{"1": {"fulltext": "I~ i^\\n423\\n.Via", "height": "2620", "width": "1747", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.\\nGhapi_U Copyright m\\nsheit y\\\\J-$\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1747", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "I m\\nII\\n,1.1", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "!!$tmm$ter\\nfc\u00c2\u00bb-\\\\ I\\nBoston\\nSmall CUamwD nnti \u00c2\u00a3ompaiu|\\nVonoon\\nFicjaniJaulwEwh Crutracr auOd o\\nrat-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0009.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0010.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING\\nARTHUR WAUGH\\nBOSTON\\nSMALL, MAYNARD COMPANY\\nMDCCCC", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0011.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0012.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "PEEPACE.\\nThis brief Life of Browning is a minia-\\nture, not a panel portrait. Many of the\\nqualities which a larger canvas might secure\\nare, necessarily, lost to it; but, within the\\nlimits of a miniature, it seeks at least clear-\\nness and colour.\\nIt would be difficult to enumerate all the\\nhooks tJmt have been gratefully consulted by\\nthe writer, since he has tried to make him-\\nself acquainted with most of what has been\\nwritten of Robert Browning. The fore-\\nmost debt is, naturally, oived to Mrs. Suth-\\nerland Orr, the next to the u Letters of\\nRobert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett\\nBrowning. 11 The bibliography at the end\\nof the volume gives some idea of the chief\\namong other obligations.\\nApart from these, the writer has endeav-\\noured to give a picture, not only of the\\nman, but of his surroundings, and to indi-\\ncate concisely, but definitely, the relation in\\nwhich Browning stood to the literary move-\\nments of his time.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0013.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "viii PEEFACE\\nBut the primary object of the book is, of\\ncourse, to lead the reader to the Poems\\nthemselves. We use a rushlight in the\\nshadow; but, when once ice are in the\\nsun, tee can see the worWs beauty for\\nourselves.\\nA. W.\\nHampstead, Christmas, 1809.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0014.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY.\\n1812\\nMay 7. Robert Browning born.\\n1822-26 (about)\\nBrowning at Mr. Ready s School, Cam-\\nberwell.\\n1826\\nBrowning studying at home under a\\nprivate tutor.\\n1830\\nAttended Greek lectures at London Uni-\\nversity.\\n1838\\nPauline published. Browning travelled\\nin Russia.\\n1834\\nContributions to Monthly Repository, ed-\\nited by W. J. Fox.\\n1835\\nParacelsus published. The Brownings\\nmoved to Hatcham.\\nNovember 27. Browning met Macready.\\nDecember 31. Browning met Forster (at\\nMacready s).", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0015.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "x CHROXOLOGY\\n1836\\nMacready conimissionecl Strafford.\\n1837\\nMay 1. Strafford produced at Covent\\nGarden, and published.\\n1838\\nBrowning travelled on the Continent.\\n1840\\nSordello published.\\n1841\\nPlppa Passes published (Bells and\\nPomegranates, I.;.\\n1842\\nKing Victor and King Charles published\\n(Bells and Pomegranates, II. Dramatic\\nLyrics (Bells and Pomegranates, III.).\\n1843\\nThe Eeturn of the Druses (Bells and\\nPomegranates, IV.).\\nA Blot in the Scutcheon published\\n(Bells and Pomegranates, V.) and pro-\\nduced at Drury Lane.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0016.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "CHEONOLOGY xi\\n1844\\nBrowning travelled in Italy. Colombe s\\nBirthday published (Bells and Pomegran-\\nates, VI.)- Elizabeth Barrett s Poems\\npublished.\\n1845\\nDramatic Romances and Lyrics (Bells\\nand Pomegranates, VII.). Browning\\nmet Elizabeth Barrett.\\n1846\\nLuria and A SouVs Tragedy published\\n(Bells and Pomegranates, VIII.\\nSeptember 12. Browning and Elizabeth\\nBarrett married.\\n1847-49\\nThe Brownings in Florence and Italy.\\n1849\\nMarch 9. Browning s son born.\\n1850\\nChristmas Eve and Easter Day published.\\n1851\\nCasa Guidi Windows published.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0017.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "xii CHRONOLOGY\\n1852\\nBrowning s Introductory Preface to\\nShelley s Letters published.\\n1855\\nMen and Women published.\\n1856\\nAurora Leigh published.\\n1860\\nPoems before Congress published.\\n1861\\nJune 29. Elizabeth Barrett Browning\\ndied.\\nBrowning removed to London (Warwick\\nCrescent).\\n1864\\nDramatis Personal published.\\n1868\\nThe Ring and the Book published.\\n1871\\nBalaustiorfs Adventure published, also\\nPrince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0018.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "CHEO^OLOGY xiii\\n1872\\nFifine at the Fair published.\\n1873\\nBed Cotton Night- cap Country published.\\n1875\\nAristophanes 1 Apology and The Inn Album\\npublished.\\n1876\\nPacchiarotto and Other Poems published.\\n1877\\nTranslation of the Agamemnon of JEs-\\nchylus published.\\n1878\\nLa Saisiaz and The Two Poets of Croisic\\npublished.\\n1879\\nDramatic Idyls (first series) published.\\nBrowning received degree of LL.D. at\\nCambridge.\\n1880\\nDramatic Idyls (second series) published.\\n1882\\nBrowning received degree of D.C.L. at\\nOxford.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0019.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0020.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING.\\nI.\\nExcept a man have history at his\\nfinger-tips, a date, taken by itself, is\\napt to be cold and unsuggestive. One\\nreads and repeats glibly that Robert\\nBrowning was born upon the 7th ,of\\nMay, 1812 but nowadays, when tastes\\nand fashions pass so quickly, one needs\\nsomething more than a collocation of\\nfigures to carry the imagination back\\nover an interval of nearly ninety years.\\nStill, books are, fortunately, of longer\\nlife than fashions and, when we try to\\nrecall the literary atmosphere of the past,\\nthe horizon lightens at once. On the\\nMay morning when the little house in\\nCamberwell was happy for the birth of\\na first-born, the first part of Byron 7 s\\nChilde Harold, published three months\\nbefore, was still the talk of the town.\\nWhile the future author of Paracelsus", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0021.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "2 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nwas not yet a year old, Jane Austen s\\nPride and Prejudice made its first ap-\\npearance at the booksellers after nearly\\ntwenty years of wandering among neg-\\nlectful publishers Crabbe published\\nhis Tales in Verse; James and Horace\\nSmith, their Rejected Addresses; Heber s\\nPoems and Translations were first col-\\nlected into a volume and Samuel\\nEogers s Poems were lying hot from the\\npress on every drawing-room table. At\\nthat time Wordsworth, Coleridge, and\\nSir Walter Scott were all between forty\\nand fifty years old. Lamb was thirty-\\nseven. The Curse of Kehama was a com-\\nparatively new book, and the Quarterly\\nReview had issued but thirteen numbers.\\nAmong those whose names were to be\\ngreat in literature, Tennyson was not\\nthree years old, Thackeray but a few\\nmonths, Dickens even fewer, and Eliza-\\nbeth Barrett herself, if we take the\\nCoxhoe date as authoritative, had just\\npassed her sixth birthday. These, it is", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0022.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 3\\ntrue, are only a few among many of the\\nnames of the period but they give a\\ncertain atmosphere. They carry us back\\nto a different London, to what one may\\nalmost call a remote Camberwell, full\\nof gardens and glades, acacia-trees, and\\nthe song of birds.\\nIt was in Southampton Street, Cam-\\nberwell, that Robert Browning was born,\\nthe first child of his parents. His father,\\nafter whom the son was named, bore in\\nturn the same name as his father. The\\npoet s grandfather, as various testimo-\\nnies agree, was an able, vigorous man of\\nbusiness. At the time of the poet s\\nbirth he had risen to a position of au-\\nthority in the Bank of England, where\\nhe had worked assiduously for forty-\\nthree years. He was now over sixty,\\nhad married a second wife, who had\\ngiven him a large family, and who was\\na somewhat hard ruler at home. He\\nwas well-to-do, however, and, except for\\nthe gout, had few anxieties. The poet s", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0023.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "4 ROBERT BROWNING\\nfather had been less fortunate. The\\nstepmother had proved a burden. She\\nobjected to the son of the first wife en-\\njoying any privilege which was likely to\\nbe denied to her own children. She had\\nprevented him from going to the univer-\\nsity, and may have had something to\\ndo with the father s peremptory refusal,\\nwhen the boy begged to be trained as an\\nartist. At any rate, he, too, was sent\\ninto the bank, married a Miss Wiede-\\nmann in 1811, settled in Camberwell,\\nand a year later became the father of the\\nthird and great Robert Browning, the\\npoet.\\nThe traditions of a hard boyhood are\\napt to descend from father to son. We\\nare all inclined to mete out to others\\nthe measure which we have ourselves\\nreceived. But Robert Browning s father\\nwas of humaner spirit. A kinder or\\nmore thoughtful parent has rarely ex-\\nisted and it was by his genial influence,\\nas Mrs. Orr points out, that the child s", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0024.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BROWNING 5\\nearly inclination for poetry was fostered.\\nThe father had a great gift for verse-\\nniaking, and used to teach the boy hard\\nfacts, and even Latin declensions, by the\\nuse of a rhyming memoria technica. He\\nwas, moreover, an excellent reader, and\\nfond of reading aloud to his children.\\nA better training for certain elementary\\naspects of a poetical temperament it\\nwould be difficult to imagine.\\nIt is not uninteresting, when we re-\\nflect how closely Browning and Tenny-\\nson were to be allied in later life, and\\nhow pre-eminently the two names stand\\nout in the poetry of their generation, to\\ncontrast the early associations of the two\\nchildren. It is told of Tennyson, as\\nevery one now knows, that, when he was\\nyet in frocks, he ran down the shady\\ngarden path at Somersby, carried along\\nby the spring gale, and crying, I hear\\na voice that s speaking in the wind.\\nThis, it has often been remarked, was\\nhis first line of poetry. It is also re-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0025.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "6 EOBEET BBOWNING\\ncorded of Browning that, while he was\\nyet so short that his hands could only\\njust reach the edge of the table, he used\\nto march round it, shouting out metrical\\nlines, and emphasising the measure with\\nthe movement of his hands. The two\\nstories point the contrast in themselves.\\nAnd a little later, while Tennyson was\\nroaming at will about Holywell Glen,\\nreading his favourite classics in the open\\nair, the young Browning was trudging\\nto and from London University, along\\nnoisy, crowded streets, with Dulwich\\nWood on a holiday for his wildest coun-\\ntry. It is scarcely strange that talents\\nso differently fostered should have found\\ntheir first issues, the one in a love so\\npre-eminently akin to nature, the other\\nin a sympathy so peculiarly human.\\nThe first associations of Tennyson were\\nleaves and brooks but, from the begin-\\nning, Browning s life was centred among\\nmen and women.\\nIn one thing the boys fortunes were", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0026.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 7\\nallied each found in his mother a kind\\nand homely influence. Not much is\\nrecorded of Browning s mother, but all\\nthat is told of her speaks of true mater-\\nnity. She was musical and from her\\nthe poet derived that love of music,\\nwhich, though it is not always implicit\\nin his verse, was invariably an influence\\nin his life. Moreover, she was poign-\\nantly religious and, as a boy, Brown-\\ning took his spiritual inspiration entirely\\nfrom her. His home life was so happy\\nthat, when first he went to school as\\na weekly boarder, the separation was\\nalmost more than the child could bear.\\nThe school, which was in the neigh-\\nbourhood, was kept by the Rev. Thomas\\nReady, whose sisters superintended a\\npreparatory department, to which Robert\\nwas at first admitted. It does not ap-\\npear that his school- days were of more\\nthan ordinary effect in his education.\\nHe learnt there the usual accomplish-\\nments, but the books that he especially", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0027.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "8 KOBEET BROWNING\\nloved were the books which he found\\nat home. Of these Mrs. Orr gives a\\nvery interesting list. Among the fa-\\nvourites were Quarles s Emblems, of which\\nhis father possessed a seventeenth- cen-\\ntury edition, often pored over by the\\nboy, and even scrawled upon in crude,\\nwandering characters. He was particu-\\nlarly fond of history, and read the\\nLetters of Junius and the works of\\nVoltaire while yet a boy. For poetry\\nhe had Milton and Byron and, like the\\nyoung Tennyson, he fell immediately\\nunder the spell of the latter. His early\\nverses, like the Poems by Two Brothers,\\nwere full of Byronic imitation. Nor\\nwere these merely disconnected essays\\nin verse for, by the time he was twelve,\\nhe had actually produced a volume of\\npoems, for which there was some idea,\\nor even, as Mrs. Orr seems to imply,\\nsome direct attempt, to find a publisher.\\nThe scheme fell through, however and\\nthe young poet was left, as was best, to", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0028.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 9\\nwrite for the few private friends to\\nwhom he showed his manuscripts. No\\ndoubt it is always the case that certain\\npoetic impulses pass, like waves, across\\nthe country, overwhelming, as it were,\\nall the young minds that they encounter.\\nStill, it is unusually interesting to find\\nBrowning, like Tennyson, passing from\\nthe influence of Byron directly to that\\nof Shelley. Mr. William Sharp, in his\\nmonograph in the Great Writers series,\\nrelates that it was the sight of a volume\\non a bookstall, labelled Mr, Shelley s\\nAtheistical Poem: Very Scarce, that\\nfirst aroused Browning s curiosity con-\\ncerning a poet of whom he then knew\\nnothing. He at once begged his mother\\nto get him a complete set of Shelley s\\nworks, which, with some difficulty, she\\nsucceeded in doing. Their influence\\nupon him was instantaneous and for\\nthe next few years Shelley was the one\\npoet of his affections. Nor was Browning\\nthe man to drift from an allegiance once", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0029.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "10 KOBEET BKOWNING\\ngiven. For Shelley lie always retained\\nan undiminished admiration while of\\nByron he wrote in the year of his\\nmarriage\\nI always retained my first feeling for Byron\\nin many respects. I would at any time have\\ngone to Finchley to see a curl of his hair or one\\nof his gloves, I am sure; while Heaven knows\\nthat I could not get up enthusiasm enough to\\ncross the room, if at the other end of it all\\nWordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey were con-\\ndensed into the little china bottle yonder, after\\nthe Rosicrucian fashion\\nWhile he was undergoing these poetic\\ninfluences, Bobert Browning left Mr.\\nBeady s school, and settled down at\\nhome under a private tutor. His stud-\\nies were many-sided but poetry, as was\\ninevitable, absorbed his keenest ener-\\ngies. As time went on, it became more\\nand more evident that his ambitions\\nwere tending solely in the one direction.\\nVarious professions, among which diplo-\\nmacy was most attractive to him, were\\nsuggested, only to be dropped and,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0030.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BBOWNETO 11\\nshortly after lie liad begun to attend\\nlectures at University College, he was\\nencouraged to discuss with his father\\nthe idea of embracing literature as a\\ncareer. He seems to have entered upon\\nit with no extravagant expectations\\nof recompense, but at the same time\\nwithout any harassing apprehension.\\nYears afterward, in writing to Eliza-\\nbeth Barrett, he gave a very intimate\\nreflection of the prospects with which he\\nset out\\nMy whole scheme of life [he said] (with its\\nwants, material wants at least, closely cut\\ndown) was long ago calculated; and it sup-\\nposed you the finding such an one as you ut-\\nterly impossible, because, in calculating, one\\ngoes upon chances, not on providence. How\\ncould 1 expect you? So for my own future\\nway in the world I have always refused to\\ncare.\\nIt is probable, too, that the poet s\\nfather, having himself been thwarted in\\nthe course of life upon which he had set\\nhis heart, was not the man to place ob-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0031.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "12 ROBERT BROWNING\\nstacles in the way of his son s better\\nfortune. At any rate, before he was\\ntwenty, Robert Browning was devoted\\nto the literary life, and hard at work at\\nthe poem which he afterward described\\nas the little book I first printed as a\\nboy, the little book of which John\\nStuart Mill wrote, The writer pos-\\nsesses a deeper self-consciousness than I\\never knew in a sane human being.\\nMill was in part right and in part\\nwrong for the Browning of that first\\n11 little book was a Browning who had\\nbeen reading Shelley for months as a\\nprelude to original poetry, and much of\\nthe self- consciousness was, in a sense,\\nimitative or dramatic. But the book\\nitself was Pauline, and its publication\\nwas the first-fruits of a poetic genius\\nthat will live as long as the English\\nlanguage.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0032.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "II.\\nAlthough Browning did not lack\\nthat moderate measure of self-confidence\\nwhich is necessary to artistic activity, he\\nseems to have been somewhat diffident\\nwhen it came to the printing of his first\\nfinished volume. For, though he knew\\nthat his parents were full of sympathy\\nand interest, it was to his aunt that he\\nfirst confided his ambition and it was\\nshe good, kindly lady who promised\\nto provide the money required for pub-\\nlication. Saunders and Otley undertook\\nthe task of publishers and Browning s\\nbenefactress paid a bill for some forty\\npounds for the slim volume of seventy\\npages, of which few copies are now\\nknown to survive. Years afterward,\\nwhen Browning heard of the sale of a\\ncopy at one of those fancy prices dear to\\nthe bibliophile, he wished that his aunt\\nhad been living to see that a single copy", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0033.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "14 ROBERT BROWNING\\nof the once neglected little book was\\nnow worth a sum very little less than\\nthe whole edition had originally cost to\\nprint and bind. Habent sua fata libelli I\\nPauline was published in January, 1833,\\na month later than Tennyson s volume\\nof Poems which bears the same date.\\nThe year of its appearance was of more\\nthan common interest to English litera-\\nture. It saw the Last Essays of Elia col-\\nlected from the London Magazine, and\\nwith them the close of Lamb s gentle\\nand humane career. Within the same\\ntwelve months Fraser began to print\\nCarlyle s wonderful Sartor Resartus. In\\nSeptember Arthur Hallam died and\\nTennyson, overwhelmed by grief, en-\\ntered upon his ten years silence. More-\\nover, while Pauline was still fresh upon\\nOtley s shelves, Elizabeth Barrett pub-\\nlished her Translation of Prometheus\\nBound, so that the names of the three\\npoets who were to render Victorian\\npoetry illustrious come together in the", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0034.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 15\\nbibliography at the outset. Viewed in\\nthe perspective of nearly seventy years,\\n1833 seems a year of great events and\\ngreater promises.\\nAt the time, however, no citadel was\\ncarried by storm and Pauline made but\\na quiet appearance in the arena. The\\nmost conspicuous notice it received was,\\nindeed, the result of a friendship already\\nestablished. It will be remembered that,\\nat the age of twelve, Browning had com-\\npleted a manuscript of verse, which had\\nbeen handed about among the friends of\\nhis family. Among the most influen-\\ntial of these was W. J. Fox, the Unita-\\nrian minister, a man of quick literary\\nperception and a very genial capacity for\\npraising promise. He had spoken well\\nof the verses and Browning, having now\\nsomething more definite to show him,\\nhastened to submit a copy of Pauline to\\nhis criticism. The letter which accom-\\npanied the parcel is amusingly boyish,\\nboth in its rather stilted protestation of", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0035.