The Brownings Part 8

The lovers, for such they already are, however unconsciously to both, fall into a long discussion of Prometheus, and the Greek drama in general, and in another letter, with allusion to his begging her to take her own good time in writing, she half playfully proffers that it is her own bad time to which she must submit. "This implacable weather!" she writes; "this east wind that seems to blow through the sun and the moon!... There will be a May and June if we live to see such things," and then she speaks of seeing him besides, and while she recognizes it is morbid to shrink and grow pale in the spirit, yet not all her fine philosophy about social duties quite carries her through. But "if he thinks she shall not like to see him, he is wrong, for all his learning." What pathos of revelation of this brave, celestial spirit, tenanting the most fragile of bodies, is read in the ensuing pa.s.sage:

"What you say of society draws me on to many comparative thoughts of your life and mine. You seem to have drunken of the cup of life full with the sun shining on it. I have lived only inwardly, or with sorrow for a strong emotion. Before this seclusion of my illness I was secluded still, and there are few of the youngest women in the world who have not seen more, known more, of society, than I, who am hardly to be called young now. I grew up in the country, had no social opportunities, had my heart in books and poetry, and my experience in reveries.... Books and dreams were what I lived in--and domestic life seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees about the gra.s.s.... Why, if I live on and escape this seclusion, do you not perceive that I labor under signal disadvantages, that I am, in a manner, a blind poet?... I have had much of the inner life ... but how willingly would I exchange some of this ponderous, helpless knowledge of books for some experience of life.... But grumbling is a vile thing, and we should all thank G.o.d for our measures of life, and think them enough.... Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live while I write--it is life for me. Why, what is it to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,--but to feel the life in you down all the fibers of being, pa.s.sionately and joyfully....

"Ah, you tempt me with a grand vision of Prometheus!... I am inclined to think that we want new forms.... The old G.o.ds are dethroned. Why should we go back to the antique moulds? If it is a necessity of Art to do this, then those critics are right who hold that Art is exhausted.... I do not believe this; and I believe the so-called necessity of Art to be the mere feebleness of the artist. Let us all aspire rather to Life.... For there is poetry everywhere...."

Miss Barrett writes to him, continuing the discussion of poetry as an Art, that she does not want "material as material, but that every life requires a full experience," and she has a profound conviction that a poet is at a lamentable disadvantage if he has been shut from most of the outer aspects of life. And he, replying, deprecates a little the outward life for a poet, with amusing references to a novel of D'Israeli's, where, "lo, dinner is done, and Vivian Grey is here, and Violet Fane there, and a detachment of the party is drafted off to catch b.u.t.terflies." But still he partly agrees, and feels that her Danish novel ("The Improvisatore") must be full of truth and beauty, and "that a Dane should write so, confirms me in a belief that Italy is stuff for the use of the North and no more--pure Poetry there is none, as near as possible none, in Dante, even;... and Alfieri,... with a life of travel, writes you some fifteen tragedies as colorless as salad grown under a garden gla.s.s...." But she--if she asks questions about novels it is because she wants to see him by the refracted lights, as well as by the direct ones; and Dante's poetry--"only material for northern rhymers?" She must think of that before she agrees with him.

As for Browning, he bids her remember that he writes letters to no one but her; but there is never enough of telling her.... And she, noting his sitting up in the morning till six, and sleeping only till nine, wants to know "how 'Lurias' can be made out of such unG.o.dly imprudences? And what is the reasonableness of it," she questions, "when we all know that thinking, dreaming, creative people, like yourself, have two lives to bear instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others"; and he is antic.i.p.ating the day when he shall see her with his own eyes, and now a day is named on which he will call, and he begs her not to mind his coming in the least, for if she does not feel able to see him he will come again, and again, as his time is of no importance.

It was on the afternoon of May 20 (1845) that Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett first met, and of them it could almost have been said, in words ascribed to Michael Angelo for Vittoria Colonna,--

"We are the only two, that, face to face, Do know each other, as G.o.d doth know us both."

