Part 11 (1/2)
Bayard Taylor, in his travel-sketches published under the title ”At Home and Abroad,” has put on record how he called upon the Brownings one afternoon in September, at their rooms in Devonshi+re Street, and found them on the eve of their return to Italy
In his cheerful alertness, self-possession, and genial suavity Browning ilishh Englishman than the poet ever lived It is a lishman: for typical he was not, except in a very exclusive sense
Bayard Taylor describes hi apparently about seven-and-thirty (a fairly close guess), with his dark hair already streaked with grey about the teed with faintest olive: eyes large, clear, and grey, and nose strong and well-cut, h not pro in the shoulders, but slender at the waist, with our and elasticity With due allowance for the passage of five-and-thirty years, this description would not be inaccurate of Browning the septuagenarian
They did not return direct to Italy after all, but wintered in Paris with Robert Browning the elder, who had retired to a s off the Chaland was a small one, but, hat he otherwise had, was sufficient for hientleman's health was superb to the last, for he died in 1866 without ever having known a day's illness
Spring ca enthusiastic about Napoleon III and interested in spiritualis both In the suain went to London: but they appear to have seen more of Kenyon and other intimate friends than to have led a busy social life Kenyon's friendshi+p and good company never ceased to have a char loved him almost as a brother: her husband told Bayard Taylor, on the day when that good poet and char man called upon thee rosy face and rotund body, as Taylor describes hi--a man so noble in his friendshi+p, so lavish in his hospitality, so large-hearted and benevolent, that he deserves to be known all over the world as Kenyon the Magnificent”
In the early autuain made, and after a feeeks in Paris and on the way the Brownings found themselves at home once more in Casa Guidi
But before this, probably indeed before they had left Paris for London, Mr Moxon had published the now notorious Shelley forgeries These were twenty-five spurious letters, but so cleverly manufactured that they at first deceivedhad been asked to write an introduction to theer as he was for a suitable opportunity of expressing his admiration for Shelley When the letters reached hih he never suspected they were forgeries, they contained nothing of particular i that afforded a just basis for what he had intended to say Pledged as he was, however, to write so for Mr Moxon's edition of the Letters, he set about the coeneral as much as of an individual nature This he wrote in Paris, and finished by the beginning of December It dealt with the objective and subjective poet; on the relation of the latter's life to his work; and upon Shelley in the light of his nature, art, and character Apart from the circu of any length fro's pen, this is an exceptionally able and interesting production
Dr Furnivall deserves general gratitude for his obtaining the author's leave to re-issue it, and for having published it as one of the papers of the Browning Society As that enthusiastic student and good friend of the poet says in his ”foretalk” to the reprint, the essay is noteworthy, not nal service to Shelley's fa's statement of his own aim in his oork, both as objective and subjective poet The sahtedness and i characteristics of his draht and e's Shelley essay ”It would be idle to enquire,” he writes, ”of these two kinds of poetic faculty in operation, which is the higher or even rarer endowht seee, the objective in the strictest state inal value For it is with this world, as starting-point and basis alike, that we shall always have to concern ourselves; the world is not to be learned and thrown aside, but reverted to and reclaimed”
Of its critical subtlety--the more remarkable as by a poet-critic who revered Shelley the poet and loved and believed in Shelley the es where he alludes to the charge against the poet's es 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 order to be able to pronounce certainly how many of its constituent parts have been tasked and strained to the production of a given lie, and how high and pure a mood of the creative mind may be dramatically simulated as the poet's habitual and exclusive one”
The large charity, the liberal human sympathy, the keen critical acumen of this essay, e the Medium” or a ”Pacchiarotto,” or even a ”Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau,”
and given us more of such honourable work in ”the other harain at Casa Guidi, they could not enjoy the midsummer heats of Florence, and so went to the Baths of Lucca It was a delight for theh Tuscan forests, and to go aers were busy Once Browning paid a visit to that relen, where, more than three-score years earlier, Shelley had been wont to aht, reading _Herodotus_ while he cooled, and then plunging into the deep pool beneath hih the spray of the waterfall till he was like a glittering hu rainbow
Those Tuscan forests, that high crown of Lucca, must always have special associations for lovers of poetry Here Shelley lived, rapt in his beautiful dreaht share soht in Plato Here, ten years later, 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 froale and with a lancet steeped in aquafortis: and here, a quarter of a century afterward, Robert and Elizabeth Browning also laughed and wept and ”joyed i' the sun,” dreamed many dreams, and touched chords of beauty whose vibration has becoh and enduring in our literature
On returning to Florence (Browning with the MS of the greater part of his splendid frag alone through the forest glades), Mrs Browning found that the chill breath of the _tras, so aof the winter (1853-4) In the spring their little boy, their beloved ”Pen,”[22] became ill with malaria This delayed their return to Florence till well on in the su rapidly proceeded with ”Aurora Leigh,” and Browning wrote several of his ”Men and Wo the Ruins,' with its novel metrical music; 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' where the painter, already immortalised by Landor, has his third warrant of perpetuity; the 'Epistle of Karshi+sh' (in part); 'Mena); 'Saul,' a portion of which had been written and published ten years previously, that noble and lofty utterance, with its tru 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 Wisdoiven to a friend for appearance in one of the then popular _Keepsakes_--literally given, for Browning never contributed to azines The very few exceptions to this rule were the result of a kindliness stronger than scruple: as when (1844), at request of Lord Houghton (then Mr Monckton Milnes), he sent 'Tokay,' the 'Flower's Na up soazine nue of the lungs, occasioned by the enlarge excitement of ceaseless and excessive literary toil” As 'Ben Karshook's Wisdoh it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any volu's works, and was omitted from ”Men and Woetfulness, it may be fitly quoted here
Karshook, it may be added, is the Hebraic word for a thistle
[Footnote 22: So-called, it is asserted, from his childish effort to pronounce a difficult naood authority for this stateiven by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, moreover, affords the practically definite proof that the boy was at first, as a term of endearment, called ”Pennini,” which was later abbreviated to ”Pen” The cognomen, Hawthorne states, was a diminutive of ”Apennino,” which was bestowed upon the boy in babyhood because he was very s a statue in Florence of colossal size called ”Apennino”]
I
”'Would a man 'scape the rod'?-- Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 'See that he turns to God The day before his death'
'Ay, could a man inquire When it shall come!' I say
The Rabbi's eye shoots fire-- 'Then let hi Sadducee,-- 'Reader of many rolls, Is it so certain we Have, as they tell us, souls?'--
'Son, there is no reply!'
The Rabbi bit his beard: 'Certain, a soul have _I_-- _We_ may have none,' he sneer'd
Thus Karshook, the Hirarace in grammar, And struck the simple, solemn”
It was in this year (1855) that ”Men and Women” was published It is difficult to understand how a collection co the Ruins,” ”Evelyn Hope,” ”Fra Lippo Lippi,” ”A Toccata of Galuppi's,” ”Any Wife to any Husband,” ”Master Hugues 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 volumes had a welcome from them which was perhaps all the more ardent because of their disproportionate numbers
Ears alert to novel poetic music must have thrilled to the new strain which sounded first--”Love a--
”Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half asleep Tinkle hoht, stray or stop As they crop-- Was the site once of a city great and gay ”