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "16 ROBEET BROWNING\\nmodesty (from which a certain confi-\\ndence may yet be seen peeping), and in\\nits naive confession that the author sends\\nthe volume, having either heard or\\ndreamed that you contribute to the\\nWestminster. But Fox was man enough\\nto feel for the boy, and kindly critic\\nenough to write a very eulogistic notice\\nfor the Monthly Repository, of which he\\nwas editor. The poem, he said,\\nlaid hold of us with the power, the\\nsensation of which has never yet failed\\nus as a test of genius.\\nIn later years Browning expressed a\\nquite disproportionate distaste for this\\nfirst literary bantling of his. Every one\\nknows the preface of 1867, in which he\\ndeclares that he preserves the poem\\nunder protest and to forestall the print-\\ning of uncorrected transcripts, adding\\nthat good draughtsmanship and right\\nhandling were at that time far beyond\\nthe artist. Readers of his letters to\\nElizabeth Barrett will also remember", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0036.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWNISTG 17\\nwith how much hesitation and delay he\\nexcuses himself from sending her a copy\\nof the poem. Will you and must\\nyou have Pauline f If I could pray you\\nto revoke that decision. For it is alto-\\ngether foolish and not boy-like. It\\nis unluckily precocious, and so forth\\nwith much reiteration. Critics, however,\\nhave rightly agreed to see more in the\\ncrab of the shapely Tree of Life in his\\nFooV s Paradise than the poet could him-\\nself discern and Pauline remains inter-\\nesting and valuable for many reasons.\\nIt is no part of this little sketch to be\\nminutely analytic but it will be at once\\napparent to the careful student, as it was\\nto Fox, that Pauline could only be the\\nfirst step in a career of genius. It is by\\nno means typically Browningesque, for\\nthe tendency to splendour and colour,\\nwhich Fox noticed with apprehension,\\nwas to fade out with the fading influence\\nof Shelley but it was at once suggestive\\nof Browning s future strength, in being", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0037.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "18 KOBEBT BBOWKING\\none of those utterances of imaginary\\npersons, not mine/ which were to de-\\nvelop in time into the dramatic fulness\\nof The Ring and the Booh. Its principal\\ninterest, however, is not so much dra-\\nmatic as personal. When Mill remarked\\nupon the deep self- consciousness of the\\nwriter, he touched perhaps nearer to\\ntruth than he knew j for there are pas-\\nsages in it that are confessedly autobi-\\nographical, and that give us, more\\nclearly than all the analysis of all the\\nBrowning societies, a glimpse into the\\ncharacter of the Browning of the time.\\nI am made up of an intensest life,\\nOf a most clear idea of consciousness\\nOf self, distinct from all its qualities,\\nFrom all affections, passions, feelings, powers-\\nAnd thus far it exists, if tracked, in all:\\nBut linked, in me, to self-supremacy,\\nExisting as a centre to all things,\\nMost potent to create and rule and call\\nUpon all things to minister to it\\nAnd to a principle of restlessness\\nWhich would be all, have, see, know, taste,\\nfeel, all", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0038.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 19\\nThis is myself and I should thus have been\\nThough gifted lower than the meanest soul.\\nHe goes on to say that this grasp upon\\nthe sensuous faculties, this restlessness\\nfor knowledge, is transfigured in him by\\nimagination, which\\nHas been a very angel, coming not\\nIn fitf id visions, but beside me ever\\nAnd never failing me so, though my mind\\nForgets not, not a shred of life forgets,\\nYet I can take a secret pride in calling\\nThe dark past up to quell it regally.\\nAdded to these, and beckoning him, is\\nthe lode-star lighted in him by his\\nmother s love,\\nA need, a trust, a yearning after God\\nI saw God everywhere\\nAnd I can only lay it to the fruit\\nOf a sad after-time that I could doubt\\nEven his being\u00e2\u0080\u0094 e en the while I felt\\nHis presence, never acted from myself,\\nStill trusted in a hand to lead me through\\nAll danger and this feeling ever fought\\nAgainst my weakest reason and resolve.\\nInquiry into a man s religious belief is", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0039.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "20 EOBEET BKOWBTING\\napt to degenerate into an impertinence,\\nbut so much is here definitely said by\\nBrowning himself that it may not be out\\nof place to say a little more, towards the\\nbetter understanding of the man, no less\\nthan of the poet.\\nBaptized at an Independent Chapel,\\nand brought up among devout surround-\\nings, the boy Browning was pre-emi-\\nnently religious with the easy orthodoxy\\nof childhood. His mother s gift of Shel-\\nley s poetry seems to have had a some-\\nwhat disturbing influence. It was then\\nthat doubt was first presented to his\\nmind in a tangible form and a nat-\\nural reaction followed. It is to this\\nperiod that the passage in Pauline refers.\\nMrs. Orr tells us that, in the first years\\nof manhood, Browning showed a ten-\\ndency to become assertive and wayward.\\nIncreasing knowledge and the sense of\\ntalent in him grew restless under re-\\nstraint, and the things that had pleased\\nhim pleased him no more. The mood", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0040.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWNING 21\\npassed, passed more quickly in him\\nthan in most. It left him with a settled\\nconfidence in immortality and in the\\ncontinuity of spiritual activity, but the\\nfollower of no hard-and-fast sect or doc-\\ntrine. The truth/ 7 his wife wrote to\\nhim a few weeks before their mar-\\nriage,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nthe truth, as God sees it, must be something so\\ndifferent from these opinions about truth, these\\nsystems which fit different classes of men like\\ntheir coats, and wear brown at their elbows\\nalways I believe in what is divine, and\\nfloats at highest in all these different theologies.\\nI could pray anywhere,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 with all sorts of\\nworshippers, from the Sistine Chapel to Mr.\\nFox s, those kneeling and those standing.\\nTo which Browning replies\\nI know your very meaning in what you say of\\nreligion, and responded to it with my whole\\nsoul. What you express now is for us both.\\nThose are my feelings, my convictions beside,\\ninstinct confirmed by reason.\\nThis much by way of digression, that\\nwe may go forward with some sort of\\nidea of Browning s attitude to life at the", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0041.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "22 EOBEET BBOWNING\\nmoment of his first entry upon the liter-\\nary stage. No doubt the mere sense of\\nperformance, the daily interest of work\\nmaturing, of self realised, would do much\\nto dissipate the restlessness that so often\\naccompanies unwilling inaction. The\\nman with the sense in him of things to\\ndo, and the torment of the inability to\\ndo them, is never happy or at one with\\nhimself. From henceforth Browning\\nwas to be always active, always strenuous.\\nThere were other reviews of Pauline,\\nbut of no great importance. The book,\\nnaturally enough, did not sell. At a\\ntime when Tennyson, though popular\\nat Cambridge, as Moxon with uncon-\\nscious humour remarked, had still a\\npublic of no more than three hundred\\npurchasers, it was hardly likely that\\nBrowning, with no university friends to\\nhelp him, would be popular in the com-\\nmon sense. In the year of his marriage\\nhe had still a whole i l bale of sheets of\\nPauline, stowed away at the top of the", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0042.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 23\\nhouse. But the publication of the book\\nattracted attention to its author in a\\nsmaller circle, and may have been in-\\ndirectly responsible for an invitation\\nfrom Mr. Benckhausen, the Eussian\\nconsul-general, in consequence of which\\nBrowning, in the winter after that of\\nPauline, spent three months of activity\\nin St. Petersburg. His letters describing\\nhis visit were unfortunately lost but the\\ncareful student of verse will not need to\\nbe reminded that what he saw in Eussia\\nhas, in more than one of his poems,\\ntouched his descriptions with actuality.\\nHe returned to London, and settled\\ndown again to poetry. Some isolated\\nlyrics (one of them now enshrined in\\nPi/ppa Passes) were printed in Mr. Fox s\\nRepository but the greater part of his\\ntime was given to the preparation of a\\nhighly ambitious poem, the subject of\\nwhich had been suggested to him by his\\nfriend, the Count Amedee de Eipert-\\nMonclar. This young Frenchman was,", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0043.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "24 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nMrs. Orr tells us, staying in England as\\na private agent of communication be-\\ntween the royal exiles and their friends\\nin France and he and Browning, hav-\\ning many tastes in common, became firm\\nfriends. He was an artist, too, and\\npainted an excellent portrait of the poet.\\nThe idea for Paracelsus was given to\\nBrowning in the early autumn after his\\nreturn from Eussia and he must have\\nworked hard, for by the middle of April\\nthe manuscript was complete, and offered\\nto a publisher. Mr. Moxon declined to\\nbring it out, although Browning s father\\nwas ready to pay the cost of publication\\nand, after failing to come to terms with\\nthe publishers of Pauline, the poet at\\nlast intrusted the manuscript to Mr.\\nEffingham Wilson, who had a consider-\\nable following of poets. Fox was a\\nfriend of Wilson s, and, having been in\\nthe poet s confidence throughout his\\nbusiness transactions, seems to have\\nhelped in persuading the publisher to", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0044.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BROWNING 25\\nundertake Paracelsus. Indeed, it should\\nnever be forgotten that Browning owed\\nalmost all his early encouragement to\\nFox s warm yet judicious friendship.\\nThe letters which passed between them\\nat this anxious period of the poet s career\\nshow that Fox was the first to whom\\nBrowning turned instinctively for criti-\\ncism and advice.\\nWith the publication of Paracelsus,\\nhowever, the field of his acquaintance\\nwas to be enlarged. At first the book\\nfell flat. Talfourd s Ion was among the\\nnew books of the season and Browning\\ncould not help feeling somewhat ag-\\ngrieved, not only by the fact that Tal-\\nfourd enjoyed columns of praise to his\\nown lines of condemnation, but, as he\\nafterwards put it, with a touch of hu-\\nmour, that\\nin the same column often would follow a most\\nlaudatory notice of an Elementary French\\nbook, on a new plan, which I did for my old\\nFrench master, and he published. That was\\nreally an useful work.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0045.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "26 EOBEKT BKOWKING\\nThe Athenaeum gave to Paracelsus but\\nthree lines, not without talent, but\\nspoiled by obscurity and only an imita-\\ntion of Shelley and the flock of little\\npapers followed the lead, until Brown-\\ning and his publisher scarcely knew\\nwhether to laugh or weep at the una-\\nnimity of the verdicts pasted in Wilson s\\nbook of Press Notices. Fox, it is true,\\nwas once more friendly. But his notice\\nin the Monthly Repository was one upon\\nwhich the poet, knowing his view be-\\nforehand, could always depend j and the\\ncombined condemnation of all the un-\\nknown critics was beginning to discour-\\nage him. Then one morning there ap-\\npeared in the Examiner a discriminating,\\njudicial review of Paracelsus, mingling\\npraise and blame, but treating the work\\nfrom the highest standpoint, and pro-\\nnouncing it, after all that criticism\\ncould say, to be a work of brilliant\\npromise and real power. This review,\\nso clearly unbiassed and unprompted, at", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0046.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BKOWXIXG 27\\nonce introduced the book to the wider\\npublic, so far as the public that cares\\nfor pure literature can ever be described\\nas wide j and a copy of Paracelsus found\\nits way to the shaded room of a delicate\\nyoung lady, who read eagerly every\\nnew volume of reputable poetry and had\\nherself already given promise of uncom-\\nmon performance. She read it, and felt\\nat once that it was the expression of a\\nnew mind and she differed from the\\ncommon herd of literary amateurs in\\nthat she did not share their galling\\npreference for Ion. The lady was Eliza-\\nbeth Barrett and the critic who first\\ngave Browning conspicuous praise in a\\nliterary journal of the first grade was\\nJolin Forster, then as utterly unknown\\nto him as his own future wife, but hence-\\nforth to be one of his most trusted and\\nvalued friends.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0047.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "in.\\nIt was, however, before he met For-\\nster that Browning made an acquaint-\\nance which was to exercise a predomi-\\nnant influence over the next few years\\nof his life. On the 27th of November,\\n1835, Macready was dining in Bays-\\nwater with Browning s literary father, 7\\nW. J. Fox and the poet was asked to\\nu drop in after dinner. It was, in\\nmany senses, a psychological moment\\nfor such a meeting. Macready was in\\na very unsettled and dissatisfied state of\\nmind. During the spring of that year\\nhe had taken an expensive travelling\\ncompany, of whom he expected much,\\ninto the West of England, and had\\nplayed to very poor houses with a de-\\npressing effect upon his exchequer. On\\nhis return to London, he had joined\\nAlfred Bunn s company at Drury Lane\\nfor the winter season, and had played", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0048.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 29\\nduring October several of his favourite\\nparts, including Macbeth, Othello,\\nHamlet, and Hotspur, but again without\\ninfluencing the returns of the box office\\nso largely as Bunn had hoped. A\\ndrama by Planche was tried as an\\nexperiment and Macready, who had\\nretained a veto upon the parts he was to\\nplay, declined to appear in it. By the\\nlaw of contraries the new piece proved a\\nprodigious success, and Macready found\\nhimself shelved. He was, of course, paid\\nhis salary but he was out of the bill,\\nand there is no doubt that the situation\\nannoyed him. It was just the time\\nwhen he would be looking out for a man\\nof talent to write him a play worthy of\\nhis powers and he and Browning could\\nscarcely have met under more favour-\\nable circumstances. It is at least\\ncertain that the meeting was cordial.\\nBrowning was just beginning to feel his\\nfeet, and his general address was ex-\\ntremely prepossessing. Enough of the", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0049.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "30 ROBERT BROWNING\\nboyish confidence remained to give him\\nease and spirit in conversation, while at\\nthe same time he had matured in man-\\nner and bearing. His appearance,\\nmoreover, was highly in his favour.\\nHe dressed well, was dark, slender,\\nand handsome and Macready noted in\\nhis diary that his face was full of in-\\ntelligence. They parted with mutual\\npromises for an early meeting j and\\nBrowning at once sent his new friend a\\ncopy of Paracelsus. Within a very few\\ndays Macready found time to read it,\\nand his admiration for the writer was\\nincreased.\\nA work of great daring, starred with poetry\\nof thought, feeling, and diction, but occasionally\\nobscure. The writer can scarcely fail to be a\\nleading spirit of his time.\\nSuch was the criticism confided to the\\nactor s diary. A few weeks later\\nBrowning was invited to see the old\\nyear out at Macready s place at Elstree.\\nWhen the North London Coach was", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0050.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 31\\nmaking ready at the Blue Posts on\\nthat New Year s Eve, two young men\\namong the waiting passengers passed and\\nrepassed each other on the pavement,\\nstamping out the cold in exercise. Each\\nsuspected that the other might be going\\nto the Elstree party but, with charac-\\nteristic British reticence, neither spoke\\nuntil the two were introduced in the\\nlighted drawing-room. Then they found\\nthat they were already known and\\ngrateful to one another j for one was\\nBrowning, and the other Forster. They\\nwere exactly of an age and, by way of\\ncementing the introduction, Forster\\nremarked, Did you see a little notice\\nof you I wrote in the Examiner He\\ncould scarcely have brought a better\\nclaim to the poet s gratitude, for the\\nExaminer review had been the most\\nhelpful that Browning had yet received.\\nLittle wonder that the poet felt among\\nfriends, and that he won opinions\\nfrom all present by his bright and en-\\nthusiastic talk of men and books.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0051.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "32 EOBEET BROWNING\\nThis evening must have been set in\\ngolden letters in Browning s calendar,\\nbut it by no means stood alone. For,\\nalthough Paracelsus was not a pub-\\nlishers success, it served to make his\\nname known in the inner circles of men\\nof letters. About this time the Brown-\\ning family moved to Hatcham, where\\nother relatives joined them and in one\\nhouse and another Browning s name\\nbegan to be familiar. He met Richard\\nHengist Home, Leigh Hunt, Bryan Wal-\\nler Procter, Monckton Milnes, Talfourd,\\nand many others, and upon one of his\\nvisits to Elstree was introduced to\\nEuphrasia Fanny Haworth, the Eye-\\nbright of Sordello, who became one of^\\nhis dearest friends, and to whom he\\nused to turn for criticism and advice in\\nthe portrayal of his female characters.\\nWhether Macready at once suggested\\nto Browning that he should write him\\na play is not clear, but it is fairly certain\\nthat the idea had formed itself vaguely", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0052.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 33\\nin the poet s Hiind long before any actual\\narrangement was made. Within a few\\nweeks of the evening at Elstree, Brown-\\ning and Forster called on the great actor,\\nand the conversation turned upon the\\nstage. Planche s Jewess had had its\\nrun and Macready was on the boards\\nagain, starting in February with Othello.\\nBrowning had been to Drury Lane to\\nsee him, and was so much impressed\\nthat he could not rest until he had told\\nhis friend of his admiration. Then, in\\nthe course of talk, he mentioned a\\ndrama which he himself had in mind,\\na tragedy, Warses, which in the whirligig\\nof fortune came to nothing. But Mac-\\nready was pleased with the idea, and it\\nworked in his mind to some purpose.\\nMeanwhile things came to a head at\\nDrury Lane. Enraged by what he con-\\nsidered Buna s slighting treatment of\\nhim, Macready on a night in April\\nwhen he had been obliged to play three\\nacts of Bichard III. as the first part of", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0053.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "34 EOBEET BKOWNING\\na sort of variety programme dashed\\nfrom the stage in an itching fury, and,\\nseeing Bunn s office door open, inconti-\\nnently thrashed him on the spot. It was\\na squalid fight, unfortunately, and ended\\nin the law courts but it had the effect\\nof transferring Macready to Covent\\nGarden and Osbaldiston s management,\\nwhere for the first time he was associated\\nwith Miss Helen Faucit, the partner of\\nhis greatest successes, and the leading\\nlady in the dramas which Browning was\\nto write for him. It was there that on\\nthe 26th of May, 1836, the author s birth-\\nday, Talfourd s Ion was produced with\\ncomplete success j and that evening was\\nto seal the connection between Macready\\nand Browning. There was a party after-\\nwards at Talfourd s, a memorable gath-\\nering. Macready sat between Words-\\nworth and Landor, with Browning op-\\nposite. Miss Ellen Tree, who had that\\nevening played Clemanthe with appro-\\nbation, was of the company, besides", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0054.