Part 4 (1/2)
[Footnote 30: _In a Balcony_, published in _Men and Women_, 1855, is said to have been written two years previously at the Baths of Lucca]
[Footnote 31: I had written the above--and I leave it as I wrote it--before I noticed the following quoted from the letter of a friend by Mrs Arthur Bronson in her article Browning in Venice: ”Browning see 'In a Balcony' as if he had just written it for our benefit One who sat near hiuard should be heard co to take Norbert to his doom, as, with a nature like the queen's, who had known only one hour of joy in her sterile life, vengeance swift and terrible would follow on the sudden destruction of her happiness 'Now I don't quite think that,' answered Browning, as if he were following out the play as a spectator 'The queen has a large and passionate teht into intense life She would have died by a knife in her heart The guard would have coine that most people interpret it as I do,' was the reply 'Then,' said Browning, with quick interest, 'don't you think it would be well to put it in the stage directions, and have it seen that they were carrying her across the back of the stage?'”]
[Footnote 32: Browning's eyes were in a reree unequal in their power of vision; one was unusually long-sighted; the other, hich he could read the hted]
[Footnote 33: See a very interesting passage on Browning's ”odd liking for 'vermin'” in _Letters of RB and EBB_ i 370, 371: ”I always liked all those wild creatures God '_sets up for themselves_'” ”It seemed awful to watch that bee--he see of God”]
[Footnote 34: Of the first part of _Saul_ Mr Kenyon said finely that ”it reminded him of Homer's shi+eld of Achilles thrown into lyrical whirl and life” _(Letters RB and EBB_ i 326)]
Chapter V
Love and Marriage
In 1841, John Kenyon, for's father, now an elderly lover of literature and of literary society, childless, wealthy, generous-hearted, proposed to Browning that he should call upon Elizabeth Barrett, Kenyon's cousin once reuished as a writer of ardent and original verse Browning consented, but the poetess ”through soers”--as she afterwards told a correspondent--declined, alleging, not untruly, as a ground of refusal, that she was then ailing in health[35] Three years later Kenyon sent his cousin's new volu; her brother, lately returned froht and ades a reference in verse to his ”Poive hiht he not relieve his sense of obligation by telling Miss Barrett, in a letter, that he adh to love and be silent , he wrote--January 10, 1845--and writing truthfully he wrote enthusiastically[36] Miss Barrett, never quite recovered froirlhood, and stricken down for long in both soul and body by the shock of her brother's death by drowning, lay from day to day and month to month, in an upper room of her father's house in Wimpole Street, occupied, upon her sofa, with her books and papers--her Greek dramatists and her Elizabethan poets--shut out from the world, s for ever closed, and with only an occasional feossip of the social and literary life of London Never was a spirit of more vivid fire enclosed within a to, ”the author of _Paracelsus_ and King of the mystics,” threw her, she says, ”into ecstasics” Her reply has a thrill of pleasure running through its graceful half-restraint, and she holds out a hope that when spring shall arrive ain the invalid chamber between her and her new correspondent may be possible
[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
_Fro in chalk by_ FIELD TALFOURD _in the National Portrait Gallery_]
Fro yet delicate speed was in her pen; fros!” Mr Browning, who had praised her poems, must tell her their faults He must himself speak out in noble verse, not h the es, really help him by her sympathy, by her counsel? Let him put ceremony aside and treat her _en bon camerade_; he will find her ”an honesthim as much as possible immediately What poets have been his literary sponsors? Are not the critics wrong to deny conteenius? What poems are those now in his portfolio? Is not aeschylus the divinest of divine Greek spirits? but how inadequately her correspondent has spoken of Dante! Shall they indeed--as he suggests--write soether? And then--is he duly careful of his health, careful against overwork? And is not gladness a duty? to give back to the world the joy that God has given to his poet? Though, indeed, to lean out of theof this House of Life is for some the required, perhaps the happiest attitude
And why--replies the second voice--lean out of the ? His own foot is only on the stair Where are the faults of her poems, of which she had inquired? Yes, he will speak out, and he is now planning such a poem as she demands But she it is, who has indeed spoken out in her verse?
In his portfolio is a drama about a Moor of Othello's country, one Luria, with strange entanglings arandly it is said in the Greek of Eschylus! But Dante, all Dante is in his heart and head And he has seen Tennyson face to face; and he knows and loves Carlyle; and he has visited Sorrento and trod upon Monte Calvano Oh, the world in this year 1845 ” all night, and walked ho thrushes piped; and it is true that his head aches She shall read and amend his manuscript poems To hear from her is better than to see anybody else But when shall he see her too?
