Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  CHAPTER VII. 1850-1855

  “I heard last night a little child go singing

  ‘Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church,

  O bella libertà, O bella!...”

  “But Easter-Day breaks! But

  Christ rises! Mercy every way

  Is infinite, — and who can say?”

  “Casa Guidi Windows” — Society in Florence — Marchesa d’Ossoli — Browning’s Poetic Creed — Villeggiatura in Siena — Venice — Brilliant Life in London — Paris and Milsand — Browning on Shelley — In Florence — Idyllic Days in Bagni Di Lucca — Mrs. Browning’s Spiritual Outlook — Delightful Winter in Rome — A Poetic Pilgrimage — Harriet Hosmer — Characteristics of Mrs. Browning.

  The Brownings were never for a moment caught up in the wave of popular enthusiasm for Pio Nono that swept over Italy. Yet Mrs. Browning confessed herself as having been fairly “taken in” by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Had Blackwood’s Magazine published Part I of her “Casa Guidi Windows” at the time that she sent it to this periodical, the poem would have been its own proof of her distrust of the Pope, but it would also have offered the same proof of her ill-founded trust in the Grand Duke; so that, on the whole, she was well content to fail in having achieved the distinction of a prophet regarding Pio Nono, as no Cassandra can afford to be convicted of delusion in some portion of the details of her prophecy. To achieve lasting reputation as a soothsayer, the prophecy must be accurate throughout. The fact that there was an interval of three years between the first and the second parts of this poem accounts for the discrepancy between them. In her own words she confessed:

  “I wrote a meditation and a dream,

  Hearing a little child sing in the street:

  I leant upon his music as a theme,

  Till it gave way beneath my heart’s full beat

  Which tried at an exultant prophecy,

  But dropped before the measure was complete —

  Alas for songs and hearts! O Tuscany,

  O Dante’s Florence, is the type too plain?”

  The flashing lightnings of a betrayed people gleam like an unsheathed sword in another canto beginning:

  “From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth,

  And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines

  Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north.”

  These ardent lines explain how she had been misled, for who could dream at the time that Leopoldo (“l’Intrepido,” as a poet of Viareggio called him in a truly Italian fervor of enthusiasm) could have proved himself a traitor to these trusting people, — these tender-hearted, gentle, courteous, refined Italians? All these attributes pre-eminently characterize the people; but also Mrs. Browning’s insight that “the patriots are not instructed, and the instructed are not patriots,” was too true. The adherents of the papal power were strong and influential, and the personal character, whatever might be said of his political principles, — the personal character of Pio Nono was singularly winning, and this was by no means a negligible factor in the great problem then before Italy.

  Statue of Savonarola, by E. Pazzi,

  in the sala dei cinquecento, palazzo vecchio.

  Mrs. Browning very wisely decided to let “Casa Guidi Windows” stand as written, with all the inconsistency between its first and second parts, as each reflected what she believed true at the time of writing; and it thus presents a most interesting and suggestive commentary on Italian politics between 1850 and 1853. Its discrepancies are such “as we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature,” she herself said of it, “implying the interval between aspiration and performance, between faith and disillusion, between hope and fact.” This discrepancy was more painful to her than it can be even to the most critical reader; but the very nature of the poem, its very fidelity to the conditions and impressions of the moment, give it great value, though these impressions were to be modified or canceled by those of a later time; it should stand as it is, if given to the world at all. And the courage to avow one’s self mistaken is not the least of the forms that moral courage may assume.

  Regarding Pio Nono, Mrs. Browning is justified by history, notwithstanding the many amiable and beautiful qualities of the Pontiff which forever assure him a place in affection, if not in political confidence. Even his most disastrous errors were the errors of judgment rather than those of conscious intention. Pio Nono had the defects of his qualities, but loving and reverent pilgrimages are constantly made to that little chapel behind the iron railing in the old church of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura in Rome (occupying the site of the church founded by Constantine), where his body is entombed in a marble sarcophagus of the plainest design according to his own instructions; but the interior of the vestibule is richly decorated with mosaic paintings, the tribute of those who loved him.

  Leopoldo was so kindly a man, so sincere in his work for the liberty of the press and for other important reforms, that it is no marvel that Mrs. Browning invested him with resplendence of gifts he did not actually possess, but which it was only logical to feel that such a man must have. Sometimes a too complete reliance on the ex pede Herculem method of judgment is misleading.

  While the cause of Italian liberty had the entire sympathy of Robert Browning, he was yet little moved to use it as a poetic motive. Professor Hall Griffin suggests that it is possible that Browning deliberately chose not to enter a field which his wife so particularly made her own; but that is the less tenable as they never discussed their poetic work with each other, and as a rule rarely showed to each other a single poem until it was completed.