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 35\\nForster, Clarkson Stanfield, and Miss\\nMitford. Macready was (in his own\\nwords) tranquilly happy. The host\\nproposed the toast of the English poets,\\nand to the surprise of the company,\\nwhose eyes naturally turned to Words-\\nworth, called for a response from Mr.\\nRobert Browning, the youngest of our\\npoets. It must have been a nervous\\nmoment but Browning came through it\\nadmirably, with grace and modesty.\\nAs they were descending the stairs,\\nMacready detained Browning for a mo-\\nment. Write me a play, he said,\\nand keep me from going to America.\\nThe poet was ready with a suggestion.\\nWhat do you say to Strafford f he\\nreplied. And so began a co-operation,\\nchequered, indeed, and not without its\\nmisfortunes, but of the first importance\\nto the development of Browning s genius.\\nWhen one remembers the feeling of not\\nunworthy irritation with which he had\\nwatched the critics praise of Ion a few", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0055.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "36 BOBEET BBOWKING\\nmonths before, it is not uninteresting to\\nreflect that it was upon the occasion of\\nits theatrical birthday that Browning\\nhimself received this first great compli-\\nment, which was to be so fruitful of con-\\nsequences in his own career.\\nHe began work upon the drama almost\\nat once, setting aside Sordello upon\\nwhich he was some way advanced. The\\nhistory of the play was already familiar\\nto him, as he had been helping Forster\\nin a biographical sketch of Wentworth\\nfor Lardner s Cabinet Cyclopaedia. By\\nthe following March the drama was fin-\\nished, and Macready was delighted with\\nit. He put it in rehearsal for his benefit\\nupon May Day, and everything seemed\\nto be progressing fortunately. Unluckily,\\nOsbaldiston s stock company was a very\\npoor one. Apart from the stars, Mac-\\nready and Miss Helen Faucit, it was\\ncomposed of hack actors, ignorant be-\\nyond belief, several of whom seemed to\\nbe incapable of getting Browning s mean-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0056.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 37\\ning drummed into them. As the even-\\ning of performance drew near, Macready\\nbegan to lose confidence and, indeed,\\nthe performance was certainly bad\\nenough to destroy its chances. Brown-\\ning himself was fairly satisfied with Mr.\\nYandenhof s Pym j but the Examiner\\nthought him i positively nauseous, whin-\\ning, drawling, and slouching. Young\\nVane was a u whimpering school-boy j\\nand, as for the king, his performance\\nwas merely execrable. Despite every\\ndrawback, however, the play was a com-\\nplete success. It was withdrawn on the\\nfifth night, owing to Mr. Yandenhof\\nleaving the company j but, so long as it\\nwas played, it met with general appro-\\nbation. Macready and Helen Faucit\\nacted splendidly, and their spirit seems\\nto have carried the piece against the re-\\ntarding dulness of the rank and file.\\nBrowning had no cause to be dissatisfied\\nwith his first acquaintance with the\\nstage.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0057.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "38 KOBERT BROWOTNG\\nStrafford was published as a book by\\nLongmans simultaneously with its per-\\nformance and it is pleasant to find that\\nthe first copy upon which Browning\\ncould lay hands was sent, on the very\\nday of performance, to his old friend,\\nFox. Encouraged, no doubt, by the\\nfact that the play was to be performed\\nso conspicuously, the publishers took it\\nup at their own expense but the enter-\\nprise was unremunerative. Meanwhile\\nBrowning resumed his interrupted task\\nof Bordello. He worked at it through\\nthe winter and into the spring; and then,\\nfeeling the need of the southern at-\\nmosphere to give colour to the poem, he\\ndetermined to carry it off, and finish it\\nin Italy. So with the sunshine he sailed\\nfor Trieste, the only passenger on a mer-\\nchant vessel. On the way out they had\\na strange adventure, sighting a wreck\\nwhich proved to be a smuggler, with a\\ncrew of dead bodies, drowned beside\\ntheir booty. The ship had been floating", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0058.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 39\\nkeel upwards for a month under a blaz-\\ning sun. Besides this grisly encounter\\nand a heavy storm in the Bay, little hap-\\npened on the outward journey but,\\nbefore they reached Trieste, Browning\\nhad written How they brought the\\nGood News and Home Thoughts from\\nthe Sea, with its picture of the Gibral-\\ntar which he was carried upon the deck\\nto look at.\\nBluish mid the burning water, full in face Tra-\\nfalgar lay;\\nIn the dimmest North-east distance dawned\\nGibraltar grand and grey.\\nFrom Trieste he went to Venice, then\\nto Asolo, back to Venice, and thence by\\nVerona and the Tyrol to Frankfort and\\nMayence, and home by the Rhine and\\nAntwerp. With so many places to see\\nit is not surprising that he should have\\ndone very little towards finishing Soi~-\\ndetto. It was indeed practically un-\\ntouched when he returned to London,\\nand was not ready for a publisher till", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0059.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "40 EOBEET BROWNING\\nmore than a year later. This time the\\ntrade would not support him sufficiently\\nto take risk, and the book was again\\npublished at his kindly father s charges.\\nIt is not unlikely that the broken\\nfashion in which Sordello was worked\\nupon was to a great degree responsible\\nfor the inherent difficulties of the poem.\\nIt is obvious that work sustained at full\\ncourse must naturally have more unity\\nthan work taken up at intervals, and\\nthat a joined thread has less strength\\nthan a virgin one. Certainly, one of the\\nacutest criticisms of Sordello is Mrs.\\nBrowning s own\\nIt is like a noble picture with its face to the\\nwall or at least in shadow. It wants drawing\\ntogether and fortifying in the connections and\\nassociations, which hang as loosely every here\\nand there as those in a dream, and confound\\nthe reader who persists in thinking himself\\nawake.\\nThis loose hanging of associations is pre-\\ncisely what we should expect in work\\nthat was frequently interrupted, and it", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0060.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 41\\nis not without interest that Browning\\nshould have often had it in his mind to\\nreconstruct portions of the poem and\\nreconnect its interests. Still, from the\\npoint of view of the student of poetic\\ndevelopment, it is more satisfactory to\\nhave the poem as it stood at first. It\\nmarks, indeed, the final step in the first\\nstage of Browning s intellectual growth.\\nLike Pauline and Paracelsus, it is the\\nstudy of an aspiring soul and it has in\\ncommon with both the fact that it is\\nclearly not without autobiographical\\ntouches.\\nBrowning himself, as every dramatic\\npoet both before and after him has found\\ncause to do, expressly deprecated the\\nreading of personal sentiment into what\\nwas essentially impersonal analysis. But\\nthe character of Aprile in Paracelsus is\\nclearly a reflection of his own aspira-\\ntions and, indeed, he is understood to\\nhave accepted the implication.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0061.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "42 ROBERT BROWNING\\nI would speak [says Aprile] no thought which\\never stirred\\nA human breast should be untold all passions,\\nAll soft emotions, from the turbulent stir\\nWithin a heart fed with desires like mine,\\nTo the last comfort shutting the tired lids\\nOf him who sleeps the sultry noon away\\nBeneath the tent-tree by the wayside well\\nAnd this in language as the need should be,\\nNow poured at once forth in a burning flow,\\nNow piled up in a grand array of words.\\nThis done, to perfect and consummate all,\\nEven as a luminous haze links star to star,\\nI would supply all chasms with music, breathing\\nMysterious motions of the soul, no way\\nTo be defined save in strange melodies.\\nThis is clearly, as so mucli else in the\\npoem, a forecast of the line upon which\\nBrowning was steering his course. And\\nin SordeUo we already get the dawning\\nof a sense of the necessity of selection.\\nAt first the poet was for portraying\\nevery emotion but, after a first survey,\\nhe begins to understand the helplessness\\nand, indeed, the unprofitableness of so\\ncomprehensive a scheme.\\nA crowd,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 he meant\\nTo take the whole of it each part s intent", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0062.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BKOWNING 43\\nCoucerned him therefore; and, the more he\\npried,\\nThe less became Sordello satisfied.\\nMade these the mankind he once raved about\\nBecause a few of them were notable,\\nShould all be figured worthy note\\nThere are many such passages, familiar\\nto the student, which are of the highest\\ninterest, but for which space is unfortu-\\nnately lacking to an analysis here. They\\nshow, not only with how keen and sin-\\ncere an aspiration Browning adopted\\nthe literary life, but also how intimately\\nhe associated himself with these earlier\\ncreatures of his fancy. The poetic soul\\nwas naturally the first to attract a poet s\\nanalysis and Sordello is, in a certain\\nsense, an enlargement upon the charac-\\nter of Aprile in Paracelsus. But in Sor-\\ndello the poet has become more dramatic\\nand less personal. With maturity he is\\nacquiring more and more the power of\\nassuming a cast of thought alien to his\\nown. The idea of intellectual and spir-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0063.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "44 ROBERT BROWNING\\nitual growth is almost always present in\\nBrowning s dramatic poems but with\\nSo?~dellOj as more than one critic has\\nnoticed, we emerge from the self-con-\\nscious stage of Browning s imagination,\\nand his attitude to life becomes alto-\\ngether more altruistic. No doubt, the\\npractice in formal drama had helped to\\nthis and so the intervention of Strafford\\nbetween portions of SordeUo had more\\nthan an external effect upon Browning s\\nwork. In writing directly for the stage,\\nhe had perforce to assume a deliberately\\ndramatic spirit. Introspection was prac-\\ntically debarred, and the necessity for\\naction and movement became para-\\nmount. The result is immediately ap-\\nparent in Pippa Passes, the next piece\\nof work to engage the poet s attention.\\nHere the dramatic touch is at once\\nstronger, keener, more vital, than in any\\nof the earlier poems. Here the subtle\\nsense of motive and effect begins to move\\nlike a spirit on the face of the waters.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0064.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "KOBERT BEOWXING 45\\nHere, in a word, Browning begins to\\nrealise his power. It was, in truth, a\\ncrucial moment in the poet s career\\nwhen he first encountered the actor s\\ninfluence.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0065.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "IV.\\nSordetto was the last poem for\\nwhose publication Browning was in-\\ndebted to his father s unfailing gener-\\nosity. No doubt, the poet, since he was\\nalways sensitive about such things, was\\nanxious to shift for himself. At any rate,\\nwhen he came to turn over a number of\\npoems which lay in his desk, he deter-\\nmined to do the best he could for them\\non his own behalf. The sequel has been\\ntold, with characteristic picturesqueness,\\nby Mr. Edmund Gosse. Browning went\\nto discuss the matter with Moxon and\\nthe publisher told him he was bringing\\nout an edition of some of the Elizabethan\\ndramatists in a cheap form, and that, if\\nBrowning cared to print his poems as\\npamphlets, using the type Moxon was\\nemploying, the cost would be inconsid-\\nerable. The poet was pleased with the\\nidea and it was agreed that each poem", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0066.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 47\\nor issue should consist of a sheet of six-\\nteen pages, in double column, the entire\\ncost of which should not be more than\\nfifteen pounds. Such was the beginning\\nof Bells and Pomegranates, which ap-\\npeared in eight numbers, between 1841\\nand 1846. The first was Pippa Passes;\\nthe second (1842), King Victor and\\nKing Charles; the third, in the same\\nvear, Dramatic Lyrics; the fourth, The\\nReturn of the Druses (1843); the fifth,\\nA Blot in the Scutcheon (1843); the\\nsixth, Colombe s Birthday (1844); the\\nseventh, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics\\n(1845); the last, Luria and A Soid s\\nTragedy r published in the year of Brown-\\ning s marriage, 1846. Pippa Passes was\\noriginally priced at sixpence but, as the\\nsale was small, it was increased to a\\nshilling, and eventually rested at half\\na crown, which was the price of each\\nsubsequent number. In this fashion, so\\nhumble outwardly, a perfect treasury\\nof fine poetry, as Mr. Gosse well calls", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0067.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "48 ROBERT BROWNING\\nit, was presented to the public. The\\ntitle was explained by Browning him-\\nself:\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nThe Rabbis make Bells and Pomegranates\\nsymbolical of Pleasure and Profit, the Gay and\\nthe Grave, the Poetry and the Prose, Singing\\nand Sermonising.\\nHe chose the symbolical phrase as\\nbeing less pretentious than any formal\\nexplanation but in the last number, in\\ndeference to the suggestion of his wife,\\nhe printed an explanatory note. The\\noriginal edition of Pippa Passes had\\nalso a preface, which serves to empha-\\nsise the hint made in the last chapter,\\nthat the dramatic intensity of this new\\nburst of poetry was largely due to his\\nexperience in writing for the stage\\nTwo or three years ago [it ran] I wrote a\\nplay, about which the chief matter I much care\\nto recollect at present is that a Pit-full of\\ngood-natured people applauded it. Ever since, I\\nhave been desirous of doing something in the\\nsame way that should better reward their at-\\ntention. What follows I mean for the first of a", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0068.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 49\\nseries of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at in-\\ntervals; and 1 amuse myself by fancying that\\nthe cheap mode in which they appear will for\\nonce help me to a sort of Pit-audience again.\\nThis promise is definite enough, and\\nthe result is even more so. With this in-\\ncomparable series Browning established\\nhimself in his mature manner, in the\\ndramatic portrayal of so many imag-\\n^ary characters not his own, which\\nhas rendered him by far the subtlest\\nartist in motive that has ever written in\\nEnglish, save only Shakespeare.\\nIn the meanwhile Macready had not\\nforgotten him, and was anxious for\\nanother play. The great actor had\\nbeen experiencing various vicissitudes.\\nWeary of the cramping restraint of\\nBunns and Osbaldistons, he had gone\\ninto management on his own account,\\nand had been moving from the Hay-\\nmarket to Covent Garden, and thence to\\nDrury Lane, with varying degrees of\\nsuccess. In the spring of 1842 he was at", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0069.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "50 EOBEET BBOWOTNG\\nthe Haymarket and while there he ac-\\ncepted for production during his next\\nseason A Blot in the Scutcheon, which\\nBrowning had just written, designedly for\\nhim. In the autumn Macready moved\\nto Drury Lane, and, in order to make an\\nunusual display for the winter season,\\nengaged Mrs. Nisbett, the popular comic\\nactress, together with Charles Mathews\\nand Madame Yestris. Unfortunately, the\\ncombination failed and, by the time that\\nMacready was ready to bring out Brown-\\ning s play, the season had involved him\\nin serious pecuniary embarrassments.\\nHad he told Browning the facts frankly,\\na great deal of trouble would have been\\nsaved. But Macready was always ab-\\nnormally sensitive and, instead of a\\nstraightforward statement, he wrote to\\nBrowning that, of the two plays which\\nwere by arrangement to precede his, The\\nPatrician s Daughter had been unsuc-\\ncessful, and Plighted Troth had smashed\\nhis arrangements altogether, but that", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0070.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BKOWNING 51\\nhe was still prepared to produce Brown-\\ning s Blot in the Scutcheon in accordance\\nwith his agreement. Undoubtedly, Mac-\\nready hoped that Browning would ap-\\npreciate a hint, and withdraw but\\nthe poet, in his own words, had no\\nnotion that it was a proper thing, in\\nsuch a case, to release him from his\\npromise, and the actor found himself\\nobliged in courtesy to go forward. He\\nthen appears to have lost his temper and\\njudgment altogether. He caused the\\npiece to be read to the company by the\\nprompter, Mr. Willmott, an elderly gen-\\ntleman of somewhat comic appearance,\\nwho so mangled the lines that some of\\nthe actors laughed. Macready then sent\\nfor Browning, and told him that his piece\\nhad been ridiculed by the company en-\\ngaged to play it, and yet, when Brown-\\ning expostulated, confessed the circum-\\nstances of the reading, and promised to\\nread it to the actors next day himself.\\nHowever, having so far made amends,", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0071.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "52 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nhe attempted yet another device to get\\nBrowning to withdraw the play. He\\ndeclared that, under the pressure of\\nmanagement, he was unable to play\\nTresham himself, and that Phelps must\\nact instead. Again Browning failed to\\ntake the hint. Phelps was ill, and\\ncould only sit in a chair at rehearsal,\\nwhile Macready read the part. Appar-\\nently, the manager liked the play better\\nafter this trial for Phelps, stopping\\nBrowning at the stage door, assured him\\nin a broken voice that Macready meant\\nto play the part after all, that of course\\nhe himself could not ask Browning to\\ngive up such an advantage, but that he\\nwas prepared to study the part all night,\\nif the poet cared to have him play it.\\nThereupon Browning returned to Mac-\\nready s room, and cried abruptly, I\\nbeg your pardon, sir but you have given\\nthe part to Mr. Phelps, and I am satis-\\nfied that he shall act it. This was two\\ndays before the performance (February", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0072.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 53\\n11, 1843) and Phelps had but one clear\\nday to rehearse. The result of all this\\nunfortunate vacillation was that Mac-\\nready let the representation drift in its\\nown way. No new scenery was painted,\\nno new dresses bought the piece was lit-\\nerally thrown upon the stage. Yet once\\nagain, in spite of every hindering ele-\\nment, Browning s dramatic reputation\\nwas avenged by the issue. Phelps, ill\\nas he was, proved better than his word,\\nand played the part of Tresham very\\nfinely. And of Helen Faucit s Mil-\\ndred Browning himself wrote with the\\nutmost enthusiasm, sending her at the\\nsame time a copy of verses for her al-\\nbum, of which the following lines are a\\nstriking memento of an unfortunate\\noccasion\\nHelen Faucit, you have twice\\nProved my Bird of Paradise.\\nHe who would my wits inveigle\\nInto boasting him my eagle,\\nTurns out very like a Raven:\\nFly off, Blacky, to your haven.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0073.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "54 ROBERT BROWNING\\nBut you, softest Dove, must never\\nLeave me, as he does for ever.\\nI will strain my eyes to blindness\\nEre lose sight of you and kindness.\\nThere is no doubt, too, that her tact\\nand woman s wit had much to do with\\nsmoothing matters over in the almost\\ndisorganised company. She was a true\\nfriend to Browning in this trying crisis,\\nand he in his turn was extremely con-\\nsiderate and amiable with the actors.\\nIn the result the piece, difficult and es-\\ntranging as some of its taste undoubtedly\\nis, went well with the audience, and\\nwas enthuiastically received. It was\\nonly played three times, but its prema-\\nture removal was not improbably due to\\nMacready s disaffection. It was nearly\\ntwenty years before he and Browning\\nspoke together again.\\nThe story of this incident, pitiable as\\nit is in many of its aspects, has been told\\nat some length (with the aid of Mrs.