It is said that the first letter of Browning's to her after this meeting is the only one destroyed of all this wonderful correspondence; and this was such a letter as could only be interpreted into a desire for marriage, which she, all tender thoughtfulness always for others, characteristically felt would be fatal to his happiness because of her invalid state. He begged her to return the letter, and he then destroyed it; and again pleaded that their friendship and intellectual comradeship should continue. "Your friendship and sympathy will be dear and precious to me all my life, if you indeed leave them with me so long, or so little," she writes; and she utterly forbids any further expression or she must do this "to be in my own eyes and before G.o.d a little more worthy, or a little less unworthy, of a generosity...." And he discreetly veils his ardors for the time, and the wonderful letters run on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO MICHAEL ANGELO, BY VASARI

CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE.

"_They are safe in heaven...._ _The Michaels and Rafaels...._"

Old Pictures in Florence.]

He is writing "The Flight of the d.u.c.h.ess," and sending it to her by installments; she finds it "past speaking of," and she also refers to "exquisite pages" of Landor's in the "Pentameron." And poems which he has left with her,--she must have her own gladness from them in her own way.

And did he go to Chelsea, and hear the divine philosophy?

Apparently he did, for he writes:

"Yes, I went to Chelsea and found dear Carlyle alone--his wife is in the country where he will join her as soon as the book's last proof sheets are corrected.... He was all kindness, and talked like his own self while he made me tea--and would walk as far as Vauxhall Bridge with me on my way home."

She writes:

"I had a letter yesterday from Charles Hemans, the son of Felicia, ...

who says his mother's memory is surrounded to him 'with almost a divine l.u.s.tre,'... and is not that better than your tradition about Sh.e.l.ley's son? and is it not pleasant to know that the n.o.ble, pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of our country, should be so loved and comprehended by one, at least, of her own house?"

Under date of August 25, Miss Barrett has been moved to write out the pathetic story of her brother Edward's death. He had accompanied her to Torquay,--he, "the kindest, the n.o.blest, the dearest, and when the time came for him to return I, weakened by illness, could not master my spirits or drive back my tears," and he then decided not to leave her. "And ten days from that day," she continued, "the boat left the sh.o.r.e which never returned--and he had left me! For three days we waited,--oh, that awful agony of three days!... Do not notice what I have written to you, my dearest friend. I have never said so much to a living being--I never could speak or write of it...."

But he writes her that "better than being happy in her happiness, is it to partic.i.p.ate in her sorrow." And the very last day of that August he writes that he has had such power over himself as to keep silent ... but "Let me say now--this only once,--that I loved you from my soul, and gave you my life, as much of it as you would take, and all that ... is independent of any return on your part." She a.s.sures him that he has followed the most generous of impulses toward her, "yet I cannot help adding that, of us two, yours has not been quite the hardest part." She confesses how deeply she is affected by his words, "but what could I speak," she questions, "that would not be unjust to you?... Your life! if you gave it to me and I put my whole heart into it, what should I put in but anxiety, and more sadness than you were born to? What could I give you which it would not be ungenerous to give?"

There was a partial plan that Miss Barrett should pa.s.s that next winter in Pisa, but owing to the strange and incalculable disposition of her father, who, while he loved her, was singularly autocratic in his treatment, the plan was abandoned. All this sorrow may have contributed to her confession to Browning that no man had ever been to her feelings what he was; and that if she were different in some respects she would accept the great trust of his happiness.... "But we may be friends always," she continues, "and cannot be so separated that the knowledge of your happiness will not increase mine.... Worldly thoughts these are not at all, there need be no soiling of the heart with any such;... you cannot despise the gold and gauds of the world more than I do,... and even if I wished to be very poor, in the world's sense of poverty, I could not, with three or four hundred a year, of which no living will can dispossess me. And is not the chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it?" But he, perfect in his beautiful trust and tenderness, was "joyfully confident" that the way would open, and he thanks G.o.d that, to the utmost of his power, he has not been unworthy of having been introduced to her.

He is "no longer in the first freshness of his life" and had for years felt it impossible that he should ever love any woman. But he will wait.

