The first series of “Dramatic Idyls” was published in the autumn of 1872, closely following “La Saisiaz” and the “Two Poets of Croisic.” The devoted student of Browning could hardly fail to be impressed by one feature of his poetry which, though a prominent one, has received little attention from the critics. This feature is his doctrine of the sub-self, as the source of man’s highest spiritual knowledge. He has given his fullest expression of this belief in his “Paracelsus,” and it appears in “Sordello” (especially in the fifth book), in “A Death in the Desert,” in “Fifine,” and in “Christopher Smart,” and is largely developed in “The Ring and the Book.” Again, in “Beatrice Signorini,” contained in “Asolando,” published only on the day of his death, this theory is again apparent, and these instances are only partial out of the many in which the doctrine is touched or elaborated, showing how vital it was with him from the earliest to the latest period of his work. Another striking quality in Browning is that of the homogeneous spirit of his entire poetic expression. It is the great unity in an equally great variety. It is always clear as to the direction in which Browning is moving, and as to the supreme message of his philosophy of life.
CHAPTER XI. 1880-1888
“Moreover something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like shadows of forgotten dreams.”
“Alas! our memories may retrace
Each circumstance of time and place,
Season and change come back again,
And outward things unchanged remain;
The rest we cannot re-instate;
Ourselves we cannot re-create;
Nor set our souls to the same key
Of the remembered harmony!”
“Les Charmettes” — Venetian Days — Dr. Hiram Corson — The Browning Society — Oxford Honors Browning — Katherine DeKay Bronson — Honors from Edinburgh — Visit to Professor Masson — Italian Recognition — Nancioni — The Goldoni Sonnet — At St. Moritz — In Palazzo Giustiniani— “Ferishtah’s Fancies” — Companionship with his Son — Death of Milsand — Letters to Mrs. Bronson — DeVere Gardens — Palazzo Rezzonico — Sunsets from the Lido — Robert Barrett Browning’s Gift in Portraiture.
Twenty-five years after Robert Browning had visited the famous haunts of Rousseau with his wife, he again made a little sojourn with his sister in lovely Chambéry, making various excursions in all the picturesque region about, and again visiting “Les Charmettes,” which Miss Browning had not before seen; as before, Browning sat down to the old harpsichord, attempting to play “Rousseau’s Dream,” but only two notes of the antique instrument responded to his touch. Through all the wonderful scenery of the Mont Cenis pass they proceeded to Turin and thence to Venice, where they arrived in the midst of the festivities of the Congress Carnival in September of 1881. The Storys, whom Browning had anticipated meeting in Venice, had gone to Vallombrosa, where their daughter (the Marchesa Peruzzi di’ Medici) had a villa, to which the family retired in summer from their stately old palace in Florence. Mr. Story’s two sons, the painter and the sculptor, both had studios in Venice at this time, and Mr. Browning often strolled into these. Among other friends Browning and his sister visited the Countess Mocenigo, who was ensconced in the same palace that Byron had occupied. She showed her guests through all the rooms with their classic associations, and Browning sat down to the desk at which Byron had written the last canto of “Childe Harold.” To the satisfaction of the Brownings, Venice soon regained her usual quiet, — that wonderful silence broken only by the plash of water against marble steps, and the cries of the gondoliers, — and he resumed his long walks, often accompanied by Miss Browning, exploring every curious haunt and lingering in shops and squares. The poet familiarized himself with the enchanting dream city, as no tours in gondolas alone could ever do. To him Venice came to be dear beyond words, and soon after he made all arrangements to purchase the Palazzo Manzoni, an ancient Venetian palace of the fifteenth century, whose façade was a faint glow of color from its medallions of colored marbles, and whose balconies and arched windows seemed especially designed for a poet’s habitation. But the ancient structure was found to be in a too perilous condition, and Browning, with never-failing regret, resigned the prospect; nor was he ever consoled, it is said, until, some years later, his son became the owner of the noble Palazzo Rezzonico.
Every day the poet saw Venice transformed into new splendor. “To see these divine sunsets is the joy of life,” he would say, as a city, flushed with rose, reflected itself in pale green waters, and the golden sunset filled with liquid light every narrow street and passage, contrasting sharply with the dense black shadows. Browning had a love of the sky that made its glorious panorama one of the delights of his life.
One of the crowning honors of the poet’s life invested these days for him with renewed vitality of interest, — that of the formation of the Browning Society in London for the study and promulgation of his poetic work. This was, indeed, a contrast to the public attitude of thirty years before. Once, in a letter to Mrs. Millais (dated January 7, 1867) he had described himself to her as “the most unpopular poet that ever was.” The Browning Society was due, in its first inception, to Dr. Furnivall and to Miss Emily Hickey, and its founding was entirely without Browning’s knowledge. Although the poet avowed himself as “quite other than a Browningite,” he could not fail to be touched and gratified by such a mark of interest and appreciation.