\\nOrr and Mr. William Archer), because", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0074.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 55\\nthere is no doubt that it had a consider-\\nable influence upon Browning himself.\\nFirst and last, it separated him alto-\\ngether from the theatre. Colombo s\\nBirthday, it is true, was performed ten\\nyears later at the Hay market and dur-\\ning the last years of his life Browning\\nsaw both Strafford and the ill-fated Blot in\\nthe y Scutcheon not unworthily performed\\nby amateurs. But after his misunder-\\nstanding with Macready he ceased to\\nwrite directly for the stage. It is an\\nambition that every poet feels at some\\nperiod of his career. Nowadays, when\\nthe pecuniary rewards of a dramatic\\nsuccess are so considerable, the glitter of\\nthe footlights is more than ever tempt-\\ning. With Browning the claim asserted\\nitself early, and passed early away. How\\nfar he would ever have succeeded as a\\npopular stage poet is problematic. In that\\nglaring light, fustian shows better than\\ngossamer 5 and the stage has commonly\\npreferred its Sheridan Knowleses to its", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0075.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "56 ROBERT BEOWNIXG\\nBrownings. At any rate, Browning for\\nhis part had no further traffic with the\\nboards. His experience there served\\nhim in excellent stead, not only in the\\nfield of ethics, but of art yet he never\\ndesired ardently to return to it. The\\nstage had cost him one of his dearest\\nfriends, and he was happy to have done\\nwith it.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0076.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "The stage production of A Blot in the\\ny Scutcheo7i, whatever its indirect influ-\\nence, was merely an episode. The real\\nheart of Browning s activity during the\\nfirst six years of the forties is centred, of\\ncourse, in Bells and Pomegranates. And,\\nsince these little yellow pamphlets con-\\ntained much that will always rank with\\nthe best of his poetry, it is not without\\ninterest to notice how ripe was the time\\nfor a poetic debut. Iu the history of\\nVictorian poetry these were indeed years\\nof the very first significance. Great\\npoetical outbursts invariably move in\\ncycles. There are wildernesses of what\\nappears to be literary stagnation or pa-\\nralysis, and then suddenly the desert\\nblossoms like a rose. This was precisely\\nthe case at the time which we are con-\\nsidering. During the first twenty or\\nthirty years of Browning s life, poetry", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0077.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "58 EOBEET BKOWtfING\\nhad been languishing. After the some-\\nwhat dreary Ecclesiastical Sonnets of 1822,\\nYarrow Revisited (in 1835) was Words-\\nworth s only important publication.\\nCrabbe died in 1832 j and, though\\nColeridge lived till two years later, he\\nhad already been inactive for a decade.\\nMoore had found his lyric spring ex-\\nhausted, and Southey was devoting the\\nlast years of his life almost exclusively\\nto prose. Suddenly, in 1842, Tennyson,\\nwho had published nothing for ten years,\\ntook the public gaze again. His two\\nvolumes of poems came at the very\\nmoment when they were needed, and\\ntheir success was immediate. Within a\\nfew months of their publication a uni-\\nversity debating society was discussing\\nthe question that Alfred Tennyson is\\nthe greatest poet of the age, and the\\nwhole of England was reading l Ulysses\\nand the Dream of Fair Women. An\\nappearance of this kind is never isolated.\\nWhen poetry is in the air, poets are", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0078.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 59\\nready for the hour. The recognition of\\nTennyson was followed at once by a\\nburst of rivalry, some deliberate, some\\nunconscious. In the former class must\\nbe placed the feverish activity of Eliza-\\nbeth Barrett, who at once set about ar-\\nranging a two-volume edition of Poems,\\nrecasting old pieces and designing new\\nones with all the spasmodic energy of\\nthe invalid. To the latter, no doubt, we\\nmust ascribe the calm, even production\\nof Robert Browning, who had already\\nsketched out his own u programme, 7\\nbut who was unquestionably sustained\\nin its performance by the general inter-\\nest in poetry that was seething in Ten-\\nnyson s wake. Various occasions, of\\ncourse, helped to various ends. The\\nPied Piper, immortal favourite with\\nchildren of every age, was written to\\namuse Macready s little boy, who was\\nill in bed, and wanted a poem to draw\\npictures to. The Flight of the Duch-\\ness, with six others, was given to Tom", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0079.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "60 ROBEET BROWNING\\nHood for his Magazine, a graceful\\nassistance to a friend who was himself\\npast work. But, whatever the occasion,\\nthe course of Browning s labours was\\nimpelled by it, not diverted. It was\\nalways a characteristic of his work that\\nhe never allowed considerations from out-\\nside to interfere with its order. Editors\\nsought him in vain. He would not put\\naside, for the chances of the most brill-\\niant advertisement, work which he had\\nplanned beforehand. He was one of\\nthe most conscientious artists that ever\\nlaboured with the quill.\\nDuring this period of almost ceaseless\\nliterary activity, Browning seems to\\nhave worked with all the painstaking\\nthat was at the disposal of a naturally\\ncareful artist. Under inspiration he\\nwrote rapidly, but the labour of elabora-\\ntion and finish was long and thoughtful.\\nThe mere exercise of writing was not,\\nas it is with many men of letters, a pleas-\\nure to him he never opened his desk,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0080.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 61\\nhe said, without a sigh, nor closed it\\nwithout a smile. But his desire for per-\\nformance overcame all petty inconven-\\niences. Above all things, he wrote for\\nhimself, and for the satisfaction of his\\nown sense of art. It is clear from his\\nletters that he was quite contented with\\nthe amount of reputation which his\\nwork had so far brought him. For a\\nwide circulation, in a vulgar sense, he\\nhad very little care. With all his inter-\\nest in the mental attitude of the ordi-\\nnary man, and that interest is contin-\\nually apparent, he had, nevertheless,\\na thoroughly good-natured contempt for\\nthe judgment of that rather narrow-\\ntoned organ, the modern Englishman.\\nIf the public had bought his poems, he\\nwould have had use for the money.\\nMeanwhile he was far more interested\\nin the verdict of those whose opinion\\nwas worth attention. Criticism which\\nappreciated his intention stimulated\\nhim but, if it was unintelligent or un-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0081.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "62 ROBERT BROWNING\\nsympathetic, lie was not greatly de-\\npressed. He could never understand,\\nhe said, why Keats or Tennyson should\\ngo softly all their days for the sake\\nof an unkind reviewer. Still less could\\nhe approve of a poet modelling himself,\\nagainst his better instincts, to suit the\\nwit of blundering criticism. His friends\\nat this time were principally men of\\nletters, and such women a very few\\nas showed literary tendencies. In a\\nword, his life was bound up in litera-\\nture.\\nIt chanced, however, that some three\\nyears or so before the time we are im-\\nmediately considering he had made a\\nfriend who was to bring a new and ab-\\nsorbing interest into his life.\\nHe was dining, Mrs. Orr tells us, at\\nTalfourd s, when an elderly gentleman\\ncame up to him, and asked if his father\\nhad ever been at school at Cheshunt.\\nBrowning remembered that that was the\\ncase and his new acquaintance rejoined,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0082.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 63\\nThen ask him if he remembers John\\nKenyon. The question was put next\\nmorning, and the elder Browning re-\\ncalled his old acquaintance at once. The\\ntwo met and a broken friendship was re-\\nnewed with interest. John Kenyon was\\none of the kindest of men. He was gen-\\nial, unselfish, and of a fine, manly as-\\npect. Browning nicknamed him The\\nMagnificent. He was particularly fond\\nof young people, and had a true sympa-\\nthy with literary aspiration. Among\\nthe dearest of his friends was his distant\\ncousin, Elizabeth Barrett, the poet. To\\nher from her earliest years he was, as she\\nherself said,\\nunspeakably my friend and helper, and my\\nbooks friend and helper, critic and sympa-\\nthiser, true friend of all hours.\\nShe was, as every one knows, an invalid,\\nand so peculiarly dependent upon her\\nfriends. Kenyon was one of her most\\nfrequent visitors, and it was his pleasure\\nto bring with him any new friend whom", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0083.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "64 EOBERT BROWNING\\nhe thought she would like to see in her\\nenforced solitude. Shortly after he had\\nmade the acquaintance of Robert Brown-\\ning, he suggested taking him to Glouces-\\nter Place, where the Barretts were then\\nliving. They even went to the door\\nbut she was still too ill to see them, and\\nby some chance negligence the oppor-\\ntunity was not at once repeated. Mean-\\nwhile Elizabeth Barrett passed through\\na great trouble, which marks also, as it\\nhappens, a crisis in her whole career.\\nHer favourite brother was lost at sea\\nunder circumstances of peculiar poig-\\nnancy.\\nHe was far the dearest to her of all\\nher family, and she had been extremely\\nill. It was found necessary to send her\\nto Torquay for the winter and this\\nbrother, Edward, took her there, with\\nthe intention of returning to town at\\nonce. But, when it became necessary to\\npart from him, she was so much over-\\ncome with grief that they were obliged", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0084.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWNING 65\\nto get him to remain. He stayed with\\nher for months, during which she was in\\nperpetual danger of death. Then, just\\nas she seemed to be recovering, the little\\nboat in which he was sailing was mys-\\nteriously lost; and she never saw him\\nagain. With the peculiar sensitiveness\\nwhich was characteristic of her, she\\nblamed herself for the catastrophe. Her\\nfather had much wished the brother to\\nreturn to London and she felt now that,\\nif he had gone, the misfortune of their\\nlives might have been avoided. She\\nwas at once plunged into the deepest\\ndistress, in which the kindly affection\\nof her father and this must always be\\nremembered in palliation of any later\\ndoubts was her only comfort. How-\\never, she overcame her trouble in time\\nand with her mastery of it she seemed\\nto have gained strength of every kind\\nbut physical. Her poetry emerged from\\nits first imitative immaturity, and she\\nbegan to be recognised as one of the fore-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0085.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "66 EOBERT BROWNING\\nmost writers of her day. She was read,\\nfirst by the few who care for literature,\\nthen by the wider public both in Eng-\\nland and America. She was established\\nas a favourite enjoyed the confidence\\nof critics her opinions and advice were\\nsought by some of the best-known men\\nof her time. As a woman, her position\\nwas unique. By virtue of her sympathy\\nand intellectual vivacity, she queened it\\nfrom her sick-room over the literary\\nfashions of London and New York.\\nSuch was the position of Elizabeth\\nBarrett, when Browning, at the close of\\n1844, returned from a short tour in Italy\\nto find her new Poems the poetic success\\nof the season. He naturally hastened to\\nread the book, and among the pieces\\nfound one which had, as a matter of\\nfact, been written at full speed to fill\\nan empty sheet, but in which he could\\nhardly have failed to be pleased by the\\noccurrence of his own name", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0086.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 67\\nThere, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud\\nthe poems\\nMade to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more\\nvarious of our own\\nRead the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtle\\noverflowings\\nFound in Petrach s sonnets\u00e2\u0080\u0094 here s the book,\\nthe leaf is folded down\\nOr at times a modern volume, Wordsworth s\\nsolemn-thoughted idyll,\\nHowitt s ballad verse, or Tennyson s en-\\nchanted reverie,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nOr from Browning some Pomegranate, which,\\nif cut deep down the middle,\\nShows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a\\nveined humanity.\\nBrowning was indeed delighted with\\nthe whole work. Meeting his friend\\nKenyon while still full of the subject, he\\nexpressed his admiration generously.\\nWhy don t you write and tell her\\nso? said Kenyon. She is an invalid,\\nand sympathy is a great help to her.\\nBrowning went home, and took Kenyon 7 s\\nadvice and so began one of the most\\nidyllic stories in all the history of love.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0087.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "VI.\\nThe letter which Browning wrote, at\\nKenyon s suggestion, to Elizabeth Bar-\\nrett (January 10, 1845), was of precisely\\nthe kind to strike fire from a nature full\\nof the yearning for sympathy. With no\\npreamble of introduction or excuse, it\\nbroke at once into the topic of admira-\\ntion. i I love your verses with all my\\nheart, dear Miss Barrett, these were\\nthe first words to greet her eye. The\\nletter went on to say that he had meant\\nto give himself the pleasure of analysing\\nand justifying his enjoyment in her\\npoetry, even, perhaps, of criticising a\\nlittle, but that, when he sat down to\\nwrite to her, he found it impossible to do\\nmore than express again and again his\\nsincere affection for her work. Finally,\\nhe told her how Kenyon had once tried\\nto bring them together; but a the half-\\nopened door shut, and the sight was", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0088.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 69\\nnever to be. The letter was not long,\\nbut it was so full of evident sincerity\\nthat it must have seemed more eloquent\\nthan columns of conventional praise.\\nElizabeth Barrett was cordially de-\\nlighted with it, replied at twice the\\nlength, begging for the criticism which\\nhe had withheld, and hinting that the\\nmeeting, which had been prevented, was,\\nperhaps, only deferred. Her letter in\\nturn invited an answer, and the corre-\\nspondence between them was started\\nupon lines that seemed to wander into\\nperpetuity. Within three weeks of\\nBrowning s first letter they had agreed\\nto sign and seal a contract of friend-\\nship, to write to one another without\\nconstraint or ceremony, and to discuss\\nevery topic that might find itself upon\\nthe paper with an entire absence of con-\\nventionality or pretence.\\nIf it be true that the surest partner-\\nships are those between friends whose\\nqualities supply one another s deficien", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0089.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "70 ROBERT BROWNING\\ncies, then the alliance between these\\ntwo poets might be said to have prom-\\nised richly from the first. Their lives\\nhad hitherto afforded a perfect con-\\ntrast. Always delicate from the time\\nwhen, at the age of fourteen, she was\\nthrown from her pony, Elizabeth Barrett\\nhad spent her early girlhood at the foot\\nof the Malvern Hills, with fewer friends\\nthan books. There she had built up\\nfor herself an artificial religion of classic\\ngods and goddesses, and as a child had\\neven offered little secret sacrifices to\\nMinerva in hidden corners of the gar-\\nden. She lost her mother early, and\\nwas thrown more and more upon her\\nown resources. Among her earliest\\nstudies had been Tom Paine, Voltaire,\\nRousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft.\\nOut of these she had constructed a sort\\nof half-pagan, half-Christian philosophy.\\nWhen the family removed to Lon-\\ndon, she had indeed enlarged her field\\nof vision, and had not altogether lacked", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0090.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "BOBEBT BKOWNING 71\\nthe company of men and women. But\\nthe society of a sick-room is necessarily\\ncribbed and confined and in the hours\\nof her serious illness, when she thought\\nthat she was never likely to recover, it\\nwas borne in upon her with every access\\nof regret that she had been spending her\\nlife on literary culture, when she ought\\nto have spent it in the study of man-\\nkind, and that she really knew very\\nlittle of her fellow men and women.\\nWith Browning it was precisely the\\nreverse. As Kenyon often remarked,\\nwhat seemed the super-subtlety of his\\npoetry was in direct contrast with the\\nopen, practical nature of his social in-\\ntercourse. Outside his study he was\\nessentially a man of the world. Indeed,\\nhe was particularly fond of society and,\\nwhile his days were laboriously devoted\\nto poetry, his evenings were freely given\\nto dinners, receptions, dances, and all\\nthe ordinary routine of a London season.\\nHis view of life was also eminently", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0091.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "72 ROBERT BROWNING\\npractical, his attitude to the jn oblems it\\npresented reasoned and logical. He\\nwas as far as possible from the u head-\\nlong spirit in which his new friend\\nplunged into fresh relations and literary\\nenterprises. Each of them may well\\nhave found in the other the qualities\\nmost stimulating to mutual respect and\\naffection; and it is not surprising that\\ntheir correspondence ripene J from day to\\nday, and became more and more neces-\\nsary to their existence.\\nTheir confidences began at once to\\nrange over every field of their interests.\\nOf their own work, their methods, their\\naspirations, their attitude to criticism,\\nand so forth, tliey naturally wrote much.\\nBnt these considerations introduced\\nmany lesser ones, till they were soon\\ndiving into every by-path of life and\\nliterature. Now it was a question of\\ncalligraphy, was a large handwriting\\nbetter than a small one, now some\\ndifficult passage from iEschylus, how", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0092.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 73\\nit should best be rendered. Then,\\nagain, they would discuss the advantages\\nof social intercourse, the value of fic-\\ntion and romance, the privileges of\\ntravel, the companionship of animals\\nand every here and there would be\\njotted down some little anecdote or\\namusing touch of character, so that,\\nin reading the letters to-day, one is act-\\nually transported into the very atmos-\\nphere of early Victorian life and liter-\\nature. And through all these early\\nletters there runs one perpetual topic,\\nthe return of spring, which is to bring\\nher renewed health and enable the two\\nto meet.\\nIt was not till the 20th of May that\\nthey first met face to face. Then, after\\nmany postponements and hesitations, the\\nshut door was at last opened; and\\nfor an hour and a half of the sunny\\nafternoon they talked as they had\\nwritten, of a thousand various interests.\\nFrom the moment that they had met it", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0093.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "74 ROBERT BROWNING\\nis natural that their correspondence\\nshould become more iutimate. There\\nwas, indeed, a momentary misunder-\\nstanding. She, with possibly a touch of\\nthe u headlong impetuosity which was\\nso characteristic, was apparently respon-\\nsible but he, interpreting her mean-\\ning with rare delicacy and allowance,\\nsmoothed things over, and, with the\\nexception that one letter was burnt, the\\ncorrespondence continued unaffected.\\nHe had now seen her and her surround-\\nings and henceforth the names of her\\nfamily appear frequently in the letters,\\nand he is able to take a larger share in\\nthe smaller incidents of her life. More-\\nover, they continued to meet, sometimes\\nonce, sometimes twice a week and the\\nfriendship rapidly developed into a\\ndeeper sentiment.\\nIt is, of course, impossible, within the\\nspace at our disposal, to dig very deeply\\ninto the rich mine of their confidences\\nnor is it, perhaps, desirable. As their", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0094.