live, trying in vain to reach us? At any rate she would take the risk. And so she sat herself down at the table too. And Mr. Lytton, the brilliant son of an invisible father, came; and Mr. Frederick Tennyson, and Mr. Powers and M. Villari — they all sat at the table and then when the table had done kicking, they sat on drinking tea and eating strawberries and cream, with “Florence dissolving in the purple of the hills and the stars looking on,” talking and talking: “. . . what stories we told, and what miracles we swore to! Oh, we are believers here, Isa, except Robert. . . .” Then in burst deaf Mr. Kirkup with his bleak white beard. He had come round simply to exclaim, “There is a spiritual world — there is a future state. I confess it. I am convinced at last.” And when Mr. Kirkup, whose creed had always been “the next thing to atheism,” was converted merely because, in spite of his deafness, he had heard “three taps so loud that they made him leap,” how could Mrs. Browning keep her hands off the table? “You know I am rather a visionary and inclined to knock round at all the doors of the present world to try to get out,” she wrote. So she summoned the faithful to Casa Guidi; and there they sat with their hands on the drawing-room table, trying to get out.
Flush started up in the wildest apprehension. The skirts and the trousers were billowing round him; the table was standing on one leg. But whatever the ladies and gentlemen round the table could hear and see, Flush could hear and see nothing. True, the table was standing on one leg, but so tables will if you lean hard on one side. He had upset tables himself and been well scolded for it. But now there was Mrs. Browning with her great eyes wide open staring as if she saw something marvellous outside. Flush rushed to the balcony and looked over. Was there another Grand Duke riding by with banners and torches? Flush could see nothing but an old beggar woman crouched at the corner of the street over her basket of melons. Yet clearly Mrs. Browning saw something; clearly she saw something that was very wonderful. So in the old Wimpole Street days she had wept once without any reason that he could see; and again she had laughed, holding up a blotted scrawl. But this was different. There was something in her look now that frightened him. There was something in the room, or in the table, or in the petticoats and trousers, that he disliked exceedingly.
As the weeks passed, this preoccupation of Mrs. Browning’s with the invisible grew upon her. It might be a fine hot day, but instead of watching the lizards slide in and out of the stones, she would sit at the table; it might be a dark starry night, but instead of reading in her book, or passing her hand over paper, she would call, if Mr. Browning were out, for Wilson, and Wilson would come yawning. Then they would sit at the table together until that article of furniture, whose chief function it was to provide shade, kicked on the floor, and Mrs. Browning exclaimed that it was telling Wilson that she would soon be ill. Wilson replied that she was only sleepy. But soon Wilson herself, the implacable, the upright, the British, screamed and went into a faint, and Mrs. Browning was rushing hither and thither to find “the hygienic vinegar.” That, to Flush, was a highly unpleasant way of spending a quiet evening. Better far to sit and read one’s book.
Undoubtedly the suspense, the intangible but disagreeable odour, the kicks and the screams and the vinegar, told upon Flush’s nerves. It was all very well for the baby, Penini, to pray “that Flush’s hair may grow”; that was an aspiration that Flush could understand. But this form of prayer which required the presence of evil-smelling, seedy-looking men and the antics of a piece of apparently solid mahogany, angered him much as they angered that robust, sensible, well-dressed man, his master. But far worse than any smell to Flush, far worse than any antics, was the look on Mrs. Browning’s face when she gazed out of the window as if she were seeing something that was wonderful when there was nothing. Flush stood himself in front of her. She looked through him as if he were not there. That was the cruellest look she had ever given him. It was worse than her cold anger when he bit Mr. Browning in the leg; worse than her sardonic laughter when the door shut upon his paw in Regent’s Park. There were moments indeed when he regretted Wimpole Street and its tables. The tables at No. 50 had never tilted upon one leg. The little table with the ring round it that held her precious ornaments had always stood perfectly still. In those far-off days he had only to leap on her sofa and Miss Barrett started wide-awake and looked at him. Now, once more, he leapt on to her sofa. But she did not notice him. She was writing. She paid no attention to him. She went on writing— “also, at the request of the medium, the spiritual hands took from the table a garland which lay there, and placed it upon my head. The particular hand which did this was of the largest human size, as white as snow, and very beautiful. It was as near to me as this hand I write with, and I saw it as distinctly.” Flush pawed her sharply. She looked through him as if he were invisible. He leapt off the sofa and ran downstairs into the street.
