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

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СКАЧАТЬ or return was indeed past question, put himself at once in communication with Mr. Forster and with Landor’s brothers in England. The latter instantly undertook to supply the needs of their eldest brother during the remainder of his life. Thenceforth an income sufficient for his frugal wants was forwarded regularly for his use through the friend who had thus come forward at his need. To Mr. Browning’s respectful and judicious guidance Landor showed himself docile from the first. Removed from the inflictions, real and imaginary, of his life at Fiesole, he became another man, and at times still seemed to those about him like the old Landor at his best. It was in July, 1859, that the new arrangements for his life were made. The remainder of that summer he spent at Siena, first as the guest of Mr. Story, the American sculptor and poet, next in a cottage rented for him by Mr. Browning near his own. In the autumn of the same year Landor removed to a set of apartments in the Via Nunziatina in Florence, close to the Casa Guidi, in a house kept by a former servant of Mrs. Browning’s, an Englishwoman married to an Italian.* Here he continued to live during the five years that yet remained to him.’

* Wilson, Mrs. Browning’s devoted maid, and another most faithful servant of hers and her husband’s, Ferdinando Romagnoli.

      Mr. Landor’s presence is also referred to, with the more important circumstance of a recent illness of Mrs. Browning’s, in two characteristic and interesting letters of this period, one written by Mr. Browning to Frederic Leighton, the other by his wife to her sister-in-law. Mr. — now Sir F. — Leighton had been studying art during the previous winter in Italy.

      Kingdom of Piedmont, Siena: Oct. 9, ‘59.

      ‘My dear Leighton — I hope — and think — you know what delight it gave me to hear from you two months ago. I was in great trouble at the time about my wife who was seriously ill. As soon as she could bear removal we brought her to a villa here. She slowly recovered and is at last well — I believe — but weak still and requiring more attention than usual. We shall be obliged to return to Rome for the winter — not choosing to risk losing what we have regained with some difficulty. Now you know why I did not write at once — and may imagine why, having waited so long, I put off telling you for a week or two till I could say certainly what we do with ourselves. If any amount of endeavour could induce you to join us there — Cartwright, Russell, the Vatican and all — and if such a step were not inconsistent with your true interests — you should have it: but I know very well that you love Italy too much not to have had weighty reasons for renouncing her at present — and I want your own good and not my own contentment in the matter. Wherever you are, be sure I shall follow your proceedings with deep and true interest. I heard of your successes — and am now anxious to know how you get on with the great picture, the ‘Ex voto’ — if it does not prove full of beauty and power, two of us will be shamed, that’s all! But I don’t fear, mind! Do keep me informed of your progress, from time to time — a few lines will serve — and then I shall slip some day into your studio, and buffet the piano, without having grown a stranger. Another thing — do take proper care of your health, and exercise yourself; give those vile indigestions no chance against you; keep up your spirits, and be as distinguished and happy as God meant you should. Can I do anything for you at Rome — not to say, Florence? We go thither (i.e. to Florence) tomorrow, stay there a month, probably, and then take the Siena road again.’

      The next paragraph refers to some orders for photographs, and is not specially interesting.

      Cartwright arrived here a fortnight ago — very pleasant it was to see him: he left for Florence, stayed a day or two and returned to Mrs. Cartwright (who remained at the Inn) and they all departed prosperously yesterday for Rome. Odo Russell spent two days here on his way thither — we liked him much. Prinsep and Jones — do you know them? — are in the town. The Storys have passed the summer in the villa opposite, — and no less a lion than dear old Landor is in a house a few steps off. I take care of him — his amiable family having clawed him a little too sharply: so strangely do things come about! I mean his Fiesole ‘family’ — a trifle of wife, sons and daughter — not his English relatives, who are generous and good in every way.

      Take any opportunity of telling dear Mrs. Sartoris (however unnecessarily) that I and my wife remember her with the old feeling — I trust she is well and happy to heart’s content. Pen is quite well and rejoicing just now in a Sardinian pony on which he gallops like Puck on a dragonfly’s back. My wife’s kind regard and best wishes go with those of, Dear Leighton, yours affectionately ever, R. Browning.

      October 1859.

      Mrs. to Miss Browning.

      ‘… After all, it is not a cruel punishment to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesirable expense, and we did wish to keep quiet this winter, — the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert. We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end — and then we don’t work so well, don’t live to as much use either for ourselves or others. Isa Blagden bids us observe that we pretend to live at Florence, and are not there much above two months in the year, what with going away for the summer and going away for the winter. It’s too true. It’s the drawback of Italy. To live in one place there is impossible for us, almost just as to live out of Italy at all, is impossible for us. It isn’t caprice on our part. Siena pleases us very much — the silence and repose have been heavenly things to me, and the country is very pretty — though no more than pretty — nothing marked or romantic — no mountains, except so far off as to be like a cloud only on clear days — and no water. Pretty dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards, purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them… . We shall not leave Florence till November — Robert must see Mr. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartments with Wilson for a duenna. It’s an excellent plan for him and not a bad one for Wilson… . Forgive me if Robert has told you this already. Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his “gentleness and sweetness”. A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very affectionate to Robert (as he ought to be), but of self-restraint, he has not a grain, and of suspiciousness, many grains. Wilson will run many risks, and I, for one, would rather not run them. What do you say to dashing down a plate on the floor when you don’t like what’s on it? And the contadini at whose house he is lodging now have been already accused of opening desks. Still upon that occasion (though there was talk of the probability of Mr. Landor’s “throat being cut in his sleep” — ) as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him — and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics against his wife and Louis Napoleon. He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honour of the Emperor, to please me.’

      Mrs. Browning writes, somewhat later, from Rome:

      ‘… We left Mr. Landor in great comfort. I went to see his apartment before it was furnished. Rooms small, but with a look-out into a little garden, quiet and cheerful, and he doesn’t mind a situation rather out of the way. He pays four pounds ten (English) the month. Wilson has thirty pounds a year for taking care of him — which sounds a good deal, but it is a difficult position. He has excellent, generous, affectionate impulses — but the impulses of the tiger, every now and then. Nothing coheres in him — either in his opinions, or, I fear, his affections. It isn’t age — he is precisely the man of his youth, I must believe. Still, his genius gives him the right of gratitude on all artists at least, and I must say that my Robert has generously paid the debt. Robert always said that he owed more as a writer to Landor than to any contemporary. At present Landor is very fond of him — but I am quite prepared for his turning against us as he has turned against Forster, who has been so devoted for years and years. Only one isn’t kind for what one gets by it, or there wouldn’t be much kindness in this world… .’

      Mr. Browning always declared that his wife could СКАЧАТЬ