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 75\\naffection became more intimate, much\\nwas said on either side that is best read\\nin their own words alone the sensitive\\nreader may even experience a feeling of\\nintrusion in being permitted to know so\\nmuch of the secrets of their love. But,\\nin order to understand the course of\\nevents, certain incidents, now common\\nto history, must be noticed.\\nAs the autumn grew near, it was\\nthought that Elizabeth Barrett ought to\\nbe sent to winter abroad. Pisa was sug-\\ngested, also Alexandria, also Malta.\\nHer brothers seem to have been anxious\\nthat she should go. Her favourite sister,\\nArabel, was willing to accompany her.\\nBut her father was firm in his opposi-\\ntion. Removed as we are now from the\\ncircumstances of the time, and obscured\\nas many of the issues have become, it is\\ndifficult to judge fairly of the ground\\nof his determination. Moreover, there\\nare still those living to whom any dis-\\ncussion of the matter must be pain-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0095.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "76 EOBERT BROWNING\\nfill and it is desirable to speak with\\nevery consideration and restraint. But\\nthe question has been much discussed\\nand it would certainly seem that Mr.\\nBarrett, the elder, has been generally\\nmisjudged. He was a father of the\\nold school, as the phrase runs and he\\nclaimed, as fathers commonly did claim\\nhalf a century ago, a strong hand over\\nhis children. He seems to have believed\\nthat his daughter s ailments were largely\\nneurotic, and that, if she exercised her\\nwill-power more strenuously, she might\\nbe very much stronger. He used to\\ngrumble at her dinner of dry toast, and\\nexclaim that, if she had lived all her life\\nupon porter and steaks, she would have\\nbeen as well as other girls. No doubt he\\nthought the scheme of travelling abroad\\nunnecessary, and held it his duty as a\\nfather to withstand it. For he was\\nclearly very fond of his daughter he\\nused to visit her sick-room every night,\\nand offer her the best consolation that", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0096.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWOTKG 77\\nwas in his power. The days of paternal\\ngovernment are over now, and we have\\nbegun to understand that a father may\\nbe something better than an autocrat.\\nBat fifty years ago the autocracy of the\\narm-chair was the rule of the household,\\nand it is doubtful whether Mr. Barrett\\nwas very different from other fathers of\\nhis time. At any rate, the autumn\\npassed and it was decided that the in-\\nvalid was to stay in Wimpole Street. At\\nfirst, it was a bitter disappointment but\\nshe soon saw, as Browning told her, that\\nit was her duty to him and to herself to\\nface the situation and the winter winds\\nbravely, and to preserve her health for\\nthe spring and its possibilities. For\\nthey were now definitely engaged, al-\\nthough the engagement was kept a\\nsecret. To Browning this secrecy was\\ngalling. His natural frankness and\\nsense of honour rebelled against it.\\nBut she assured him that it was neces-\\nsary, not only to her present peace, but", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0097.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "74 ROBERT BROWNING\\nis natural that their correspondence\\nshould become more intimate. There\\nwas, indeed, a momentary misunder-\\nstanding. She, with possibly a touch of\\nthe u headlong impetuosity which was\\nso characteristic, was apparently respon-\\nsible j but he, interpreting her mean-\\ning with rare delicacy and allowance,\\nsmoothed things over, and, with the\\nexception that one letter was burnt, the\\ncorrespondence continued unaffected.\\nHe had now seen her and her surround-\\nings and henceforth the names of her\\nfamily appear frequently in the letters,\\nand he is able to take a larger share in\\nthe smaller incidents of her life. More-\\nover, they continued to meet, sometimes\\nonce, sometimes twice a week and the\\nfriendship rapidly developed into a\\ndeeper sentiment.\\nIt is, of course, impossible, within the\\nspace at our disposal, to dig very deeply\\ninto the rich mine of their confidences\\nnor is it, perhaps, desirable. As their", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0098.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BKOWKTNG 75\\naffection became more intimate, much\\nwas said on either side that is best read\\nin their own words alone the sensitive\\nreader may even experience a feeling of\\nintrusion in being permitted to know so\\nmuch of the secrets of their love. But,\\nin order to understand the course of\\nevents, certain incidents, now common\\nto history, must be noticed.\\nAs the autumn grew near, it was\\nthought that Elizabeth Barrett ought to\\nbe sent to winter abroad. Pisa was sug-\\ngested, also Alexandria, also Malta.\\nHer brothers seem to have been anxious\\nthat she should go. Her favourite sister,\\nArabel, was willing to accompany her.\\nBut her father was firm in his opposi-\\ntion. Removed as we are now from the\\ncircumstances of the time, and obscured\\nas many of the issues have become, it is\\ndifficult to judge fairly of the ground\\nof his determination. Moreover, there\\nare still those living to whom any dis-\\ncussion of the matter must be pain-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0099.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "80 EOBEET BROWNING\\nshe felt he must do as he pleased j but,\\nfor her own money, it was hers, and she\\nwould never consent to put away from\\nher God s gifts, given perhaps in order\\nto this very end. And, even if the\\ndiplomatic post were secured, it might\\nseparate them. She could not, for ex-\\nample, accompany him to the cold of\\nRussia. So the scheme, so honourable\\nto Browning in its conception, fell\\nthrough and the summer passed in\\nplans and counter- plans.\\nWith the autumn matters came to a\\nhead. It became again clear that the\\nwinter ought to be spent abroad, but\\nagain there was the same opposition.\\nSuggestions were made for a com-\\npromise, Dover, Reigate, Tunbridge.\\nBut Elizabeth Barrett was now deter-\\nmined that another winter in England\\nwas more than she could endure, and\\nthat, if she was not to go abroad as\\nEdward Barrett s daughter, she would\\ndo so as Robert Browning s wife. When", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0104.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 81\\nat last her brother was sent to Reigate to\\nlook out for a house, she felt that the\\nformer contingency was hopeless. On\\nthe morning of Saturday, September 12,\\n1846, she walked with her maid from her\\nfather s house in Wimpole Street to the\\nnearest cab-stand, and was driven to the\\nChurch of St. Marylebone, where she\\nand Browning were married at eleven\\no clock. When she stepped from the\\nhouse, she was so weak that they had to\\ngo to a chemist for sal-volatile but\\nher courage and confidence carried her\\nthrough what must have been, for one so\\ndelicate, a really terrible ordeal. Yet, in\\nher own beautiful words,\\nI thought that of the many, many women who\\nhave stood where I stood, and to the same end,\\nnot one of them all perhaps, not one perhaps,\\nsince that building was a church, has had reasons\\nstrong as mine for an absolute trust and devo-\\ntion towards the man she married,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 not one\\nAt the church door they parted, and\\nRobert Browning noted on the envelope", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0105.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "82 ROBERT BROWNING\\nof the last letter which she wrote him\\nbefore their marriage that this was their\\nninety-first meeting. When next they\\nmet, they were never again to be parted\\nin life.\\nShe drove to Hugh Stuart Boyd s, and\\nthence after lunch to Hampstead, pass-\\ning on the way the church of so many\\nnew memories. It was, in every respect,\\none of the strangest wedding days. But\\nBrowning felt that the strain of the\\noccasion was as much as his wife could\\nbear at the moment, and that to start\\nupon a journey immediately would be\\nin the last degree unwise. A week\\nelapsed before he saw her again, The in-\\nterval was passed in a rapid interchange\\nof anxious letters, fixing upon trains and\\npackets, and then unsettling plans again.\\nMrs. Orr tells us that these few days\\nwere among the most harassed and de-\\npressed in the whole of Browning s life.\\nBut at last everything was settled\\nand during the afternoon of Saturday,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0106.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWNING 83\\nSeptember 19, while the family were\\nat the dinner table, Elizabeth Barrett\\nBrowning and her maid, the luggage\\nhaving been safely sent before, stole\\nsecretly from the house in Wimpole\\nStreet, and drove to Mne Elms Station.\\nNor must one forget that there was a\\nthird companion in the cab. The faith-\\nful Flush, her dog, who had been but\\na fortnight before recovered from thieves,\\nwas not one to be neglected in even the\\nmost perilous of retreats. There was\\ndanger indeed that he might arouse the\\nhouse by barking at the prospect of the\\nopen air but, with a dog s intelligence,\\nhe grasped the situation, and trotted\\nalong without a sound. In the gallery\\nof true friends Flush will never be for-\\ngotten.\\nTherefore to this dog will I\\nTenderly, not scornfully,\\nRender praise and favour\\nWith my hand upon his head\\nIs my benediction said\\nTherefore, and forever.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0107.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "84 EOBEET BKOWNING\\nThe j ourney was safely undertaken. The\\nBrownings left Southampton by boat that\\nevening, and were at Paris next morning.\\nThe new life was begun, and from that\\nday no further letters passed between\\nthe untiring correspondents. For they\\nwere never again apart.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0108.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "VII.\\nSo romantic an elopement conld not\\nfail to be the topic of much discussion.\\nSecrecy had been wonderfully preserved.\\nEven the most intimate friends were sur-\\nprised. John Kenyon, whatever he may\\nhave suspected, knew nothing definitely\\ntill the event was past and Forster,\\nwho since the evening we first saw him\\nat Elstree had become a close confidant,\\nderived his information from a slip of\\nproof in the Examiner office. When he\\nread in the type of his own paper that\\nhis friend Browning was actually mar-\\nried, he sent in hot haste for the com-\\npositor, and demanded the manuscript.\\nIt was in the handwriting of Browning s\\nsister and, on reading it, Forster was\\nfor the first time persuaded that the\\nwhole affair was, after all, not a hoax.\\nMeanwhile the household at Wimpole\\nStreet was thrown into a fine confusion.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0109.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "86 EOBERT BKOWNING\\nMr. Barrett s indignation was illimit-\\nable. He had been defied and out-\\nwitted. Henceforth, in the words of that\\nother disappointed father, he had no\\nsuch daughter. He never consented\\neither to write to Mrs. Browning or to\\nsee her again.\\nThe event, of course, made no little\\nstir in what are called literary circles.\\nEvery one was talking that autumn of\\nthe marriage of Miss Barrett. She,\\nit is worth remarking, was the undis-\\nputed protagonist j for at this time there\\nwas no comparison between the literary\\nreputations of the two Brownings. The\\ntwo-volume edition of her Poems had\\nmade her the cynosure of the critics 7\\neyes, while her husband had been slowly\\nreceding from their gaze ever since the\\nappearance of Sordello. Strange as it\\nseems now, it is nevertheless clear that\\neven his best friends were at this time a\\nlittle doubtful of his promise. Neither\\nPauline nor Paracelsus had enjoyed a", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0110.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BKOWNING 87\\nlarge audience, but they had been read\\nin the right quarters. Following on\\nthem, Sordello disappointed expectation\\nand not even the Bells and Pomegranates,\\nthe last of which was printed in the year\\nof his marriage, had restored the confi-\\ndence of Browning s friends. In the\\nyear when he and Elizabeth Barrett\\njoined hands, she was perhaps at the\\nheight of her reputation, while his stood\\nat its lowest ebb.\\nIn the meantime, while London was\\ntalking, the Brownings had reached\\nParis. The journey was not without its\\nanxieties the violent traffic of boat and\\nrailway wrought havoc with his wife s\\nnerves. They found it necessary to\\nmove slowly south from Paris to Genoa,\\nfrom Genoa to Pisa. At every turn of\\nthe way the bride was cared for by her\\nhusband with the most unfailing consid-\\neration. Temper, spirits, manners,\\nshe wrote to her friend, Miss Mitford,\\ni there is not a flaw anywhere. I", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0111.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "S8 KGBEKT BKOWKING\\nshut my eyes sometimes, and fancy it all\\na dream of my guardian angel. But,\\nfortunately, as they approached warmer\\nclimes, her health improved steadily\\nand, by the time they had reached Pisa,\\nshe was feeling stronger than she had\\ndone for years. Not improved, but\\ntransformed/ she reported herself, and\\nfull of the beauty of the mild, restful\\ncountry and the purple mountains,\\ngloriously beckoning the traveller into\\nthe vine land. Here, at Pisa, they set-\\ntled for the winter, near the Duomo,\\nwith the Leaning Tower in close prospect\\nfrom their windows. They had many\\nbooks with them, and would discuss of\\nan evening the methods of Balzac and\\nDumas, of Stendhal and George Sand.\\nDuring the day they worked, each in a\\nseparate room and it was at this time\\nthat Mrs. Browning s finest series of\\npoems was brought to a finish.\\nLiterary history owes to Mr. Edmund\\nGosse the picturesque story of the gen-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0112.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWXIXG 89\\nesis of Sonnets from the Portuguese. It\\nwas Robert Browning s custom, he tells\\nus, to work in a downstairs room,\\nwhere their meals were spread while\\nhis wife studied in a room on the floor\\nabove. One morning, within a few\\nmonths of their settlement at Pisa, Brown-\\ning stood at the window of his room,\\nwatching the street while the break-\\nfast table was being cleared for his work.\\nSuddenly his wife stole behind him,\\nand, seizing his shoulder to prevent him\\nfrom turning, slipped a packet of papers\\ninto his coat. He was to read it, she\\nsaid, and tear it up if he did not like it.\\nWhen he turned again, she was gone,\\ntoo shy to await his verdict. The par-\\ncel, when opened, was found to contain\\nthe noble series of sonnets which is now\\ngenerally acknowledged to be the flower\\nof Mrs. Browning s poetry. As he read\\nthem one by one, the husband was\\nconscious that here were the finest\\nsonnets written in any language since", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0113.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "90 EOBERT BKOWHTNX3-\\nShakespeare. He liastened to his\\nwife s work-room, to assure her face to\\nface of his unbounded admiration. He\\nurged her to print them, but she de-\\nmurred. They were too intimate, she\\nfelt, for print for they contained the\\nsacred secrets of her betrothal. At last\\nshe consented to a private publication\\nand the package was sent home to Miss\\nMitford, with the request that she would\\nsee it through the press. The sonnets\\nwere printed that same year in a small\\noctavo of 47 pages. Then, however, the\\nlittle pamphlet was entitled simply\\nSonnets by E. B. B. It was not till\\nthey were included in her collected\\npoems three years later that the question\\nof a more distinctive title arose. She\\nwas for calling them Sonnets from the\\nBosnian, with an implication that they\\nwere translated but Browning, whose\\npet name for his wife was my little Por-\\ntuguese, cried: Bosnian, no! that\\nmeans nothing. From the Portuguese", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0114.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "KOBEET BROWNING 91\\nthey are Catarina s sonnets! The\\nname was kept, and is now among the\\nclassics of literature.\\nSuch is Mr. Gosse s story, told with\\nall his grace and sympathy 5 and a\\npretty picture it makes of the Brown-\\nings mutual understanding and fellow-\\nship. There is much more to linger\\nover, were there space to be minute.\\nThat interesting year 1847, the year\\nof The Princess and Jane Eyre, Tailored\\nand Wuthering Heights was passed by\\nthe secluded poets in Italy in pleasant,\\neasy travelling. In the spring they left\\nPisa for Florence, where during the\\nsummer they changed lodgings from\\ntime to time, as the heat and more than\\none failure of health drew them to seek\\nvariety. They penetrated to leafy Val-\\nlombrosa, making friends with the abbot\\nthere, and spent long moonlit evenings\\non their balcony terrace, with the\\nlightest meals of iced water and melon.\\nIn the spring that followed a somewhat", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0115.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "92 ROBEBT BROWNING\\nailing winter they moved at last into\\nwhat proved something like an abiding\\nhome, the Guidi Palace, long since fa-\\nmiliar to the untravelled from the re-\\nmarkable poem which bears its name.\\nThere were six spacious rooms in their\\ntenement, facing the grey walls of the\\nchurch of San Felice. The long draw-\\ning-room, which looked out upon it, was\\nMrs. Browning s favourite room. It\\nopened upon a balcony full of flowers.\\nIts walls were hung with tapestry j and\\nthey collected in it quaint bookcases of\\nFlorentine workmanship, and grave,\\nsweet pictures of saints and martyrs.\\nThe furnishing of the rooms was an\\nabsorbing interest, and everything was\\nchosen with the view of harmony. It\\nwas here that Casa Guidi Windows was\\nfinished, and Aurora Leigh begun.\\nAt Casa Guidi, too, on March 9, 1849,\\na son was born to them. The strain of\\nanxiety which Browning naturally un-\\nderwent, while a delicate wife was pass-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0116.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWNING 93\\ning through a dangerous crisis, was ren-\\ndered more poignant by the death of his\\nmother, which followed immediately\\nupon the birth of his son. Browning\\nhad always loved his mother with a pas-\\nsionate devotion, and for months he was\\nunable to rally from the intolerable\\ndepression into which her loss plunged\\nhim. He was unable to eat or sleep,\\nand his wife was clear in her conviction\\nthat a change was absolutely needful.\\nThey travelled to Spezzia and the Baths\\nof Lucca, Mrs. Browning gaining\\nstrength with every new delight of\\nscenery and association. The mountain\\nair and the Italian sunshine were the\\nbreath of her life and, as he watched\\nher expanding in intellectual and phys-\\nical beauty under his gaze, her husband\\ncast off his melancholy, and for the first\\ntime for two or three years began to re-\\nsume his literary work. His poems\\nwere reissued in two volumes in the year\\nof his son s birth, and during the follow-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0117.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "94 KOBEET BEOWNING\\niog year lie wrote Christmas Eve and\\nEaster Bay.\\nIn the summer of the year following\\nthat of Tennyson s marriage and laure-\\nateship, the Brownings revisited Eng-\\nland. They had left many friends there,\\nwhose company they had often sighed\\nfor in Florence and it is not unlikely\\nthat Mrs. Browning had some hope that,\\nif her father heard of her presence in\\nEngland, he might consent to see her\\nand be reconciled. In this, however,\\nshe was disappointed. During the ten\\nyears that intervened between her mar-\\nriage and his own death, her father re-\\nmained obdurate. The season in Lon-\\ndon, however, brought them many\\npleasures and the resumption of many\\nold friendships. Their rooms in Devon-\\nshire Street were full of friends j and\\namong the first whom Browning intro-\\nduced to his wife was his old patron,\\nFox. It was autumn before they could\\ntear themselves away. Then they re-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0118.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 95\\nturned as far as Paris, where they spent\\nthe winter. It would be tedious to fol-\\nlow at great length the tale of their daily\\nmeetings with distinguished people. A\\nfew incidents, however, stand out con-\\nspicuously. It was here, in Paris, this\\nautumn that Mrs. Browning first met\\nthe Tennysons, who had lost their first\\nchild that Easter, and were travelling\\nfor distraction upon that southern jour-\\nney recorded in The Daisy. The\\nfriendship which already subsisted be-\\ntween the husbands was re-echoed by\\nthe wives. Mrs. Browning, said her\\nnew friend, met me as though she had\\nbeen my own sister. A few months\\nlater, when Hallam (the present Lord\\nTennyson) was born, the Brownings\\nwere among the first to receive the\\nhappy news and Mrs. Browning s sym-\\npathetic congratulations were the very\\nfirst to reach the home at Twickenham.