Dr. Hiram Corson, Professor of Literature at Cornell University, had, however, formed a Browning Club, composed of professors and their wives and many eminent scholars, some four or five years before the formation of the Browning Society in London, and the notable Browning readings which Professor Corson had given continually in many of the large cities and before universities, had been of incalculable aid in making Robert Browning’s poetry known and understood in the United States. As an interpreter of Browning, Dr. Corson stood unrivaled. His aim was to give to his audience the spiritual meaning of the poem read. His rich voice had the choral intonation without which no poem can be vocally interpreted. His reading gave not only the articulated thought, but the spiritual message of the poet. It is hardly too much to say that no one has ever fully realized the dramatic power of Browning who has not listened to the interpretation of Dr. Corson. Of his own part in the creation of the Browning Society in London, Dr. Corson kindly contributed this record:
“I was stopping with my wife at the Inns of Court Hotel, on High Holborn. A day or two before receiving Mr. Browning’s invitation, Dr. Frederick James Furnivall dined with us, and after dinner we went over to the Inns of Court Gardens, just back of the hotel. There we walked about during the long evening twilight, and talked over the founding of a Society which Dr. Furnivall and Miss Emily Henriette Hickey, the poetess, had been contemplating, for the study of Browning’s poetry. I told him of what I had done at Cornell University, the previous four or five years, in a Browning Club composed of Professors and their wives, and in my University classes. It was decided that the London Browning Society should be organized in October; and I engaged to go over to England the following June, and read a paper before the Society; which I did at its eighth meeting, on the 23d of June, the subject of the paper being ‘The Idea of Personality as embodied in Robert Browning’s Poetry, and of Art as an intermediate Agency of Personality.’”
Another source of joy to Browning, and one that far exceeded that of any recognition of himself, was the increasing recognition of his son’s achievements in art. Barrett Browning was at this time a pupil of Rodin in Paris, devoting himself to sculpture with the same ardor that he gave to his painting. As to which expression in art was the more his métier, chi lo sa? The young man was the child of the muses, and all forms of art were to him a temperamental inheritance.
Oxford again honored Browning, this time in the June of 1882, with the degree of D.C.L. “I never saw my father happier than on this occasion,” Mr. Barrett Browning said to the
writer of this volume when questioned regarding it; and another observer who was present speaks of Browning’s distinction in his red Oxford gown, his shoulders thrown back, and his swift, light step. One of the humors of the occasion was the dangling of a red cotton night-cap over his head by one of the undergraduates, who was in danger of a not ill-merited rebuke, but Browning interceded with the Vice-Chancellor not to be too hard “on the harmless drolleries of the young man.” It was in this Oxford gown, holding in his hand “the square old yellow book,” that Robert Barrett Browning painted the portrait of his father, which he presented to Oxford, and which now hangs, a treasured possession, in Balliol Hall, to which portrait some allusion has already been made.
Portrait of Robert Browning, by his Son.
Painted in 1882, and presented to Oxford University by the artist.
One of the most beautiful of the friendships of the last decade of the poet’s life was that with Mrs. Arthur Bronson, a very cultivated and charming American woman who for more than twenty years made her home in Venice. Casa Alvisi, on the Grand Canal, opposite Santa Maria della Salute, came to be such a delightful center of social life for the choice circle that Mrs. Bronson gathered around her, that its records fairly enter into the modern history of Venice. Adjoining Casa Alvisi was the old Giustiniani Palace, in which Mrs. Bronson had taken a suite of rooms that she might use them in dispensing her hospitalities. No one who has been the privileged guest of Mrs. Bronson can ever lose the grateful appreciation of her genius as a hostess. Her lovely hospitality was dispensed with the quality that entitled it to be considered as absolutely a special gift of the gods, and when she invited Browning and his sister to occupy these rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanti, it was with a grace that forestalled any refusal. At first Miss Browning did a little housekeeping on their own account, except that they dined and passed the evening with Mrs. Bronson; later on, for several seasons, they were her house-guests in Casa Alvisi, — that unique and dream-enchanted interior crowded with lovely Venetian things, and bibelots and bric-à-brac picked up the world over. But the brother and sister always occupied the rooms in the palace. It was after the first one of this series of annual visits that Browning wrote to Mrs. Bronson the following letter after his return to London:
19, Warwick Crescent, W.
Nov. 18, ‘81.
I would not write at first arriving, Dear Friend, because I fancied that I might say too much all at once, and afterward be afraid of beginning again till some interval; this fortnight since I saw you, however, must pass for a very long interval indeed, I will try to tell you as quietly as possible that I never shall feel your kindness, — such kindness! — one whit less than I do now; perhaps I feel it “now” even more deeply than I could, at all events, realize that I was feeling.
You have given Venice an appreciation that will live in my mind with every delight of that dearest place in the world. But all the same you remain for me a dearest of friends, whether I see you framed by your Venice, or brightening up our bleak London, should you come there. In Venice, however, should I live and you be there next autumn, it will go hard with me if I do not meet you again.
What a book of memories, and instigations to get still more memories, does your most beautiful and precious book prove to me! I never supposed that photographers would have the good sense to use their art on so many out-of-the-way scenes and sights, just those I love most....
You — you have lost Lowell, and Field, and the rest of the good fellowship, but you will be sure of a succession of the sort.