So proceed from January to May the letters of Rudel and the still invisible Lady of Wimpole Street It was happy comradeshi+p on her part, but on his it was already love His spirit had recognised, had touched, a spirit, which included all that he most needed, and union hich would be the most certain and substantial prize offered by life There was nothing fatuous in this inward assurance; it was the si truth The word ” as you are enerous confidence, precipitated the visit How could she be mistrustful? Of course he may come: but the wish to do so was unwisely exorbitant On the afternoon of May 20th, 1845, Browning first set eyes on his future wife, a little figure, which did not rise froer, wistfully pathetic eyes He believed that she was suffering from some incurable disease of the spine, and that whatever remained to her of life must be spent in this prostrate manner of an invalid
A movement of what can only be i for her: it was less pity than the joy of believing that he could confer as well as receive But his first thought on leaving was only the fear that he ht have spoken too loud The visit was on Tuesday On Thursday, Browning wrote the only letter of the correspondence which has been destroyed, one which overfloith gratitude, and was i towards an offer, ie It was read in pain and agitation; her heart indeed, but not her will, was shaken; and, after a sleepless night, she wrote words effective to bar--as she believed--all further advance in a direction fatal to his happiness The inteotten between theain; friends, coht continue to be For once and once only Browning lied to Miss Barrett, and he lied a little aardly; his letter was only one of too boisterous gratitude; his punishment--that of one infinitely her inferior--was undeserved; let her return to hily it was, and immediately destroyed by the writer In happier days, Miss Barrett hoped to recover what then would have been added to a hoard which she treasured; but, Browning could not preserve the words which she had condeently and graciously, when a lover is commanded to withdraw and to reappear in the character of a friend An inco tide may seem for a while to pause; but by and by we look and the rock is covered Browning very dutifully submitted and became a literary counsellor and coress of his fortunes opened in January and closed before the end of May; the second closed at the end of August To a friend Miss Barrett, assured that he never could be enerous; visits were per to fix the days; the postal shuttle threift and swifter threads between New Cross, Hatcham, and 50 Wie Sand were discussed; her translations from the Greek were considered; his manuscript poems were left for her corrections; but transcription must not weary him into headaches; she would herself by and by act as an amanuensis Each of the correspondents could not rest happy until the other had been proved to be in every intellectual and 's praise could not be withheld; it seemed to his friend--and she wrote alith crystalline sincerity--to be an illusion which huland and the invalid life were exchanged; there is nothing that she can teach hirief And yet to hih the dark week He is like an Eastern Jeho creeps through alleys in the arb, destitute to all wayfarers'
eyes, who yet possesses a hidden palace-hall of old Even in matters ecclesiastical, the footsteps of the two friends had moved with one consent; each of them preferred a chapel to a church; each was Puritan in a love of siion; each disowned the Puritan narrowness, and the grey aridity of certain schools of dissent On June 14--with the warranty of her published poe encloses in his envelope a yellow rose; and again and again su colour and sweetness into the dim city room Once Miss Barrett can report that she has been out of doors, and with no fainting-fit, yet unable to venture in the carriage as far as the Park; still her bodily strength is no better than that of a tired bird; she is moreover, years older than her friend (the difference was in fact that between thirty-nine and thirty-three); and the thunder of a July storht of her seeking health as far off as Malta or even Alexandria; but her father will jestingly have it that there is nothing wrong with her except ”obstinacy and dry toast” Thus cordially, gladly, sadly, and alith quick leapings of the indomitable flame of the spirit, these letters of friend to friend run on during theand happy to wait; a confidence possessed hiht
On August 25th ca from Miss Barrett She took her friend so far into her confidence as to speak plainly of the household difficulties caused by her father's autocratic temper The conversation was immediately followed by a letter in which she endeavoured to soften or qualify the iiven, and her heart, now astir and craving sympathy, led her on to write of her most sorrowful and sacredwas deeply rateful for her trust in hirief He longed to return confidence with confidence, to tell as urgent in his heart But the bar of three months since had not been removed, and he hesitated to speak His two days' silence was unintelligible to his friend and caused her inexpressible anxiety Could any words of hers have displeased hiust 30th a little letter asking ”the alms of just one line” to relieve her fears When snoreaths are loosened, a breath will bring down the avalanche It was impossible to receive this appeal and not to declare briefly, decisively, his unqualified trust in her, his entire devotion, his assured knowledge of ould constitute his supreme happiness
Miss Barrett's reply is perfect in its disinterested safe-guarding of his freedorateful, but she cannot allow hiive that it would not be ungenerous to give? Yet his part has not been altogether the harder of the two The subject must be left Such subjects, however, could not be left until the facts were ascertained Browning would not urge her a step beyond her actual feelings, but he must knohether her refusal was based solely on her view of his supposed interests And with the true delicacy of frankness she admits that even the sense of her oorthiness is not the insuperable obstacle No--but is she not a confir when he cahts of her reat cal's heart; he did not desire to press her further; let things rest; it is for her to judge; if what she regards as an obstacle should be removed, she will certainly then act in his best interests; to himself this matter of health creates no difficulty; to sit by her for an hour a day, to write out as in him for the world, and so to save his soul, would be to attain his ideal in life What woman would not be moved to the inmost depths by such words? She insists that his noble extravagances must in no wise bind him; but all the bitternesses of life have been taken away fro except to do him harm; the future rests with God and with hirave sentences, so full of fate, first appears a reference to the pet name of her childhood--the ”Ba” which is all that here serves, like Swift's ”little language,” to indulge a foolish tenderness; and the translator of _Prohtful use in her ”[Greek: o philtate]”
In love-poetry of the Middle Age the allegorical personage naer” plays a considerable part, and it is to be feared that Danger too often signified a husband In Wie always rity in business, of fortitude in adversity, of a certain stern piety, and from the superior position of a doe himself in occasional fiats of affection We need not question that there were springs of water in the rock, and in earlier days they had flowed freely But now if at night he visited his ailing daughter's room for a few minutes and prayed with her and for her, it meant that on such an occasion she was not too criminal to merit the pious intercession If he called her ”puss,” it meant that she had not recently been an undutiful child of thirty-nine or forty years old A circus-trainer probably rewards his educated dogs and horses with like aarded by his troupe with affection led with awe Mr Barrett had been appointed circus-trainer by the divine authority of parentage No one visited 50 Wihters, without special permission from the lord of the castle; he authorised the visits of Mr Browning, the poet, being fondly assured that Mr Browning's intentions were not those of a burglar, or--worse--an ahter of his conceived the possibility of transferring her prime love and loyalty from himself to another, she was even as Aholah and Aholibah who doted upon the assyrians, captains, and rulers clothedmen ”If a prince of Eldorado”
said Elizabeth Barrett to her sister Arabel, ”should conory in the ood behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel in the other--” ”Why, even then,” interrupted Arabel, ”it would not _do_”