\\nHere, too, at Paris the Brownings saw\\nGeorge Sand, a noble woman under", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0119.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "96 EOBEET BBOWNING\\nthe mud, who had always been a sub-\\nject of peculiar interest to them, and for\\nwhom though they were disappointed\\nin her lack of frankness they retained a\\nsincere, if rather compassionate admira-\\ntion. Victor Hugo was another acquaint-\\nance of this period and B6ranger, if\\nnot met face to face, was a near and ob-\\nserved neighbour.\\nIt was during this winter at Paris, so\\nfull of varied memories, that Browning\\nwrote what was his only important piece\\nof prose criticism. Moxon, the pub-\\nlisher, had acquired what he believed\\nto be a bundle of hitherto imprinted\\nletters from Shelley, and wrote to\\nBrowning, who had lately transferred\\nhis poems to Moxon s care, asking him\\nto write an introduction. Browning, as\\nwe know, had always been an admirer\\nof Shelley and his recent visit to\\nSpezzia may naturally have whetted his\\nenthusiasm. He agreed to undertake\\nthe work, and the letters were sent him.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0120.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 97\\nAs is now proved, they were, with one\\npossible exception, entirely spurious,\\nbut so cleverly imitated that Browning\\ndoes not seem to have penetrated the\\nforgery. He saw, however, that they\\nhad very little intrinsic interest and\\nhis introduction, instead of dealing with\\nthe letters themselves, took the form of\\na general eulogy of Shelley s genius and,\\nin some respects, a vindication of his\\nlife from calumny and misunderstand-\\ning. The essay, which is extremely\\ninteresting, both for its own criticism\\nand also as a reflection of Browning s\\nattitude, has been reprinted by the\\nBrowning Society. The original publi-\\ncation was withdrawn, when the spurious\\ncharacter of the letters was discovered.\\nWith the spring the Brownings re-\\nturned to Casa Guidi and, though they\\nwere back again in England in the sum-\\nmer, it is at Florence that interest\\nchiefly centres for the next two years.\\nFor, broken as their time was by anxie-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0121.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "98 ROBERT BROWNING\\nties over their child s health and by\\noccasional incursions into what seemed\\nhealthier quarters, it was at Casa Guidi\\nthat they did all the more important\\npart of their work. While there, they\\nlived a secluded and laborious life. The\\nsociety of their child was almost their\\nonly distraction. When the pressure of\\nwork began to tell upon them, they\\nmoved elsewhere, to Paris or London,\\nreserving Florence as the home of\\ntheir poetry. For Browning was now\\nengaged upon In a Balcony and the\\nillustrious gallery of Men and Women,\\nwhile his wife was writing Aurora\\nLeigh. She had had the idea of a\\nnovel in verse before her for years. In\\none of her earliest letters to her husband\\nshe told him of it, and he cordially ap-\\nproved. But it grew slowly, for Tier,\\nvery slowly, being, indeed, ten years\\nin the making.\\nOnce only was their seclusion broken\\nby strenuous interests from without,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0122.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 99\\nwhen Miss Faucit (by this time Mrs.\\nTheodore Martin) proposed to bring\\nout Colombe 8 Birthday on the stage.\\nMrs. Browning was feverishly interested\\nin the scheme but, if further evidence\\nwere needed of the disinclination for the\\nstage which the trouble with Macready\\nhad brought to Browning, it would be\\nafforded by the indifference with which\\nhe regarded the present production.\\nHe was grateful for the friendly feeling,\\nbut he would take no active part in the\\npreparation. Beyond referring the ac-\\ntress to the latest edition of the play and\\nbegging her to use that text as it stood,\\nhe troubled not at all about the matter.\\nThe piece had a success with the critics\\nbut it was again badly acted, Miss\\nFaucit alone, and for the third time,\\ndoing justice to the poet s intention.\\nFor the rest, there was the life of the\\nmountains, with much riding along pre-\\ncipitous paths and tarryings at little\\ncountry inns to feast on strawberries and", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0123.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "100 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nmilk. They seem to have found in their\\nwork, and in the splendid communion of\\nnature, everything they needed for re-\\nfreshment and consolation. It is a fine\\ntestimony to Browning s confidence and\\nartistic magnanimity that, during these\\nyears of hard work, he never seems to\\nhave felt depression from any sense of\\nlack of public appreciation. It was\\nenough for him to be doing work that\\nwas gradually growing more into accord-\\nance with his own and his wife s ideal.\\nHe was confident, but never over- confi-\\ndent. In all probability it never oc-\\ncurred to him that the poetry which was\\nspringing up among those vineyards and\\nolive groves of Florence was to be among\\nthe most precious of all the treasures of\\nEnglish literature. Certainly, he never\\nwould have allowed that the Men and\\nWomen among whom he was living were\\nmore vital creatures than his wife s\\nAurora Leigh, Eomney, and Marian\\nErie. She has genius, he said: I", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0124.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BBOWNISTG 101\\nam only a painstaking fellow. Can t\\nyou imagine a clever sort of angel who\\nplots and plans and tries to build up\\nsomething He wants to make you see\\nit as he sees it, shows you one point of\\nview, carries you off to another, ham-\\nmering into your head the things that he\\nwants you to understand and, whilst\\nall this bother is going on, God Al-\\nmighty turns you off a little star.\\nThat s the difference between us.\\nThere is no artist but would wish for\\njust such modesty for himself. Yet this\\nman wrote Abt Vogler and the\\nGuardian Angel.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0125.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "VIII.\\nThe summer of 1855, when next the\\nBrownings were in London, was one of\\nuncommon literary agitation. It is, in-\\ndeed, not unlikely that the sense of\\nmovement at the centre of things induced\\nthem to break in upon their Florentine\\nseclusion for they were both engrossed\\nin work at the time, and the change\\nmust have incurred interruptions. But\\nit was a great year in literary London.\\nSeldom have so many masterpieces burst\\nupon a single season. Dickens had fin-\\nished Little Dorrit; Kingsley, Westward\\nHo! Macaulay had put forth two new vol-\\numes, the third and fourth, of his monu-\\nmental History of England; a new series\\nof Poems had borne the name of Matthew\\nArnold Thackeray published the last\\npart of The Newcomes in August. Leigh\\nHunt, George MacDonald, and Anthony\\nTrollope were all represented by less im-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0126.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BROWNING 103\\nportant volumes and people were talk-\\ning vaguely of a new genius, revealed in\\na rich and imaginative romance called\\nthe Shaving of Shagpat. Above all other\\nbooks, Maud was the poem of the year.\\nWhen the Brownings reached London,\\nthe critical bombardment of Tennyson\\nhad begun and all the various passions\\nof mankind were being exercised in his\\ncondemnation and defence. Such an\\natmosphere was acutely stimulating to\\nliterary production, and there is no\\ndoubt that both poets felt the move-\\nment. They saw their friends freely,\\nbut callers were apt to notice that Mrs.\\nBrowning slipped a scrap of paper be-\\nneath her pillow as they were ushered\\ninto the room. She was, indeed, finish-\\ning Aurora Leigh at high-speed, writing,\\nas the inspiration seized her, upon backs\\nof envelopes, advertisements, or any\\nblank sheet that was ready to her hand.\\nBrowning himself was correcting the\\nproofs of Men and Women; and, on the", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0127.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "104 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nevening when Tennyson read Maud to a\\nselect company in the Brownings rooms\\nin Dorset Street, the ink was scarcely\\ndry upon the beautiful dedication, One\\nWord More. By the time the Brown-\\nings were back again in Eome the two\\nvolumes of Men and Women were in the\\nreviewers hands.\\nWith this publication we enter upon\\na new period of Browning s life. Now,\\nfor the first time since his earlier vol-\\numes had surprised a little clan into\\nadmiration, he began to take a definite\\nplace in the estimates of criticism.\\nThere is no doubt that great expecta-\\ntions had been founded upon these vol-\\numes, and that the loving hopes of the\\nwife prophesied a high success for them.\\nIt is equally certain that these expecta-\\ntions were far from being fulfilled.\\nYou should see Chapman s returns,\\nshe wrote. And the gloomy figures of\\nthe publishers balance sheet proved too\\nclearly that the poet had not yet touched", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0128.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 105\\nthe big reading public with whom Ten-\\nnyson was now established. But Men\\nand Women, containing, one need scarcely\\nsay, much of his finest and most concen-\\ntrated work, had more than restored the\\nshattered confidence of his friends. It\\nhad introduced him also to another gen-\\neration of students of poetry, who were\\ntoo young to remember the appearance\\nof Pauline, and had found but few men-\\ntors to point out its promise. From this\\ntime, although the common interest in\\nBrowning was still languid and puzzled,\\nthe literary interest in him continued\\nfirm and increasing. In America he\\nwas at once recognised far more cor-\\ndially than in England. There were\\nBrowning evenings in Boston and it\\ncould not but hurt his wife s sensibility\\nthat a small knot of pre-Baphaelite\\nmen should form the main body of\\nBrowning s public in his own country,\\nwhile in America an acquaintance with\\nhis work was held as a necessary badge", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0129.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "106 EOBEET BKOWNING\\nof culture. Nevertheless, lie was no\\nlonger neglected in the most galling\\nsense of that much-abused phrase. In\\nthe small circle where the highest poetry\\nis appreciated he had his place of\\nhonour.\\nThis winter of partial disappointment\\nwas spent in Paris, with much visiting\\nand entertainment and during its gay\\nmonths Mrs. Browning worked unceas-\\ningly upon Aurora Leigh. By the sum-\\nmer it was finished, the last touch being\\nadded, as the dedication shows, upon the\\n17th of October, 1856, when from John\\nKenyon s own house in London she as-\\ncribed the poem to her cousin and friend\\nwho through her various efforts in\\nliterature and steps in life had believed\\nin her, borne with her, and been gener-\\nous to her far beyond the common uses\\nof mere relationship and sympathy. 7\\nThis touching dedication is the closing\\nact in a friendship of unfailing devotion.\\nWithin two months of its inscription the", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0130.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "KOBEKT BROWNING 107\\nkind and manly heart of Kenyon had\\nceased to beat. He was not privileged\\nto witness the full success of the book,\\na success which would have been in-\\ntensely gratifying to him. But his last\\nthoughts were for his friends and by\\nhis will the Brownings, husband and\\nwife, were generously and helpfully\\nbenefited. Their sorrow for his loss was\\noverwhelming. For a time it blotted\\nout all other interests. At length, how-\\never, they returned to Florence and to\\nwork.\\nThe success of Aurora Leigh was im-\\nmediate. It will never rank with the\\nbest of its author s work. It is very un-\\nequal in style. There are arid wastes of\\nnarrative, and sentiment is sometimes\\ndrowned in sentimentality. But its very\\nfaults endeared it to the general reader,\\nand probably no single poem has been\\nso frequently bestowed as a gift-book.\\nAt one time it shared with Coventry\\nPatmore s The Angel in the House the", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0131.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "108 EOBEET BEOWNING\\nhonours of literary pre-eminence in\\nevery list of wedding presents. As Mrs.\\nBrowning justly said, she had no cause\\nto complain of the public attitude\\ntowards herself, for hers were the privi-\\nleges of a favourite.\\nMeanwhile their child was growing\\nup, and in his society they found conso-\\nlation for the loss of older friends. He\\nwas a perpetual companion to them,\\nsharing their mountain expeditions, and\\nadding with pleasant prattle to the di-\\nversions of the way. They took up\\nagain their dreamy life, and the thunder\\nof London sounded far away. Occasion-\\nally a friend broke in upon them with\\nnews from the book world. Occasion-\\nally again they were able of their own\\ninitiative to cement old friendships and\\nassociations. Among such incidents was\\ntheir pleasant and kindly intercourse\\nwith Walter Savage Landor. The old\\nman was at Fiesole, very unhappy, and\\ntime after time escaped to the Brown-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0132.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 109\\nings with an eloquent tale of loneliness.\\nBrowning, feeliug that it was an urgent\\nsituation, wrote to Landor s brother, and\\narranged for his support, so that the\\naged poet was settled in a cottage close\\nto Casa Guidi, and cared for by the very\\nmaid who had been Mrs. Browning s\\ncompanion in her elopement, and her\\nfaithful attendant ever since. The ar-\\nrangement had its clouds, for Landor\\nwas not always suave. There were mo-\\nments when suspicion and a hot temper\\nmade the situation narrow enough. But\\nBrowning understood the old man s\\ninnate gentleness, and was wonderfully\\nadroit in smoothing over difficulties.\\nLandor lived in the little Florentine cot-\\ntage very comfortably for the five re-\\nmaining years of his life.\\nMeanwhile Mrs. Browning had been\\nseriously ailing, and her husband s anx-\\niety had been intolerable. It would\\nseem that the air of Florence was begin-\\nning to undermine the health of both", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0133.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "110 ROBERT BROWNING\\nof them. Neither was well, and her con-\\ndition gave cause for the gravest appre-\\nhension. They moved her to Rome,\\nhowever and she rallied slowly, dating\\nfrom there the fulminating Poems be-\\nfore Congress which showed how closely\\nshe had taken the interests of her adopted\\ncountry to heart, no less than how gen-\\nerously illogical a true woman may at\\ntimes become. The anxieties of the\\nhour increased and it is small wonder\\nthat Browning found it impossible to\\nwrite. Active manual work became\\nessential to distraction, and he busied\\nhimself with modelling from the antique.\\nAs soon as he had finished a bust or\\ntorso, he broke it, and began upon an-\\nother. His restlessness was acute. The\\nwinter, however, passed without disas-\\nter and they returned to Siena for the\\nspring. Then a fresh anxiety broke in\\nupon them. Mrs. Browning s sister Hen-\\nrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook) became dan-\\ngerously ill and during the next winter,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0134.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 111\\nagain spent at Roine, she died. The\\nshock prostrated Mrs. Browning, and\\nshe never really recovered. They took\\nher back to Casa Guidi and there, in\\nthe home of her happiest memories, she\\nsank gradually, but peacefully. At the\\nlast it was her love and sorrow for Italy\\nwhich dealt her death-blow. The news\\nof Cavour s death plunged her into a\\nmelancholy from which she was unable\\nto rouse herself. If tears or blood\\ncould have saved him, he should have\\nhad mine, she wrote. Three weeks\\nlater, on the 29th of June, 1861, the\\ntender, chivalrous, and eager spirit of\\nElizabeth Barrett Browning was at rest\\nforever.\\nWords like love and womanli-\\nness, so often abused in the currency of\\nspeech and print, begin in time to lose\\ntheir lustre. The eternal God- word,\\nLove, is forced into so many sullied\\nuses that men are obliged to decorate it", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0135.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "112 ROBERT BROWNING\\nwith epithets, when they wish to give\\nit a more than common implication of\\npurity and strength. But for the poet of\\nthe Sonnets from the Portuguese two words\\nonly suffice love and womanli-\\nness were of the essence of her fine\\nand quintessential spirit. Love, in itself\\nrebellious of restraint, overwhelming,\\ntempestuous, will not always go hand in\\nhand with reason the feminine nature\\nis often too self-sufficing to seek for argu-\\nments. But with women, and above all\\nwith women who love, there is a wonder-\\nful, prompting instinct, which leads\\nthem more directly towards truth than\\nall the weighed and proportioned logic\\nof men and the causes to which Eliza-\\nbeth Barrett Browning lent her bright\\nenthusiasm were rarely causes undeserv-\\ning of her love. Her poetry suffered\\nfrom her passion. She felt so strongly,\\nthat she could not always pause to choose\\nexpressions for her feeling and much\\nthat she wrote in a white heat of elo-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0136.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "KOBERT BROWNING 113\\nquence is unlikely to bear the cooling,\\nsifting influence of time. As a poet, she\\nstands a step below the highest. She\\nsaw, indeed, into the holy of holies,\\nsaw, in her own words,\\nThe cherub faces which emboss\\nThe Vail, lean inward to the Mercy-seat\\nbut it was not hers to minister at the\\naltar. Yet even here, and so far,\\nBlessed are they which have seen. 7\\nBut what was denied her in art was\\ngiven back to her an hundred- fold in life.\\nThe story of her devotion to her love is\\nthe story, as a critic has well said, of the\\nstainless harmony of two of the\\nfinest spirits that were ever trammelled\\nwith the cares of humanity. The grand\\nideal of marriage, so often blurred be-\\nhind a mist of hindering emotions,\\ngleams out in their life, like the noonday\\nsun in its strength. The marriage of\\ntrue minds admits no impediment.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0137.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "rs.\\nWhen the first acute bitterness of his\\nloss was over, and he was able to think\\nof the future, Browning decided that\\nFlorence was no longer possible as a\\nhome. Its memories were too poignant,\\nand he had his little son to consider.\\nAn English education seemed desirable,\\nno less than woman s companionship\\nand it was settled that the Brownings\\nshould move to London, where Miss\\nArabel Barrett, his wife s favourite sis-\\nter, was engaged in a sort of mission\\nwork among the destitute children of\\nPaddington. Browning had always been\\nfond of her. She was a gentle creature,\\nin whose presence, as Mrs. Browning\\nonce said, no one ever mentioned the\\npossibility of one man hating another\\nfor she was all love and self-sacrifice.\\nHis own sister was engaged in taking\\ncare of her aged father in Paris y and so", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0138.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 115\\nlie naturally turned to the other aunt,\\nand to London. As soon as the neces-\\nsary preparations were completed, they\\nleft Florence, the melancholy interval\\nhaving found some consolation in the\\ndevoted kindness of another friend, Miss\\nIsa Blagden, who took little Pen\\nfrom the house of mourning, and did all\\nshe could to spare both him and his\\nfather the more sordid cares inseparable\\nfrom such an occasion. Two summer\\nmonths were passed near Dinard, and\\nin the early autumn Robert Browning\\nand his son arrived in town. After a\\nfew months of unsettled lodging, Brown-\\ning took a house in Warwick Crescent,\\nover against the canal, and within a\\nstone s throw of Miss Barrett s home in\\nDelamere Terrace. This was his Lon-\\ndon home for more than twenty-five\\nyears.\\nOf the many actions in his life which\\ngo to prove Browning s strength of mind\\nand character, there is nothing so im-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0139.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "116 EOBEET BROWNING\\npressive as this stern, lonely resumption\\nof work and duty. For many years to\\ncome his life was to creep on broken\\nwing and, indeed, so far as the finer\\nissues of the spirit go, he always felt that\\nhis life was already behind him. Still,\\nwith indomitable energy, he pursued\\nthe path he had set before himself. The\\neducation of his son he regarded as a\\nsacred legacy from his wife, the comple-\\ntion of his own work in poetry as the\\nonly offering he could make to her\\nmemory. Like the speaker of his own\\nEvelyn Hope/ he looked out upon\\nthe future with the determination to\\nwin all that was essential from the\\npresent.\\nI have lived (I shall say) so much since then,\\nGiven up myself so many times,\\nGained me the gains of various men,\\nRansacked the ages, spoiled the climes.\\nIt was part of the religion of his love\\nthat no talent which could be devoted to\\nits service should be buried in a napkin.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0140.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 117\\nAt first the depression of a change\\nfrom a Florentine summer to a damp,\\nfoggy London winter was almost over-\\nwhelming. How I yearn, yearn for\\nItaly he wrote. But his natural\\ncourage carried him through and he\\nsoon took up the new life, not only with\\nresignation, but with something like\\nzest. He had work in hand to finish,\\nand he was engaged also in preparing\\nfor publication a posthumous volume of\\nhis wife s Last Poems. So the winter\\npassed, and the next summer, which, in\\naccordance with what now became a\\ngeneral custom with him, was spent\\nabroad at Biarritz. Henceforth it be-\\ncomes unnecessary to review his simple,\\nrecurrent life month by month. The\\nwinters were spent in London and the\\nsummers on the Continent and winter\\nand summer alike he divided his time\\nbetween the company of his friends and\\nthe consolations of his poetry.\\nIn 1864 he published Dramatis Per-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0141.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "118 ROBERT BROWNING\\nsonce, after a silence of nine years.\\nProbably Browning, absorbed in his\\nown art, bad scarcely noticed any\\nchange in the general attitude to poetry\\nbut it so happened that during those\\nnine years there had been a considerable\\ndevelopment of poetic taste among the\\nyounger generation. Especially at the\\nuniversities poetry had begun to be\\nread more intelligently, and to be writ-\\nten, less in the old formal fashion of Pope\\nqualified by Crabbe, and with a nearer\\napproach to spontaneity and freedom\\nfrom academic affectation. The influ-\\nence of Ruskin, which had been slowly\\ngrowing at Oxford for twenty years, had\\nchanged the whole attitude of the\\nyounger generation towards literature\\nand art. A fresher spirit was astir,\\nand among the young men at Oxford\\nwho had shown promise in this sort of\\nrenaissance were Philip Stanhope Wors-\\nley, for example, and John Addington\\nSymonds; while, in the very year of", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0142.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNHSTG 119\\nDramatis Personce, Professor Courthope,\\nthen an undergraduate, had won the\\nNewdigate with an uncommonly natural\\nand delicate poem upon Shakespeare s\\nTercentenary. At the same time Mr.\\nAndrew Lang was a Freshman, and Pro-\\nfessor Saintsbury in his last year. These\\nare apparently trivial indications but\\na straw shows the way of the wind,\\nand one of the first things that Brown-\\ning s publishers had to report was that\\nhis new book was proving unexpectedly\\npopular both at Oxford and Cambridge.\\nAll my new cultivators [wrote Browning]\\nare young men,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 more than that, I observe that\\nsome of my old friends don t like at all the\\nirruption of outsiders who rescue me from their\\nsober and private approval, and take the words\\nout of their mouths, which they always meant\\nto say, and never did.\\nThe universities are not, of course, the\\nhub of the universe but they are a great\\nrecruiting ground for literary reputa-\\ntion. The young men who in 1864 were\\nreading and praising Atalanta in Calydon,", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0143.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "120 EOBEKT BKOWHIKG\\nand Babbi Ben Ezra and Abt\\nYogler, had three or four years later\\ndeveloped into the critics who gave such\\na thunderous welcome to Poems and\\nBallads and The Ring and the Book.\\nThe steady increase of readers for\\nDramatis Personal was a sign of the\\ntimes. Browning was no longer in ad-\\nvance of his generation his hour was\\non the point of striking. And, in the\\nstimulating fitness of things, he was at\\nthat moment engaged upon his great-\\nest work.\\nThe story of that poem and its genesis\\nis told, once and for all, with Browning s\\ninimitable richness, in the overture to\\nThe Ping and the Book itself. One June\\nday, among his last at Casa Guidi, he\\nwas strolling along the Piazza San\\nLorenzo, when a little book caught his\\neye upon a market-stall. It was an old,\\nsquare, yellow volume, with crumpled\\nvellum covers and, seeing that it was\\nmarked at eightpence, and dealt with a", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0144.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "KOBERT BROWNING 121\\nfamous murder case, promising interest,\\nhe bought it on the spot, and started to\\nread it then and there, among the piles\\nof merchandise and the hubbub of mid-\\nday traffic. He tells how he walked on,\\nabsorbed in the matter, reading,\\nThrough street and street,\\nAt the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge\\nTill, by the time I stood at home again\\nIn Casa Guidi by Felice Church,\\nUnder the doorway where the black begins\\nWith the first stone-slab of the staircase cold,\\n1 had mastered the contents, knew the whole\\ntruth.\\nThe psychology of crime had always a\\npeculiar attraction for Browning. Mr.\\nKegan Paul, in his pleasant volume of\\nMemories, tells of a dinner party at\\nwhich he and Browning were present,\\nwhen the conversation turned upon\\nfamous murder cases j and the company\\nwere surprised to find that the poet pos-\\nsessed an elaborate knowledge of the\\ndetails of evidence and motive in almost\\nevery important trial of the kind. The", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0145.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "122 EOBERT BROWNIKG\\nFranceschini case was, therefore, just\\nthe sort of thing to appeal to him and,\\nthough he seems to have offered the\\ntheme to other writers, it was always\\nworking in his brain, and within a year\\nof his settling in London had taken\\nsome shape as a poem in his lively im-\\nagination. He tells us himself that he\\nwas four years at work upon the actual\\nmanuscript but, before that, the whole\\ndevelopment of the case, in its every\\naspect, had been churned over and over\\nagain in his mind and subjected to\\nsearching analysis. It is said that he\\nread over the evidence eight times\\nbefore he set out upon his own tenfold\\npresentation of it. The result, as every\\none knows, is the wonderful poem of\\ntwenty thousand lines, against which so\\nmuch criticism and eulogy have beaten\\neager wings.\\nThe Ring and the Booh might well be\\ndiscussed in a volume of criticism as\\nbulky as itself, and yet the question of", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0146.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "KOBERT BROWNING 123\\nits artistic justification would remain un-\\nsettled. That it is tyrannously long\\nwithout action, mercilessly voluble/\\nas Professor Saintsbury pronounces it,\\nand at times irritatingly reiterative,\\nevery one but the fanatic must reluc-\\ntantly admit. But that it contains pas-\\nsages of supreme poetry, and that its\\nentire scheme is founded upon the most\\ndelicate and subtle fabric of imaginative\\nanalysis, no one but a dullard will at-\\ntempt to deny. Brevity was never one\\nof Browning s virtues j and, in discuss-\\ning any of his poems, the trick of pro-\\nlixity must be discounted at the outset.\\nIn The Ring and the Booh he deliberately\\nseeks it it is of the very essence of the\\nidea that every hair should be split.\\nOne may quarrel with the method but\\nit is absurd to suppose that the author\\nwas ignorant of his own devices The\\nsearch for truth truth of motive, the\\nmainspring of action became more and\\nmore the absorbing interest of his poetry", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0147.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "124 KOBERT BROWNING\\nand in that search he adopted the habit of\\nsifting every false aspect of the question,\\nuntil there was left, like a precipitate,\\nthe simple grain of truth in the whole\\nsolution. This is the method of The\\nRing and the Book, applied, one need\\nscarcely say, with an elaborate fidelity,\\nof which Browning alone among the\\nEnglish poets of three hundred years\\nwas capable. In its course he re-creates\\ncharacters only to dissolve them into\\ntheir component emotions, suggests mo-\\ntives only to probe their sincerity, and\\nreveals himself more than anywhere else\\nin his work the inspired master of\\nhuman thought and action.\\nWith The Bing and the Book we reach\\nthe culminating point of Browning s\\npoetic development. As we have seen,\\nit is always with the individual soul that\\nhis philosophy is occupied. The salva-\\ntion, the possibilities, of individual devel-\\nopment, here and hereafter, are always\\nhis concern. But, while at first he", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0148.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BBOWNIXG li\\nturned to his own emotions for analysis,\\nand imputed himself to his characters, he\\nnext, in the natural course of develop-\\nment, sought for subjects outside his own\\nrange of experience, and, as in Bishop\\nBlougram or Mr. Sludge, became\\ndefinitely dramatic in method. Then, as\\nthe search for truth becomes more search-\\ning, he goes outside the individual, to\\narrive at the individual motive, and, as\\nin The Ring and the Book, brings an array\\nof characters, with an infinity of different\\nside-lights and broken truths, to bear\\nupon the one, isolated, individual act,\\nand by the mixture of a vast alloy of\\nfalsehood completes, as it were, the\\ngolden ring of truth. The method may\\nbe casuistical: falsehood, 1 as Profes-\\nsor Dowden remarks, seems almost\\nmore needful to the poet than truth\\nbut the wonderful verisimilitude of de-\\ntail is justified by the clear and gleam-\\ning light in which the truth is event-\\nually revealed.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0149.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "126 ROBERT BROWNING\\nAfter The Ring and the Booh Browning\\ncontinued to employ the same method\\nwith something of the same wonderful\\nresult but it was already perfected, and\\nhe naturally never developed it further.\\nIndeed, it is doubtful whether he ever\\nagain exhibited the same exquisite deli-\\ncacy of treatment, or wrote with the\\nsame magnificence of diction, the same\\nsingular bursts of harmony. An analytic\\nmethod such as this has its own perils.\\nIt is only a consummate genius that\\ncan bend it to true poetic uses. As\\nBrowning declined in years, the sub-\\ntlety was apt to be obscured by sup-\\npression and unconscious crudity, the\\nmusic to be abused by eccentricities of\\nrhyme, which offend the ear and lend\\nnothing to the effect. Red Cotton Night-\\ncap Country and Pacchiarotto will always\\nsurvive as literary curiosities j but it is\\ndoubtful whether they will long be\\nread, either with pleasure or profit.\\nThe Browning of 1889 was substantially", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0150.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BROWXING 12\\nthe Browning of 1868, with his manner\\nsolidified and his habit frozen. As a\\nman ages, his characteristics either\\nfade into nullity or assume emphatic\\nangles. With a strong temperament the\\nsecond alternative is almost inevitable,\\nand it was so with Browning. Like\\nTennyson, he remained productive to the\\nlast but in neither case had the fresh\\nfruit other than a reminiscent flavour\\nof the old. Browning s creative course\\nwill always be marked in an ascending\\ngrade until the rich year of The Ring and\\nthe Book. With that year he took rank\\namong the acknowledged great and for\\nthe rest of his life it was his pleasant\\nprivilege to reap the harvest of his\\nlabours, in the broad fields of universal\\nrecognition and close and intimate\\nfriendship.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0151.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "X.\\nThere were twenty years of active\\nlife left to Browning after The Ring and\\nthe Book and during those twenty years\\nhe published fourteen volumes of poetry.\\nThey were, indeed, in many senses, the\\nfullest years of his life. He was con-\\nscious, at last, of popularity and a\\npublic. He was a welcome and en-\\ntreated guest in the houses of a hundred\\nfriends. His pen was ceaselessly em-\\nployed in giving the people of his\\nbest. And yet to the biographer these\\nyears afford but little colour. More that\\nis of vital import may be concentrated\\nin one twenty minutes of a man s life\\nthan in another twenty years and in\\nthe even tenour of a ripe and successful\\ncareer there is less that appeals to the\\nheart than in the broken record of early\\nstruggles and disappointments. The\\nyears that saw the publication of Balaus-", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0152.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 129\\nHon 1 s Adventure and Fifine at the Fair,\\nof Bed Cotton Night-cap Country, Jocoseria,\\nFerishtah, and the rest, are chiefly inter-\\nesting to a brief biography for their\\nrecord of the friendships with which\\nBrowning s life was now so richly en-\\ndowed. For it was now for the first\\ntime that he became a familiar figure in\\nLondon society. Literary friendships\\nhe had always enjoyed, but even these,\\nowing to his absence from England,\\nchiefly in the form of correspondence.\\nWith his settlement in London he added\\ndaily to the circle of his acquaintances,\\nand many different pictures of him are\\nto be found in many books. They re-\\nveal a temperament at once strong and\\nlovable. To his friends Browning was\\nindeed a very real friend, giving himself\\nfreely and without the slightest affecta-\\ntion or self- consciousness. It was always\\nsaid of him that no man was freer from\\nthe pose of the poet. He had no\\nliterary tricks of tone or gesture. Those", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0153.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "130 KOBERT BROWNING\\nwho had come out of the wilderness in\\nthe hope of seeing a poet were apt to be\\ndisappointed. They thought to find a\\nprophet, enveloped in a mantle of\\nmystery, and, lo a kindly, white-\\nbearded gentleman, who spoke with\\nknowledge of horsemanship and the\\nopera. But those who were quicker in\\nperception saw that his natural, unas-\\nsuming talk was really the fruit of abun-\\ndant, encyclopaedic information, out of\\nwhich Browning could equally discuss\\ntides and shoals with a sailor, or shares\\nand bubbles with a city magnate. He\\npreferred, indeed, to talk to a man of\\nthe things the man himself could un-\\nderstand. Nor was it any part of his\\nenergy to play mentor or guide to an\\nopen mouthed bevy of school girls.\\nWith Tennyson, Palgrave, and Glad-\\nstone he would discuss Shakespeare and\\nLatin verses but he knew all about\\nthe price of Pornic butter for the thrifty\\nhousewife. And in all such changes", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0154.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 131\\nof standpoint lie was never patronizing\\nnor petty. Whatever the topic, he\\ndiscussed it with an intellectual vigour\\nand the simplest girl felt at her ease\\nwith him instinctively.\\nHis dearest friends were always women,\\nand at every pressing crisis in his life a\\nwoman was his confidante. At one time\\nit was Miss Haworth, at another Miss\\nMitford, and, in his darkest hour of all,\\nMiss Isa Blagden while he found in his\\nown wife a friend whose sympathy ren-\\ndered all other confidences needless for\\nthe space of fifteen years of absolute\\ncommunion. The strongest and most\\nmasculine character will always be found\\nto seek those complementary qualities of\\nwomanhood, for which a weekly or effem-\\ninate nature can find substitutes in itself.\\nThe most completely manly men\\nhave always understood women best.\\nThis was precisely so with Browning.\\nHis letters to his women friends are full\\nof sympathy, tact, and insight, quali-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0155.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "132 EOBERT BROWNING\\nties in the absence of which anything\\nlike sincerity of intercourse is impossible\\nbetween the sexes. He never made the\\nmistake of writing or talking down\\nto a woman. He had been privileged to\\nshare the aspirations of one woman of\\nspiritual force, and knew well enough\\nthe silent silver lights and darks un-\\ndreamed of which are revealed in most\\nwomen s hearts for the man who can\\nfind the key to the gate.\\nWith the death of his wife, he lost\\na kindly critic, to whom his work owed\\nmuch, even beyond the primal inspira-\\ntion of sympathy. Turbid and troubled\\nas much of her own work was, Mrs.\\nBrowning was fully alive to the risks of\\nobscurity and suppression in her hus-\\nband s. Her criticism and advice made\\nalways for lucidity and it will be ap-\\nparent to any one who cares to examine\\ncarefully that the best and most vital of\\nBrowning s poetry was produced under\\nher influence. In saying this, one does", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0156.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 133\\nnot forget the date of The Ring and the\\nBoole, which was published seven years\\nafter her death, but is manifestly full of\\nher memory. It was written with the\\nafterglow of her influence full upon him,\\nand breathes her inspiration in every\\npart. But in his later works the ten-\\ndency to difficulty of expression and\\ncrudity of music returned incorrigibly.\\nIt is somewhat of a paradox that the\\nhardest of Browning s work was pro-\\nduced after people had ceased to com-\\nplain of his obscurity. During the last\\nfifteen years of his life he had become a\\nvogue. A Browning Society, which he\\nregarded with kindliness not altogether\\nfree from apprehension, had arisen to\\nexpound him and to fail to admire him\\nwas now considered to argue lack of\\nculture. The swing of the pendulum is\\nfrom pole to pole.\\nAmong his friends were several to\\nwhom he looked for criticism. M. Mil-\\nsand, the distinguished French critic,", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0157.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "134 EOBEET BBOWNTNG\\nwho was the first to introduce his poetry\\nto a Parisian audience, was perhaps the\\nmost trusted. He read the proofs of all\\nBrowning s later volumes, and made\\nmany helpful suggestions. Miss Anne\\nThackeray (Mrs. Bichmond Bitchie) was\\noften with Browning abroad, and, be-\\nsides suggesting the title of Bed Cotton\\nNight- cap Country, was a close confidante\\nof his literary plans during many sunny\\nafternoons at St. Aubin. For during\\nthese summer holidays Browning was\\ncontinually at work, and much of his\\nclosest application was left to the hours\\nwhen he should have been at rest.\\nIn London his activity was remark-\\nable. He rose early, and invariably\\nfound a pile of letters upon his table.\\nCorrespondence was never a pleasure to\\nhim, for he disliked the exercise of writ-\\ning. But so punctilious was his cour-\\ntesy that by the time he had finished\\nanswering his morning letters he was\\noften too tired to take up his more", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0158.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 135\\nserious work. The same courtesy and\\nconsideration were shown in his welcome\\nto visitors. He had none of that inac-\\ncessibility behind which great men have\\nbeen wont to protect their freedom.