  The foreign society in Florence at this time included some delightful American sojourners, for, beside the Storys and Hiram Powers (an especial friend of the Brownings), there were George S. Hillard, George William Curtis, and the Marchesa d’Ossoli with her husband, — all of whom were welcomed at Casa Guidi. The English society then in Florence was, as Mrs. Browning wrote to Miss Mitford, “kept up much after the old English models, with a proper disdain for continental simplicities of expense; and neither my health nor our pecuniary circumstances,” she says, “would admit of our entering it. The fact is, we are not like our child, who kisses everybody who smiles on him! You can scarcely imagine to yourself how we have retreated from the kind advances of the English here, and struggled with hands and feet to keep out of this gay society.” But it is alluring to imagine the charm of their chosen circle, the Storys always first and nearest, and these other gifted and interesting friends.

  Mr. Story is so universally thought of as a sculptor that it is not always realized how eminent he was in the world of letters as well. Two volumes of his poems contain many of value, and a few, as the “Cleopatra,” “An Estrangement,” and the immortal “Io Victis,” that the world would not willingly let die; his “Roba di Roma” is one of those absolutely indispensable works regarding the Eternal City; and several other books of his, in sketch and criticism, enrich literature. A man of the most courtly and distinguished manner, of flawless courtesy, an artist of affluent expressions, it is not difficult to realize how congenial and delightful was his companionship, as well as that of his accomplished wife, to the Brownings. Indeed, no biographical record could be made of either household, with any completeness, that did not largely include the other. In all the lovely chronicles of literature and life there is no more beautiful instance of an almost lifelong friendship than that between Robert Browning and William Wetmore Story.

  In this spring of 1850 Browning was at work on his “Christmas Eve and Easter Day,” and Casa Guidi preserved a liberal margin of quiet and seclusion. “You can scarcely imagine,” wrote Mrs. Browning, “the retired life we live.... We drive day by day through the lovely Cascine, only sweeping through the city. Just such a window where Bianca Capello looked out to see the Duke go by, — and just such a door where Tasso stood, and where Dante drew his chair out to sit.”

  When Curtis visited Florence he wrote to Browning begging to be permitted to
call, and he was one of the welcomed visitors in Casa Guidi. Browning took him on many of those romantic excursions with which the environs of Florence abound, — to Settignano, where Michael Angelo was born; to the old Roman amphitheater in Fiesole; to that somber, haunted summit of San Miniato, and to Vallombrosa, where he played to Curtis some of the old Gregorian chants on an organ in the monastery. Afterward, in a conversation with Longfellow, Mr. Curtis recalled a hymn by Pergolese that Browning had played for him.

  Tennyson’s poem, “The Princess,” went into the third edition that winter, and Mrs. Browning observed that she knew of no poet, having claim solely through poetry, who had attained so certain a success with so little delay. Hearing that Tennyson had remarked that the public “hated poetry,” Mrs. Browning commented that, “divine poet as he was, and no laurel being too leafy for him,” he must yet be unreasonable if he were not gratified with “so immediate and so conspicuous a success.”

  Browning’s “imprisoned splendor” found expression that winter in several lyrics, which were included in the new (two volume) edition of his poems.

  Among these were the “Meeting at Night,” “Parting at Morning,” “A Woman’s Last Word,” and “Evelyn Hope.” “Love among the Ruins,” “Old Pictures in Florence,” “Saul,” and his “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” all belong to this group. In that ardent love poem, “A Woman’s Last Word,” occur the lines:

  “Teach me, only teach, Love!

  As I ought

  I will speak thy speech, Love,

  Think thy thought —

  “Meet, if thou require it,

  Both demands,

  Laying flesh and spirit

  In thy hands.”

  No lyric that Robert Browning ever wrote is more haunting in its power and sweetness, or more rich in significance, than “Evelyn Hope,” with “that piece of geranium flower” in the glass beside her beginning to die. The whole scene is suggested by this one detail, and in characterization of the young girl are these inimitable lines, —

  “The good stars met in your horoscope,

  Made you of spirit, fire, and dew —

  ······

  Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,

  Either I missed or itself missed me;

  ······

  So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep;

  See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

  There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

  You will wake, and remember, and understand.”

  Fresco of Dante, by Giotto, in the Bargello, Florence.

  “.... With a softer brow

  Than Giotto drew upon the wall.”

  Casa Guidi Windows.

  Mrs. Browning’s touching lyric, “A Child’s Grave at Florence,” was published in the Athenæum that winter; and in this occur the simple but appealing stanzas, —

  “Oh, my own baby on my knees,

  My leaping, dimpled treasure,

  ······

  But God gives patience, Love learns strength,

  And Faith remembers promise;

  ······

  Still mine! maternal rights serene

  Not given to another!

  The crystal bars shine faint between

  The souls of child and mother.”

  To this day, that little grave in the English cemetery in Florence, with its “A. A. E. C.” is sought out by the visitor. To Mrs. Browning the love for her own child taught her the love of all mothers. In “Only a Curl” are the lines:

  “O children! I never lost one, —

  But my arm’s round my own little son,

  And Love knows the secret of Grief.”

