The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ Library, not knowing the author, was an ardent admirer of Browning, found himself in Paris, and he and Browning passed long mornings in the Louvre. The painter declared that Browning’s knowledge of early Italian art was beyond that of any one whom he had met, Ruskin not excepted.

Ruskin was a standard of artistic measurement in those days to a degree hardly conceivable now; not that much of his judgment does not stand the test of time, but that authoritative criticism has so many embodiments. Mrs. Browning, to whom Ruskin was one of the nearest of her circle, considered him a critic who was half a poet as well, and her clear insight discerned what is now universally recognized, that he was “encumbered by a burning imagination.” She told him that he was apt to light up any object he looked upon, “just as we, when we carried torches into the Vatican, were not clear as to how much we brought to that wonderful Demosthenes, folding the marble round him in its thousand folds,” and questioned as to where was the dividing line between the sculptor and the torch-bearer. This fairly clairvoyant insight of Mrs. Browning into character, the ability to discern defects as well as virtues where she loved, and to love where she discerned defects, is still further illustrated by a letter of hers to Ruskin on the death of Miss Mitford. “But no, her ‘judgment’ was not ‘unerring,’” wrote Mrs. Browning. “She was too intensely sympathetic not to err often ... if she loved a person it was enough.... And yet ... her judgment could be fine and discriminating, especially upon subjects connected with life and society and manners.”

      Again, to a friend who had met a great bereavement she also wrote in these Paris days:

      “We get knowledge in losing what we hoped for, and liberty by losing what we love. This world is a fragment, or, rather, a segment, and it will be rounded presently. Not to doubt that is the greatest blessing it gives now. The common impression of death is as false as it is absurd. A mere change of circumstances,—what more? And how near these spirits are, how conscious of us, how full of active energy, of tender reminiscence and interest in us? Who shall dare to doubt? For myself, I do not doubt at all.”

      In that latest collection of Browning’s poems, no one excited more discussion at the time than “The Statue and the Bust.” There being then no Browning Societies to authoritatively decide the poet’s real meaning on any disputed point, the controversy assumed formidable proportions. Did Browning mean this poem to be an apologia for illegal love? was asked with bated breath.

      The statue of Fernandino di Medici, in the Piazza dell’ Annunziata, in Florence,—that magnificent equestrian group by Giovanni da Bologna,—is one of the first monuments that the visitor who has a fancy for tracing out poetic legends fares forth to see. As an example of plastic art, alone, it is well worth a pilgrimage; but as touched by the magic of the poet’s art, it is magnetic with life. Dating back to 1608, it was left for Robert Browning to invest it with immortality.

“There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well And a statue watches it from the square.”

      In the poem Mr. Browning alludes to the cornice, “where now is the empty shrine”; but his son believes that there never was any bust in this niche, the bust being simply the poet’s creation. The statue of the Grand Duke is remarkable enough to inspire any story; and the Florentine noble may well take pride in the manner that “John of Douay” has presented him, if he still “contrives” to see it, and still “laughs in his tomb” at the perpetual pilgrimage that is made to the scene of the legend, as well as to the royal Villa Petraja, also immortalized in Browning’s poem.

      June came, the closing books of “Aurora Leigh” had been written, and under the roof of her dear friend and cousin, Kenyon, who had begged the Brownings to accept the loan of his house in Devonshire Place, the last pages were transcribed, and the dedication made to the generous friend who was the appointed good angel of their lives. They were saddened by Kenyon’s illness, which imprisoned him for that summer on the Isle of Wight, and after seeing “Aurora Leigh” through the press, they passed a little time with him at Cowes, and also visited Mrs. Browning’s sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook), before setting out for Italy. No one in London missed them more than Dante Gabriel Rossetti. “With them has gone one of my delights,” he said; “an evening resort where I never felt unhappy.”

      Equestrian Statue of Ferdinando de’ medici,

       by Giovanni da Bologna.

       in the piazza dell’ annunziata, florence.

      “There’s a palace in Florence the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square.”

      The Ring and the Book.

      The success of “Aurora Leigh” was immediate, a second edition being called for within a fortnight, and edition after edition followed. This work, of which, twelve years before, she had a dim foreshadowing, as of a novel in verse, has the twofold interest of a great dramatic poem and of a philosophic commentary on art and life. To estimate it only as a social treatise is to recognize but one element in its kaleidoscopic interest. Yet the narrative, it must be confessed, is fantastic and unreal. When the conception of the work first dawned upon her, she said she preferred making her story to choosing that of any legend, for the theme; but the plot is its one defect, and is only saved from being a serious defect by the richness and splendor of thought with which it is invested. The poem is to some degree a spiritual autobiography; its narrative part having no foundation in reality, but on this foundation she has recorded her highest convictions on the philosophy of life. Love, Art, Ethics, the Christianity of Christ,—all are here, in this almost inexhaustible mine of intellectual and spiritual wealth. It is a poem peculiarly calculated to kindle and inspire. What a passage is this:

      “... I can live

       At least my soul’s life, without alms from men,

       And if it be in heaven instead of earth,

       Let heaven look to it,—I am not afraid.”

      A profound occult truth is embodied in the following:

      “Whate’er our state we must have made it first;

       And though the thing displease us,—aye, perhaps,

       Displease us warrantably, never doubt

       That other states, though possible once, and then

       Rejected by the instinct of our lives,

       If then adopted had displeased us more.

       ······

       What we choose may not be good;

       But that we choose it, proves it good for us.”

      No Oriental savant could more forcibly present his doctrine of karma than has Mrs. Browning in these lines. Her recognition of the power of poetry is here expressed:

      “And plant a poet’s word even deep enough

       In any man’s breast, looking presently

       For offshoots, you have done more for the man

       Than if you dressed him in a broadcloth coat,

       And warmed his Sunday pottage at your fire.”

Poetry was to her as serious a thing as life itself. “There has been no playing at skittles for me in either poetry, or life,” she said; “I never mistook pleasure СКАЧАТЬ