It was a blazing hot afternoon. The old beggar woman at the corner had fallen asleep over her melons. The sun seemed droning in the air. Keeping to the shady side of the street, Flush trotted along the well-known ways to the market-place. The whole square was brilliant with awnings and stalls and bright umbrellas. The market women were sitting beside baskets of fruit; pigeons were fluttering, bells were pealing, whips were cracking. The many-coloured mongrels of Florence were running in and out sniffing and pawing. All was as brisk as a beehive and as hot as an oven. Flush sought the shade. He flung himself down beside his friend Catterina, under the shadow of her great basket. A brown jar of red and yellow flowers cast a shadow beside it. Above them a statue, holding his right arm outstretched, deepened the shade to violet. Flush lay there in the cool, watching the young dogs busy with their own affairs. They were snarling and biting, stretching and tumbling, in all the abandonment of youthful joy. They were chasing each other in and out, round and round, as he had once chased the spotted spaniel in the alley. His thoughts turned to Reading for a moment — to Mr. Partridge’s spaniel, to his first love, to the ecstasies and innocences of youth. Well, he had had his day. He did not grudge them theirs. He had found the world a pleasant place to live in. He had no quarrel with it now. The market woman scratched him behind the ear. She had often cuffed him for stealing a grape, or for some other misdemeanour; but he was old now; and she was old. He guarded her melons and she scratched his ear. So she knitted and he dozed. The flies buzzed on the great pink melon that had been sliced open to show its flesh.
The sun burnt deliciously through the lily leaves, and through the green and white umbrella. The marble statue tempered its heat to a champagne freshness. Flush lay and let it burn through his fur to the naked skin. And when he was roasted on one side he turned over and let the sun roast the other. All the time the market people were chattering and bargaining; market women were passing; they were stopping and fingering the vegetables and the fruit. There was a perpetual buzz and hum of human voices such as Flush loved to listen to. After a time he drowsed off under the shadow of the lilies. He slept as dogs sleep when they are dreaming. Now his legs twitched — was he dreaming that he hunted rabbits in Spain? Was he coursing up a hot hill-side with dark men shouting “Span! Span!” as the rabbits darted from the brushwood? Then he lay still again. And now he yelped, quickly, softly, many times in succession. Perhaps he heard Dr. Mitford egging his greyhounds on to the hunt at Reading. Then his tail wagged sheepishly. Did he hear old M
iss Mitford cry, “Bad dog! Bad dog!” as he slunk back to her, where she stood among the turnips waving her umbrella? And then he lay for a time snoring, wrapt in the deep sleep of happy old age. Suddenly every muscle in his body twitched. He woke with a violent start. Where did he think he was? In Whitechapel among the ruffians? Was the knife at his throat again?
Whatever it was, he woke from his dream in a state of terror. He made off as if he were flying to safety, as if he were seeking refuge. The market women laughed and pelted him with rotten grapes and called him back. He took no notice. Cart-wheels almost crushed him as he darted through the streets — the men standing up to drive cursed him and flicked him with their whips. Half-naked children threw pebbles at him and shouted “Matta! Matta!” as he fled past. Their mothers ran to the door and caught them back in alarm. Had he then gone mad? Had the sun turned his brain? Or had he once more heard the hunting horn of Venus? Or had one of the American rapping spirits, one of the spirits that live in table legs, got possession of him at last? Whatever it was, he went in a bee-line up one street and down another until he reached the door of Casa Guidi. He made his way straight upstairs and went straight into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Browning was lying, reading, on the sofa. She looked up, startled, as he came in. It was not a spirit — it was only Flush. She laughed. Then, as he leapt on to the sofa and thrust his face into hers, the words of her own poem came into her mind:
You see this dog. It was but yesterday
I mused forgetful of his presence here
Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear,
When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way
Right sudden against my face, — two golden-clear
Great eyes astonished mine, — a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray!
I started first, as some Arcadian,
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;
But, as the bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness, — thanking the true Pan,
Who, by low creatures, leads to heights of love.