  Florence “bristled with cannon” that winter, but nothing decisive occurred. The faith of the Italian people in Pio Nono, however, grew less. Mr. Kirkup, the antiquarian, still carried on his controversy with Bezzi as to which of them were the more entitled to the glory of discovering the Dante portrait, and in the spring there occurred the long-deferred marriage of Mrs. Browning’s sister Henrietta to Captain Surtees Cook, the attitude of Mr. Barrett being precisely the same as on the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Robert Browning. The death of Wordsworth was another of the events of this spring, leaving vacant the Laureateship. The Athenæum at once advocated the appointment of Mrs. Browning, as one “eminently suitable under a female sovereign.” Other literary authorities coincided with this view, it seeming a sort of poetic justice that a woman poet should be Laureate to a Queen. The Athenæum asserted that “there is no living poet of either sex who can prefer a higher claim than Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” but the honor was finally conferred upon Tennyson, with the ardent approbation of the Brownings, who felt that his claim was rightly paramount.

  In the early summer the Marchese and Marchesa d’Ossoli, with their child, sailed on that ill-starred voyage whose tragic ending startled the literary world of that day. Their last evening in Florence was passed with the Brownings. The Marchesa expressed a fear of the voyage that, after its fatal termination, was recalled by her friends as being almost prophetic. Curiously she gave a little Bible to the infant son of the poets as a presentation from her own little child; and Robert Barrett Browning still treasures, as a strange relic, the book on whose fly-leaf is written “In memory of Angelino d’Ossoli.” Mrs. Browning had a true regard for the Marchesa, of whom she spoke as “a very interesting person, thoughtful, spiritual, in her habitual mode of mind.”

  In his poetic creed, Browning deprecated nothing more entirely (to use a mild term where a stronger would not be inappropriate) than that the poet should reveal his personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that Shakespeare “unlocked his heart” to his readers, and he warns them off from the use of any fancied latch-key to his own inner citadel.

  “Which of you did I enable

  Once to slip inside my breast,

  There to catalogue and label

  What I like least, what love best?”

  And in another poem the reader will recall how fervently he thanks God that “even the meanest of His creatures”

  “Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,

  One to show a woman when he loves her!”

  It was the knowledge of this intense and pervading conviction of her husband’s that kept Mrs. Browning so long from showing to him her exquisitely tender and sacred self-revelation in the “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” Yet it was in that very “One Word More” where Browning thanks God for the “two soul-sides,” that he most simply reveals himself, and also in “Prospice” and in this “Christmas Eve and Easter Day.” This poem, with its splendor of vision, was published in 1850, with an immediate sale of two hundred copies, after which for the time the demand ceased. William Sharp well designates it as a “remarkable Apologia for Christianity,” for it can be almost thought of in connection with Newman’s “Apologia pro vita sua,” and as not remote from the train of speculative thought which Matthew Arnold wrought into his “Literature and Dogma.” It is very impressive to see how the very content of Hegelian Dialectic is the key-note of Browning’s art. “The concrete and material content of a life of perfected knowledge and volition means one thing, only, love,” teaches Hegelian philosophy. This, too, is the entire message of Browning’s poetry. Man must love God in the imperfect manifestation which is all he can offer of God. He must relate the imperfect expression to the perfect aspiration.

  “All I aspired to be

  And was not — comforts me.”

  In the unfaltering search for the Divine Ideal is the true reward.

  “One great aim, like a guiding star, above —

  Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift

  His manhood to the height that takes the prize.”

  Browning conceived and presented the organic idea and ideal of life, in its fullness, its intensity, as perhaps few poets have ever done. He would almost place
a positive sin above a negative virtue. To live intensely, even if it be sinfully, was to Browning’s vision to be on the upward way, rather than to be in a state of negative good. The spirit of man is its own witness of the presence of God. Life cannot be truly lived in any fantastic isolation.

  “Just when we’re safest, there’s a sunset touch,

  A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death,

  A chorus ending from Euripides.”

  With Browning, as with Spinoza, there is an impatience, too, with the perpetual references to death, and they both constantly turn to the everlasting truth of life. “It is this harping on death that I despise so much,” exclaimed Browning, in the later years of his life, in a conversation with a friend. “In fiction, in poetry, in art, in literature this shadow of death, call it what you will, — despair, negation, indifference, — is upon us. But what fools who talk thus!... Why, death is life, just as our daily momentarily dying body is none the less alive, and ever recruiting new forces of existence. Without death, which is our word for change, for growth, there could be no prolongation of that which we call life.”

  After the completion of “Christmas Eve and Easter Day,” Mrs. Browning questioned her husband about the apparent asceticism of the second part of the poem, and he replied that he meant it to show only one side of the matter. “Don’t think,” she wrote to a friend, “that Robert has taken to the cilix, — indeed he has not, but it is his way to see things as passionately as other people feel them.”