That she "cannot dance like Cerito" does not materially disarrange his plan! And by the last of those September days she confesses that she is his "for everything but to do him harm," he has touched her so profoundly, and now "none, except G.o.d and your own will, shall interpose between you and me." And he answered her in such words as these:

"When I come back from seeing you and think over it all, there is never a least word of yours I could not occupy myself with...."

In a subsequent letter Elizabeth Barrett questions: "Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you? if so it was well done." And she sends thanks to Browning's sister, Sarianna, for a copy of Landor's verses.

And with all these gracious and tenderly exquisite personal matters, the letters are yet brilliant in literary allusion and criticism.

During these three years from 1844 to 1847 were written the greater number of Miss Barrett's finest lyrics. Those two remarkable poems, "A Rhapsody of Life's Progress" and "Confessions"; "Loved Once"; "The Sleep" (the poem which was read at her burial in the lovely, cypress-crowned cemetery in Florence, and whose stanzas, set to music, were chanted by the choir in Westminster Abbey when the body of her husband was laid in the "Poets'

Corner"), "The Dead Pan," and that most exquisite lyric of all, "Catarina to Camoens," were all written during this period.

The t.i.tle of the latter was but a transparent veil for her own feelings toward Robert Browning, and had she died in his absence, as Catarina did in that of Camoens, the words would have expressed her own feeling. What profound pathos is in the line,

"Death is near me,--and not _you_,"

and how her own infinite sweetness of spirit is mirrored in the stanza,

"I will look out to his future; I will bless it till it shine, Should he ever be a suitor Unto sweeter eyes than mine."

And read her own self-revelation again in "A Denial,"

"We have met late--it is too late to meet, O friend, not more than friend!"

But the denial breaks down, and the last lines tell the story:

"Here's no more courage in my soul to say 'Look in my face and see.'"

And in that last line of "Insufficiency,"

"I love thee so, Dear, that I only can leave thee."

In "Question and Answer," in "Proof and Disproof," "A Valediction," "Loved Once," and "Inclusions," he who reads between the lines and has the magic of divination may read the story of her inner life.

In the poem "Confessions" is touched a note of mystical, spiritual romance, spiritual tragedy, wholly of the inner life, that entirely differentiates from any other poetic expression of Mrs. Browning. In one stanza occur these lines:

"The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by night; Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light."

Even with all allowance for the imagination of the poet, these lines reveal such feeling, such tremulous susceptibility, that with less intellectual balance than was hers, combined with such lack of physical vigor, would almost inevitably have resulted in failure of poise. The current of spiritual energy was so strong with Elizabeth Barrett as to largely take the place of greater physical strength. That she never relapsed into the conditions of morbid invalidism is a marvel, and it is also an impressive testimony to the power of spiritual energy to control and determine physical conditions.

All through that summer the letters run on, daily, semi-daily. Of his work Browning writes that he shall be "prouder to begin one day,--may it be soon!--with your hand in mine from the beginning." Miss Barrett, referring to the Earl of Compton, who is reported from Rome as having achieved some prominence as a painter, proceeds to say:

"People in general would rather be Marquises than Roman artists, consulting their own wishes and inclination. I, for my part, ever since I could speak my mind and knew it, always openly and inwardly preferred the glory of those who live by their heads, to the opposite glory of those who carry other people's arms. So much for glory.

Happiness goes the same way to my fancy. There is something fascinating to me in that Bohemian way of living.... All the conventions of society cut so close and thin, that the soul can see through.... Beyond, above. It is real life as you say ... whether at Rome or elsewhere. I am very glad that you like simplicity in habits of life--it has both reasonableness and sanct.i.ty.... I am glad that you--who have had temptation enough, more than enough, I am sure, in every form--have lived in the midst of this London of ours, close to the great social vortex, yet have kept so safe, and free, and calm, and pure from the besetting sins of our society."

Browning, in one letter, alluding to the prevailing stupidity of the idea that genius and domestic happiness are incompatible, says: "We will live the real answer, will we not?... A man of genius mistreats his wife; well, take away the genius,--does he so instantly improve?"

Of the att.i.tude of his family toward their marriage he writes: