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

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СКАЧАТЬ to be published, shall be kept back.” He had also lent Story considerable assistance in arranging with Blackwood for the serial publication of “Roba di Roma.”

For two or three summers Browning with his father, his sister, and his son, passed the summers at St. Marie, near Pornic, from where in the August of 1863 he wrote to Leighton that he was living on fruit and milk, and that each day he completed some work, read a little with Pen, and somewhat more by himself. St. Marie was a “wild little place” in Brittany, on the very edge of the sea, a hamlet of hardly more than a dozen houses, of which the Brownings had the privilege of occupying that of the mayor, whose chief attraction, apparently, was that, though bare, it was clean. The poet liked it all, and it was there that he wrote “In the Doorway” in “James Lee’s Wife,” with the sea, the field, and the fig-tree visible from his window.

      In the late summer the Brownings are all again at St. Marie in Brittany, and the poet writes to Isa Blagden that he supposes what she “calls fame within these four years” has come somewhat from his going about and showing himself alive, “but,” he adds, “I was in London from the time that I published ‘Paracelsus’ till I ended the writing of plays with ‘Luria,’—and I used to go out then, and see far more of merely literary people, critics, etc., than I do now,—but what came of it?” If in the lines following there is a hint of sadness, who can blame him?

      During this summer he revised “Sordello” for re-publication, not, however, as he had once contemplated, making in it any significant changes. In the dedication to his friend Milsand, he incorporated so clear an exposition of his idea in the poem that this dedication will always be read with special interest. In London again the next winter, Browning wrote to Isa Blagden that he “felt comfort in doing the best he could with the object of his life,—poetry. I hope to do much more yet,” he continued; “and that the flower of it will be put into Her hand somehow.”

      The London spring found the poet much engaged, taking his son to studios, and to the Royal Academy, to concerts, and for long walks, and in a letter to Kate Field not heretofore published is indicated something of the general trend of the days:

London, 19, Warwick Crescent, Upper Westbourne Terrace, May 5th, 1864.

      Dear Kate Field, (so let me call you, please, in regard to old times when I might have done it, and did not,) I know well enough that there is great stupidity in this way of mine, this putting off a thing because I hope to compass some other thing, as here, for had you not asked for some photographs which I supposed I could soon find time and inclination to get, I should have thanked you at once; as I do now, indeed, and with all my heart, but the review article is wavering and indistinct in my mind now, and though it is inside a drawer of this table where I write, I cannot bring myself to look at it again,—not from a motive which is disparaging to you, as I am sure you understand; the general impression is enough for me, also, if you care in the least how I feel toward you. The boy has certainly the likeness to which you refer, and an absolute sameness, almost, in feature as well as in look, with certain old portraits of hers,—here, older and younger; there is not a trace of me in him, thank God! I know that dear, teasing Isa, and how she won’t answer your questions, but sometimes, for compensation, she tells you what you never asked for, and though I always, or very often, ask about you, yet I think it may have been in reply to curiosity about the price of Italian stock, that she lately described to me a photograph of you, yourself, and how you were: what? even that’s over. And moreover, how you were your old self with additions, which, to be sure, I don’t require.

      Give my true regard to your mother, and thank her for her goodness in understanding me. But I write only to have a pleasant chat with you, in a balcony, looking for fire-flies in the garden, wider between us than the slanting Pitti façade, now that it’s warm and Maylike in Florence.

      Always yours,

       Robert Browning.

      Kate Field

       From a portrait painted by Elihu Vedder, Florence, 1860.

Mr. Browning had now begun to think of placing his son, who had passed his sixteenth birthday, in Oxford. In quest of this desire the poet sought the acquaintance of Dr. Jowett, afterward Master of Balliol College. This initiated a friendship between Browning and Jowett that lasted all the poet’s life, and that has insured to Balliol many priceless treasures of association with both Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Up to that time Jowett had not been an admirer of Browning’s poetry. But his keen interest in the theme then engaging Browning was aroused, and he wrote to a friend:

“I thought I was getting too old to make new friends, but I believe that I have made one,—Mr. Browning, the poet, who has been staying with me during the past few days. It is impossible to speak without enthusiasm of his open, generous nature, and his great ability and knowledge. I had no idea that there was a perfectly sensible poet in the world, entirely free from vanity, jealousy, or any other littleness, and thinking no more of himself than if he were an ordinary man. His great energy is very remarkable, as is his determination to make the most of the remainder of life. Of personal objects he seems to have none, except the education of his son, in which I hope in some degree to help him.”[9]

After returning to London, Browning writes to Tennyson, in thanks for a book received from the Laureate:[10]

      19, Warwick Crescent, W., Oct. 10, 1865.

      My Dear Tennyson,—When I came back last year from my holiday I found a gift from you, a book; this time I find only the blue and gold thing which, such as it is, I send you, you are to take from me. I could not even put in what I pleased but I have said all about it in the word or two of preface, as also that I beg leave to stick the bunch in your buttonhole. May I beg that Mrs. Tennyson will kindly remember me?

      Ever Affectionately Yours,

       Robert Browning.

      Tennyson wrote in reply that the nosegay was very welcome. “I stick it in my buttonhole ... and feel ——’s cork heels added to my boots,” he added.

      Volumes of selections from the poems of both Browning and his wife were now being demanded for the “Golden Treasury”; and to Miss Blagden Browning says further that he will certainly do the utmost to make the most of himself before he dies, “for one reason that I may help Pen the better.”

      Browning complies with his publisher’s request to prepare a new selection of his wife’s poems. “How I have done it, I can hardly say,” he noted, “but it is one dear delight that the work of her goes on more effectually than ever—her books are more and more read,”—and a new edition of her “Aurora Leigh” was exhausted within a few months.

      The winter was a very full and engaging one. On one evening he dined at the deanery of St. Paul’s, Sir John Lubbock and Tennyson being also guests, but the Stanleys, who were invited, were not present. At another dinner the poets met, Tennyson recording: “Mr. Browning gave me an affectionate greeting after all these years,” and Browning writing to a friend: “... I have enjoyed nothing so much as a dinner last week with Tennyson, who with his wife and one son is staying in town for a few weeks, and she is just what she was and always will be, very sweet and dear: he seems to me better than ever. I met him at a large party ... also at Carlyle’s....”

In May of 1866 Browning’s father was in poor health, and on June 14 he died, at his home in Paris, his son having arrived three days before. Although СКАЧАТЬ