She had written that poem one day years ago in Wimpole Street when she was very unhappy. Years had passed; now she was happy. She was growing old now and so was Flush. She bent down over him for a moment. Her face with its wide mouth and its great eyes and its heavy curls was still oddly like his. Broken asunder, yet made in the same mould, each, perhaps, completed what was dormant in the other. But she was woman; he was dog. Mrs. Browning went on reading. Then she looked at Flush again. But he did not look at her. An extraordinary change had come over him. “Flush!” she cried. But he was silent. He had been alive; he was now dead. That was all. The drawing-room table, strangely enough, stood perfectly still.
Authorities
It must be admitted that there are very few authorities for the foregoing biography. But the reader who would like to check the facts or to pursue the subject further is referred to:
To Flush, My Dog.
}
Poems by
Flush, or Faunus.
}
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 2 vols.
The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, edited by Frederick Kenyon. 2 vols.
The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning addressed to Richard Hengist Horne, edited by S. R. Townshend Mayer. 2 vols.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: letters to her sister 1846-1859, edited by Leonard Huxley, LL.D.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her Letters, by Percy Lubbock.
References to Flush are to be found in the Letters of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by H. Chorley. 2 vols.
For an account of London Rookeries, The Rookeries of London, by Thomas Beames, 1850, may be consulted.
Notes
“painted fabric.” Miss Barrett says, “I had a transparent blind put up in my open window.” She adds, “papa insults me with the analogy of a back window in a confectioner’s shop, but is obviously moved when the sunshine lights up the castle, notwithstanding.” Some hold that the castle, etc., was painted on a thin metallic substance; others that it was a muslin blind richly embroidered. There seems no certain way of settling the matter.
“Mr. Kenyon mumbled slightly because he had lost two front teeth.” There are elements of exaggeration and conjecture here. Miss Mitford is the authority. She is reported to have said in conversation with Mr. Horne, “Our dear friend, you are aware, never sees anybody but the members of her own family, and one or two others. She has a high opinion of the skill in reading as well as the fine taste, of Mr. —— , and she gets him to read her new poems aloud to her. . . . So Mr. —— stands upon the hearth-rug, and uplifts the MS., and his voice, while our dear friend lies folded up in Indian shawls upon her sofa, with her long black tresses streaming over her bent-down head, all attention. Now, dear Mr. —— has lost a front tooth — not quite a front one, but a side front one — and this, you see, causes a defective utterance . . . an amiable indistinctness, a vague softening of syllables into each other, so that silence and ilence would really sound very like one another. . . .” There can be little doubt that Mr. —— was Mr. Kenyon; the blank was necessitated by the peculiar delicacy of the Victorians with regard to teeth. But more important questions affecting English literature are involved. Miss Barrett has long been accused of a defective ear. Miss Mitford maintains that Mr. Kenyon should rather be accused of defective teeth. On the other hand, Miss Barrett herself maintained that her rhymes had nothing to do with his lack of teeth or with her lack of ear. “A great deal of attention,” she wrote, “ — far more than it would have taken to rhyme with complete accuracy — have I given to the subject of rhymes and have determined in cold blood to hazard some experiments.” Hence she rhymed “angels” with “candles,” “heaven” with “unbelieving,” and “islands” with “silence” — in cold blood. It is of course for the professors to decide; but anybody who has studied Mrs. Browning’s character and her actions will be inclined to take the view that she was a wilful breaker of rules whether of art or of love, and so to convict her of some complicity in the development of modern poetry.
“yellow gloves.” It is recorded in Mrs. Orr’s Life of Browning that he wore lemon-coloured gloves. Mrs. Bridell-Fox, meeting him in 1835-6, says, “he was then slim and dark, and very handsome, and — may I hint it — just a trifle of a dandy, addicted to lemon-coloured kid gloves and such things.”
“He was stolen.” As a matter of fact, Flush was stolen three times; but the unities seem to require that the three stealings shall be compressed into one. The total sum paid by Miss Barrett to the dog-stealers was £20.
“The faces of those men were to come back to her on a sunny balcony in Italy.” Readers of Aurora Leigh — but since such persons are nonexistent it must be explained that Mrs. Browning wrote a poem of this name, one of the most vivid passages in which (though it suffers from the distortion natural to an artist who sees the object once only from a four-wheeler, with Wilson tugging at her skirts) is the description of a London slum. Clearly Mrs. Browning possessed a fund of curiosity as to human life which was by no means satisfied by the busts of Homer and Chaucer on the washing-stand in the bedroom.
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf Page 202