\\nMrs. Ritchie relates the incident of one\\nmorning call, when she found every\\nroom in the house at Warwick Crescent\\noccupied by different visitors awaiting\\naudience, and Browning himself pale\\nand exhausted from the effort of con-\\nversation with well-meaning enthusiasts.\\nOf an afternoon he was an assiduous\\nattendant at concerts. His friend Miss\\nEgerton Smith used to call for him in\\nher carriage 5 and for years, Mrs. Orr\\ntells us, the two friends scarcely missed\\na single musical event of any im-\\nportance. In the evening he was a con-\\nstant diner-out and yet during the\\ngreater part of his residence in London\\nnot a day passed without his adding\\nsomething to his poetry, working slowly,\\nit is true, but with infinite pains, pro-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0159.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "136 ROBERT BROWNING\\nduring, perhaps, a single page of manu-\\nscript in a morning s work.\\nIn his poetry and in the society of his\\nfriends he seems to have found consid-\\nerable happiness. As all who met him\\nagree, Browning was at heart an opti-\\nmist. He had a comfortable gift of\\nadapting himself to circumstances, of\\naccepting gladly what life had to give\\nhim, of conrpromising with life, in\\nshort. In his own philosophy, as in his\\npoetry, he was content to regard life\\nas the exercise ground of faculties which\\nshould be more fully realised in some\\nultimate existence elsewhere. He was\\nalways consciously fostering his talents\\nfor their fuller, mysterious development.\\nAnd so he appears to us, moving through\\nthe shadows of advancing age, blithe,\\ncontented, self-contained, a man of in-\\nfinite sympathy and unflagging energy.\\nMiss Arabel Barrett died in the year\\nof The Ring and the Book, and the poet s\\nfather had then been dead two years.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0160.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 137\\nAfter her father s death, Miss Browning\\ncame to live with her brother j and her\\nkindliness and tact did much to brighten\\nhis home. More than all, his son s dis-\\ntinctions as an artist were a continual\\npride to him and it may be truly said\\nof Browning that the closing days of his\\nlife were not ouly illumined by honours\\nfrom without, but also sustained and\\nheartened from within by the unfailing af-\\nfection of those who were dearest to him.\\nIn 1887 his son married, and he him-\\nself moved from Warwick Crescent to\\nDe Vere Gardens. He took keen inter-\\nest in the arrangement of his new home,\\nbut those who knew him best noticed\\nthat the old energy was no longer ca-\\npable of such prolonged nights. During\\nthe next two years his vigour slowly\\nabated, and he began to think of settling\\nfor the end of his life in a home that\\nshould remind him of its beginning. It\\nhad long been a cherished ambition with\\nhim to secure a house at Asolo, and", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0161.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "138 KOBEKT BEOWKING\\nthere was a half-finished building in the\\nprecincts of the castle there, which he\\nparticularly desired to complete and to\\nname Pippa s Tower. Negotiations\\nwere opened, and languished. Brown-\\ning went to Venice in the November of\\n1889, and was daily expecting a settle-\\nment of the affair. The delay worried\\nhim, and towards the end of the month\\nhe caught a severe chill. Bronchitis set\\nin, and he sank steadily. On Thursday,\\nthe 12th of December, at about ten\\no clock at night, he died. His gentle\\noptimism stood by him to the last. He\\ncontinually assured the watchers by his\\nbed that he was not suffering. He knew\\nthat he was dying, and he met the\\nknowledge without fear.\\nI was ever a fighter, so one fight more,\\nThe best and the last\\nI would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and\\nforebore,\\nAnd bade me creep past.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0162.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 139\\nFor sudden the worst turns the best to the\\nbrave,\\nThe black minute s at end,\\nAnd the elements rage, the fiend- voices that\\nrave,\\nShall dwindle, shall blend,\\nShall change, shall become first a peace out of\\npain,\\nThen a light, then thy breast,\\nO thou soul of my soul I shall clasp thee again,\\nAnd with God be the rest\\nHe had felt without caring very\\ngreatly, however that he should like\\nto lie by his wife s side but the nation\\nthought otherwise. On the last day of\\nthe year he was buried in Poets Corner\\nin Westminster Abbey, and rests there\\nto-day, before the Chaucer monument,\\nside by side with Alfred Tennyson. l In\\npoetry illustrious and consummate, in\\nfriendship noble and sincere, the great\\ntwin brethren of Victorian poetry are\\nunited once more in death.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0163.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "XI.\\nIt is a commonplace of criticism that\\nfor the first fifty years of his life Brown-\\ning was in advance of his age. But a\\nplatitude, often repeated, begins to lose\\nits significance and perhaps we hardly\\nrealise precisely how it was that Brown-\\ning s poetry was so long in finding recog-\\nnition. It is said, and repeated with\\niteration, that he is obscure j and, in-\\ndeed, as he himself remarked, he did\\nnot profess to provide the kind of poetry\\nwhich should serve as a substitute for a\\ncigar or a game of cards. But obscurity\\nis a permanent defect. It does not wear\\noff with the friction of time and, if\\nBrowning s Men and Women were obscure\\nin 1855, they would be equally obscure\\nin 1900. We are now, however, gen-\\nerally agreed that very little of his\\npoetry is so involved but that an ordi-\\nnary intellect can unravel it by ordinary", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0164.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 141\\nexercise and there must have been\\nsomething beyond subtlety of thought\\nto estrange the readers who were already\\nbeginning to honour Carlyle. What,\\nthen, was the quality in which Brown-\\ning lay outside the habits of his own\\ntime, the quality which kept him for\\nmore than thirty years at work before he\\nbegan to have anything like a consider-\\nable following It would seem to have\\nbeen almost entirely a question of method,\\nand not a question of thought or of\\nu message at all. Browning s mes-\\nsage, as we shall presently see, is essen-\\ntially simple and direct. It is concerned\\nentirely with wide and open problems\\nof life. It may be made to move hand\\nin hand with orthodox religion. It con-\\ntains nothing to repel or even to aston-\\nish. It is a necessary part of any\\nspiritual system whatever, of every\\nconceivable school of philosophy which\\nleads anywhere beyond the abyss of\\ndespair. But his method was another", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0165.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "142 ROBERT BROWJSTNG\\nmatter. It was new and disturbing,\\nintricate and curious and it was intro-\\nduced into poetry at a time when litera-\\nture, having just recovered from the\\nfervours of the French Revolution, had\\nsettled down again into a natural calm,\\nin the pursuit of beauty for its own sake.\\nNow, although the pursuit of the spirit\\nof beauty is implicit in all Browning s\\nwork, he had very little care for abstract\\nprinciples apart from their direct rela-\\ntion to humanity. Mankind, and espe-\\ncially the individual man as the micro-\\ncosm, was the entire concern of his\\npoetry and, in order to arrive at the\\ntruth of all general principles as they\\naffected man, it was the essence of his\\nmethod to analyse the emotions of the\\nindividual, to dissect the impulse, and\\nfrom the isolated example to proceed to\\nthe generalisation. The method re-\\nquired complexity, if it was to be in the\\nleast degree effectual and the com-\\nplexity demanded concentrated atten-\\ntion in the reader who was to follow it.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0166.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BEOWKIKG 143\\nThe public taste for poetry in 1833 was\\nfar below the taste for prose. Byron s\\nvogue had already waned j Keats and\\nShelley were silent in death. The field\\nwas given over to moonlight verse\\nmelodists to Moore and the metres of\\nsugar and tinsel keepsalce verse. The\\nearly Victorian reader expected poetry\\nto entertain him, to appeal mildly to\\nthe sentiments of parted love and as-\\npiring poverty. He had just emerged\\nfrom the barrel-organ tenderness of\\nThomas Haynes Bayly, and was rising to\\nthe flights of Eliza Cook and the Hon.\\nMrs. Norton. He was puzzled, baffled,\\nannoyed by Browning s brusque and\\nvigorous lines. He resented his demand\\nupon the brain, and decided at once that\\nsuch poetry was unintelligible.\\nAnd yet what could be simpler than\\nthe direct theme of almost all Brown-\\ning s poetry, his message, if we\\nmust use the word that, having been\\nthumped into every pulpit- cushion of", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0167.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "144 ROBERT BROWNING\\nEvangelicisin, is now a little dusty and\\nthreadbare Browning took the human\\nsoul as the unit of humanity and he\\ntook it as he found it, let and hindered\\nby the slough of its mortality. He\\nfound it bounded in a nutshell, but\\ntrembling with the fire of boundless\\nambition. It was too great, too strong\\nfor its surroundings the world was not\\nworthy of it but the sphere of its activ-\\nity was still the world itself. Clearly,\\nso spiritual a fire was not destined to be\\nquenched in death. The life which we\\nknow was, as he saw it, a preparation\\nfor some further, fuller existence, in\\nwhich the faculties would be no longer\\ndepressed, but every unfulfilled impulse\\nwould burst into fruition. Life, then,\\nmust be concentrated upon the emotions\\nevery enthusiasm must be given play\\nbut the play of all must be subordinated\\nby a sense of the impossibility of realis-\\ning the true power of the faculties in\\nthis life. The present career can only", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0168.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "EOBEET BROWNING 145\\nbe one of failure the man who thinks\\nhe has succeeded is indeed a castaway\\nfor he has lost his sense of the possibili-\\nties of his own soul. But in high failure\\nlies the true success of well-directed\\neffort. So in Rabbi Ben Ezra\\nNot on the vulgar mass\\nCalled work, must sentence pass,\\nThings done, that took the eye and had the\\nprice\\nO er which, from level stand,\\nThe low world laid its hand,\\nFound straightway to its mind, could value in a\\ntrice\\nBut all the world s coarse thumb\\nAnd finger failed to plumb,\\nSo passed in making up the main account\\nAll instincts immature,\\nAll purposes unsure,\\nThat weighed not as his work, yet swelled the\\nman s amount:\\nThoughts hardly to be packed\\nInto a narrow act,\\nFancies that broke through language and es-\\ncaped\\nAll 1 could never be,\\nAll, men ignored in me,\\nThis I was worth to God, whose wheel the\\npitcher shaped.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0169.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "146 EOBEET BBOWNING\\nSo, too, of course, in that splendid paean\\nof exalted failure, A Grammarian s\\nFuneral\\nThat low man seeks a little thing to do,\\nSees it and does it:\\nThis high man, with a great thing to pursue,\\nDies ere he knows it.\\nThat low man goes on adding one to one,\\nHis hundred s soon hit:\\nThis high man, aiming at a million,\\nMisses an unit.\\nThe same idea animates his poems upon\\nthe arts, which, since the artist s aim is\\nalways ideal and inaccessible, are para-\\nbles, so to speak, of the higher life.\\nAndrea del Sarto is the picture of a\\npainter who, being without fault in\\nsmall technicalities, blameless to the\\nsmaller critic, is ruined in the higher\\nand spiritual expression. He looks at a\\npicture by the young Eaphael, can see\\nfaults in its drawing, faults which he\\ncould remedy, but knows that the soul\\nof the work is beyond him.\\nStill, what an arm! and I could alter it:\\nBut all the play, the insight and the stretch-\\nout of me, out of me", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0170.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 147\\nSo in u Abt Vogler the musician hears\\nthe melody die away, and feels that in\\npower of permanent expression he is far\\nbehind the builder, who rears some mag-\\nnificent cathedral for all time. But to\\nboth the painter and the musician the\\nsame consolation returns, bringing a\\nsense of future development, u Other\\nheights in other lives, God willing.\\nFor Andrea,\\nWhat would one have\\nIn heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more\\nchance\\nFour great walls in the new Jerusalem,\\nMeted on each side by the angel s reed,\\nFor Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me\\nTo cover.\\nFor the musician,\\nAll we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good\\nshall exist\\nNot its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor\\ngood, nor power\\nWhose voice has gone forth, but each survives\\nfor the melodist,\\nWhen eternity affirms the conception of an\\nhour.", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0171.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "148 EOBERT BKOWKTNG\\nThe high that proved too high, the heroic for\\nearth too hard,\\nThe passion that left the ground to lose itself\\nin the sky,\\nAre music sent up to God by the lover and the\\nbard\\nEnough that He heard it once we shall hear\\nit by and by.\\nThere, shorn of all external concomi-\\ntants, is the simple, direct, eternal mes-\\nsage of Browning s poetry. He ap-\\nproaches the real world, says Professor\\nDowden, putting the whole discussion\\ninto a sentence, and takes it as it is\\nand for what it is, yet at the same time\\npenetrates it with sudden spiritual fire.\\nThe doctrine is as old as Plato, and has\\nreappeared in a score of different forms\\nit is inseparable from the teaching of the\\nHebrew prophets it has thrown its\\nroots into the fabric of Christianity.\\nThere is nothing in it obscure, difficult,\\nor remote. It is the elementary doctrine\\nof the continuity of energy. But in\\nBrowning it assumes a hundred facets,", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0172.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "EOBERT BROWNING 149\\nwhich take the light so differently that\\nwe get a perpetual sense of novelty and\\nchange. As each new character is dis-\\nplayed, with amazing subtlety of sympa-\\nthy and insight, the eye is almost dazzled\\nwith the flashing of side-lights and the\\none, bright, u gem-like flame at the\\nheart of things is occasionally sub-\\nmerged. Penetrate the outward scintil-\\nlations, however and it is always found\\nto be burning steadily and clear. To\\nrealise himself in all his emotions and\\naspirations, to grow into form and beauty\\nlike the clay upon the potter s wheel,\\nthat is the whole duty of man.\\nAy, note that Potter s wheel,\\nThat metaphor! and feel\\nWhy time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nThou, to whom fools propound,\\nWhen the wine makes its round,\\nSince life fleets, all is change; the Past gone,\\nseize to-day\\nFool all that is, at all,\\nLasts ever, past recall;\\nEarth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0173.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "150 EOBEET BROWNING\\nWhat entered into thee,\\nThat was, is, and shall be\\nTime s wheel runs back or stops Potter and clay\\nendure.\\nIt has been objected against Bro wr-\\ning s claim to greatness that he did but\\nlittle to reflect the aims and aspirations\\nof his own countrymen, that he was very\\nlittle moved by the stream of events, and\\nthat his historical value is affected by\\nhis lack of immediate value to his time.\\nIt is true, indeed, that Browning was at\\nno time a topical poet; and much\\nof his long unpopularity was, no doubt,\\ndue to his disinclination to come down\\ninto the market-place, with his singing\\nrobes about him, and make great ballads\\nof the day to the chorus of the crowd.\\nBut there is a higher part even than that\\nof a national poet and Browning is, in\\na very real sense, the poet, not of Eng-\\nland alone, but of the world. His atti-\\ntude to men and life was never distraught\\nby petty interests of blood or party the", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0174.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "ROBERT BROWNING 151\\none claim upon him was the claim of\\nhumanity. He was a man, and nothing\\nthat pertained to man was foreign to\\nhimself. What will be his final place\\nin the long array of English poetry it\\nis still impossible to say. It took long\\nfor him to come into his own, and even\\nthen many outside developments helped\\nhim. We think ourselves to-day far\\nwiser than our grandparents we fancy,\\nperhaps, that, if Pauline had come to one\\nof us fresh from the press, we should\\nhave hailed it forthwith as a work of\\ncoming genius. All this may be, and\\nyet the last word will always remain to\\nbe said. Time brings in, not only re-\\nvenges, but redresses and it is probable\\nthat Robert Browning is not even yet\\nappreciated as he will be by our chil-\\ndren s children. But even now we know\\nhim for much that he is, the subtlest,\\nstrongest master of human aspiration,\\nsave only Shakespeare, that has ever\\ndignified the English language with", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0175.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "152 ROBERT BROWNING\\npoetry j a man who felt for men with\\nall the intensity of a great, unselfish\\nheart a genius crowned with one guer-\\ndon which genius cannot always boast,\\na pure and noble life. Standing in the\\ntwilight shades of the whispering Abbey,\\nin that sacred corner full of haunting\\nmelodies and immortal yearnings, we\\nmay gladly feel that, however long and\\nweary was the neglect of him, he is now,\\nat last, gathered to his peers.\\nLofty designs must close in like effects:\\nLoftily lying,\\nLeave him,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 still loftier than the world suspects,\\nLiving and dying.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0176.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "BIBLIOGEAPHY.\\nThe fullest bibliography of Eobert\\nBrowning s writings is that issued in\\n1896-97 by Mr. Thomas J. Wise. But,\\nas this is printed for subscribers only, it\\nis best to refer the ordinary reader to\\nthe excellent Browning bibliography\\nwhich is appended to the later editions\\nof Mrs. Sutherland Orr s Handbook to the\\nWorks of Eobert Browning. Students\\nwho desire full information should con-\\nsult it carefully. For those who wish\\nto enlarge their familiarity with Brown-\\ning s life without intimate research, and\\nwho seek clear and simple criticism of\\nhis work, the following books will be of\\nparticular value\\nThe Life and Letters of Eobert\\nBrowning. By Mrs. Sutherland Orr.\\nSecond edition in one volume. (Lon-\\ndon, 1891.)\\nThe Life of Eobert Browning. By\\nWilliam Sharp. Great Writers Se-", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0177.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "154 BIBLIOGEAPHY\\nries. (A New Edition.) (London,\\n1897.)\\nEgbert Browning Personalia. By\\nEdmund Gosse. (Boston and London,\\n1890.)\\nCritical Kit-Kats. By Edmund Gosse.\\nThe Sonnets from the Portuguese.\\n(London, 1896.)\\nEecords of Tennyson, Euskin, and\\nBrowning. By Anne Eitchie. (Lon-\\ndon, 1892.)\\nAn Introduction to the Study of\\nBrowning. By Arthur Symons. (Lon-\\ndon, 1886.)\\nThe Poets and Poetry of the Cen-\\ntury. Article on Eobert Browning by\\nDr. F. J. Furnivall. (London, 1892.)\\nStudies in Literature. By Edward\\nDowden, LL.D. Article on Tennyson\\nand Browning. (London, 1887.", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0178.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "BIBLIOGRAPHY 155\\nNew Studies in Literature. By\\nEdward Dowden, LL.D. Article on\\nBordello. (London, 1895.)\\nCorrected Impressions. By Profes-\\nsor George Saintsbury. Article on\\nBrowning. (London, 1895.)\\nA Handbook to the Works of Rob-\\nert Browning. By Mrs. Sutherland\\nOrr. (London, 1886.)", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0179.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0180.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0181.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0182.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0183.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": ",i lyuu", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0184.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0185.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS", "height": "2518", "width": "1634", "jp2-path": "robertbrowning00waug_0186.jp2"}}