On the poet’s seventieth birthday he received, from the Browning Societies of Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell University, and others, a gift of a complete set of his own works, bound in olive green morocco, in a beautifully carved oak case, with this inscription:
“To Robert Browning on his seventieth birthday, May 7th, 1882, from some members of the Browning Societies. These members having ascertained that the works of a Great Modern Poet are never in Robert Browning’s house, beg him to accept a set of these works which they assure him will be found worthy of his most serious attention.”
Dr. Corson has related that when he visited the poet at one time Browning showed him this case, placed against the wall of the drawing-room, with an almost boyish delight.
In August of 1882, on their leisurely way to Venice, Browning and his sister lingered at Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse and at Gressoney Saint-Jean, where his enchanting outlook upon Monte Rosa was a continual joy, Mr. Browning spent one night in the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse, in order to hear the midnight mass; while Miss Browning, denied hospitality in the monastery, received that of the convent near at hand, where she was cordially entertained by the Mother Superior.
The Prologue of “Ferishtah’s Fancies,” published the next year, is dated from Gressoney, Val d’Aosta, and the lines,
“A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee,
Delightful Gressoney!”
will recall themselves to the memory. Miss Browning was an ideal companion in these mountain wanderings. She was equal to endless walks, and she had the accomplishment of being able to ride a mule or a donkey as one to the manor born. From Gressoney they looked up to the glaciers of Monte Rosa, almost overhanging, and from Saint-Pierre Browning wrote to a friend that they were in the roughest and most primitive inn, “but my sister bears it bravely.”
Italian recognition of Browning was stimulated and extended, if not primarily inspired, by Il Signor Dottore Nancioni, who had the Chair of Literature in the University of Florence, and whom the Brownings had first met in the old Siena days. As Milsand first made Browning known in France, through his critical papers in the Revue, so Nancioni published, in the Nuova Antologia, and in the Fanfulla della Domenica of Rome, several papers devoted to serious and critical study and interpretation of Browning’s work; and he made the journey from Rome to Venice to meet the poet again. The recital of poetry was by no means ended in Italy in the days of the Improvvisatori, and Professor Nanciani frequently gave readings from Browning before cultivated Italian audiences.
When Venice honored Goldoni with a statue, Browning was invited to contribute to that wonderful “Album” of letters, with which Italy characteristically commemorates all scholarly events, with contributions from literary men. The sonnet so pleased the Venetians that they gave it the place of honor in the album.
The London seasons during all these years were of unrivaled brilliancy. Browning was seen in all the great houses, and often for two weeks he would dine out every consecutive night. Dr. Corson, whose first visit to Browning was made in the early eighties, gave to a friend in a personal letter this little transcription of his first meeting with the poet, with whom he had long been in correspondence:
“He received me in the drawing-room, on the second floor. After a few minutes’ conversation, he showed me various interesting things, in the drawing-room, busts and portraits and mementoes of Mrs. Browning, keeping up a rapid and meandering current of talk. Something was said, I forget what, which caused me to allude to ‘the Book,’ the ‘square old yellow book,’ with ‘crumpled vellum covers,’ which he picked out of the market-day trumpery in the Piazza San Lorenzo, in Florence, and which led to the composition of his masterpiece, ‘The Ring and the Book,’ ‘I’ll take you down in a few minutes,’ he said, ‘to the library, and show it to you.’ When we left the drawing-room and were at the top of the stairway, he, with an apparent unconsciousness, and as if I were a younger brother, put his arm over my off shoulder, and so descended with me, talking all the while at his usual rapid rate. I tell this little incident, as I observed later, on several occasions, such an expression of unconscious cordiality and good fellowship was a characteristic of him.
“Beside his chair, at the writing table, stood Mrs. Browning’s low-seated, high and straight-backed, black haircloth covered chair, on which were piled books almost to the top of the back, which most effectually excluded any one from the honor of sitting in it.
“When showing me ‘The Book,’ he called my attention to passages in the Latin portion of it — the arguments of the two lawyers, Bottinius and Hyacinthus de Archangelis, and I was struck with the way in which he translated them, the rapid and close recasting of the thought in English, a rare gift even with the best Latin scholars. I had occasions to discover, in subsequent visits, that he read the Greek in a genial way and with less grammatical consciousness than do many Greek professors. His scholarship was extensive and, I would add, vital, it not having been imposed upon him at a public school and a university, and he having had what must have been Shakespeare’s power of acquiring and absorbing knowledge of all kinds. On some subsequent visit, I don’t remember what we had been talking about that led to the remark, he said to me, in his rapid mode of speech, ‘I never could have done much at a public school,’ meaning, of course, an endowed foundation school, such as Eton and others, in which there is a special preparation for the Universities. After a pause, he added, ‘no, nor at a university either. Italy was my university.’ In his ‘De Gustibus — — ‘ he says:
‘Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, Italy.’
“While he was showing me ‘The Book,’ I asked him about a passage in ‘The Ring and the Book.’ He replied, ‘I don’t remember the passage. It has been some time since I read the poem, and I haven’t a copy of it in my house!’
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 254