The Brownings; their life and art

Front matter

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Foreword

The present volume was initiated in Florence, and, from its first inception, invested with the cordial assent and the sjnnpathetic encouragement of Robert Barrett Browning. One never-to-be-forgotten day, all ethereal light and loveliness, has left its picture in memory, when, in company with Mr. Browning and his life-long friend, the Marchesa Peruzzi di' Medici (ndta Story), the writer of this biography strolled with them under the host's orange trees and among the riotous roses of his Florentine villa, " La Torre All' Antella," listening to their sparkling conversation, replete with fascinating reminiscences. To Mr. Browning the tribute of thanks, whose full scope is known to the Recording Angel alone, is here offered ; and there is the blending of both privilege and duty in grateful acknowledgements to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Company for their courtesy in permitting the somewhat liberal drawing on their published Letters of both the Brownings, on which reliance had to be based in any effort to

" Call up the buried Past again,"

and construct the story, from season to season, so far as might be, of that wonderful interlude of the wedded life of the poets.

Yet any formality of thanks to this house is almost lost sight of in the rush of memories of that long and mutuallytrusting friendship between the late George Murray Smith,

vii viii FOREWORD

the former head of this firm, and Robert Browning, a friendship .which was one of the choicest treasures in both their lives.

To The Macmillan Company, the pubHshers for both the first and the present Lord Tennyson ; To Houghton Mifflin Company ; to Messrs. Dodd, Mead, & Company ; to The Cornhill Magazine (to which the writer is indebted for some data regarding Browning and Professor Masson) ; to each and all, acknowledgments are offered for their courtesy which has invested with added charm a work than which none was ever more completely a labor of love.

To Edith, Contessa Rucellai (ndta Bronson), whose characteristically lovely kindness placed at the disposal of this volume a number of letters written by Robert Browning to her mother, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, special gratitude is offered.

" Poetry," said Mrs. Browning, " is its own exceeding great reward." Any effort, however remote its results from the ideal that haunted the writer, to interpret the lives of such transcendent genius and nobleness as those of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, must also be its own exceeding reward in leading to a passion of pursuit of all that is highest and holiest in the life that now is, and in that

which is to come.

LILIAN WHITING

The Brunswick, Boston Midsummer Days, 191 1

Contents

Page

The Most Exquisite Romance of Modem Life — Ancestry and Youth of Robert Browning — Love of Music — Formative Influences — The Fascination of Byron — A Home " Crammed with Books " — The Spell of Shelley — '* Incondita " — Poetic Vocation Definitely Chosen — " PauUne " i

Chapter II 1806-1832

Childhood and Early Youth of EUzabeth Barrett — Hope End — " Summer Snow of Apple-Blossoms " — Her Bower of White Roses — " Living with Visions " — The Malvern Hills — Hugh Stuart Boyd — Love of Learning — " Juvenilia " — Impassioned Devotion to Poetry i6

CHAPTER in

1833-1841

Browning Visits Russia — " Paracelsus " — Recognition of Wordsworth and Landor — " Straflford " — First Visit to Italy — Mrs. Carlyle's Baffled Reading of " Sordello " — Lofty Motif of the Poem — The Universal Problem of Life — Enthusiasm for Italy — The Sibylline Leaves Yet to Unfold 26

ix.

X CONTENTS

Chapter IV

Elizabeth Barrett's Love for the Greek Poets — Ljn-ical Work — Serious Entrance on Professional Literature — Noble Ideal of Poetry — London Life — Kenyon — First Knowledge of Robert Browning 44

Chapter V 1841-1846

" Bells and Pomegranates " — Arnould and Domett — "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon " — Macready — Second Visit to Italy — Miss Barrett's Poetic Work — "Colombe's Birthday " — " Lady Geraldine's Courtship " — " Romances and Lyrics " — Browning's First Letter to Miss Barrett — The Poets Meet — Letters of Robert Browning and Ehzabeth Barrett — " Loves of the Poets " — Vita Nuova r67N

c

Chapter VI 1845-1850

Marriage and Italy — "In That New World" — The Haunts of Petrarca — The Magic Land — In Pisa — Vallombrosa — '' Un Bel Giro " — Guercino's Angel — Casa Guidi — Birth of Robert Barrett Browning — Bagni di Lucca — " Sonnets from the Portuguese " — The Enchantment of Italy ,92^

Chapter VII 1850-1855

" Casa Guidi Windows " — Society in Florence — Marchesa d'Ossoli — Browning's Poetic Creed — Viileggiatura in Siena — Venice — BrilHant Life in London — Paris and Milsand — Browning on Shelley — In Flor-

CONTENTS xi

Page ence — Idyllic Days in Bagni di Lucca — Mrs. Browning's Spiritual Outlook — Delightful Winter in Rome — A Poetic Pilgrimage — Harriet Hosmer — Characteristics of Mrs. Browning

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Chapter VIII 1855-1851

London Life — An Interlude in Paris — " Aurora Leigh " — Florentine Days — " Men and Women " — The Hawthornes — " The Old YeUow Book"— A Summer in Normandy — The Eternal City — The Storys and Other Friends — Lilies of Florence — "It

Is Beautiful! " '^^

Chapter IX ^ 1861-1869

The Completed Cycle — Letters to Friends — Browning's Devotion to His Son — Warwick Crescent — " Dramatis Personae " — London Life — Death of the Poet's Father — Sarianna Browning — Oxford Honors the Poet — Death of Arabel Barrett — Audierne — " The Ring and the Book " ./^''i^

Chapter X "^ 1869-1880

In Scotland with the Storys — Browning's Conversation — An Amusing Incident — With Milsand at St. Aubin's — " The Red Cotton Night-cap Country " — Robert Barrett Browning's Gift for Art — Alfred Domett (" Waring ") — " Balaustion's Adventure" — Browning and Tennyson — " Pacchiarotto " — Visits Jowett at Oxford — Declines Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews — " La Saisiaz " — Italy Revisited — The Dream of Asolo — " Ivanovitch " — Pride in His Son's Success — " Dramatic Idylls " 221 xil CONTENTS

Chapter XI

" 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 . . . 238