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

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СКАЧАТЬ his mission with his son, educated him, launched him in a suitable career, and to go back to sunshine and beauty again. He learned by degrees to regard London as a home; as the only fitting centre for the varied energies which were reviving in him; to feel pride and pleasure in its increasingly picturesque character. He even learned to appreciate the outlook from his house — that ‘second from the bridge’ of which so curious a presentment had entered into one of the poems of the ‘Men and Women’* — in spite of the refuse of humanity which would sometimes yell at the street corner, or fling stones at his plate-glass. But all this had to come; and it is only fair to admit that twenty-nine years ago the beauties of which I have spoken were in great measure to come also. He could not then in any mood have exclaimed, as he did to a friend two or three years ago: ‘Shall we not have a pretty London if things go on in this way?’ They were driving on the Kensington side of Hyde Park.

* ‘How it strikes a Contemporary’.

      The paternal duty, which, so much against his inclination, had established Mr. Browning in England, would in every case have lain very near to his conscience and to his heart; but it especially urged itself upon them through the absence of any injunction concerning it on his wife’s part. No farewell words of hers had commended their child to his father’s love and care; and though he may, for the moment, have imputed this fact to unconsciousness of her approaching death, his deeper insight soon construed the silence into an expression of trust, more binding upon him than the most earnest exacted promise could have been. The growing boy’s education occupied a considerable part of his time and thoughts, for he had determined not to send him to school, but, as far as possible, himself prepare him for the University. He must also, in some degree, have supervised his recreations. He had therefore, for the present, little leisure for social distractions, and probably at first very little inclination for them. His plan of life and duty, and the sense of responsibility attendant on it, had been communicated to Madame du Quaire in a letter written also from St.-Enogat.

      M. Chauvin, St.-Enogat pres Dinard, Ile et Vilaine: Aug. 17, ‘61.

      Dear Madame du Quaire, — I got your note on Sunday afternoon, but found myself unable to call on you as I had been intending to do. Next morning I left for this place (near St.-Malo, but I give what they say is the proper address). I want first to beg you to forgive my withholding so long your little oval mirror — it is safe in Paris, and I am vexed at having stupidly forgotten to bring it when I tried to see you. I shall stay here till the autumn sets in, then return to Paris for a few days — the first of which will be the best, if I can see you in the course of it — afterward, I settle in London.

      When I meant to pass the winter in Paris, I hoped, the first thing almost, to be near you — it now seems to me, however, that the best course for the Boy is to begin a good English education at once. I shall take quiet lodgings (somewhere near Kensington Gardens, I rather think) and get a Tutor. I want, if I can (according to my present very imperfect knowledge) to get the poor little fellow fit for the University without passing thro’ a Public School. I, myself, could never have done much by either process, but he is made differently — imitates and emulates and all that. How I should be grateful if you would help me by any word that should occur to you! I may easily do wrong, begin ill, thro’ too much anxiety — perhaps, however, all may be easier than seems to me just now.

      I shall have a great comfort in talking to you — this writing is stiff, ineffectual work. Pen is very well, cheerful now, — has his little horse here. The place is singularly unspoiled, fresh and picturesque, and lovely to heart’s content. I wish you were here! — and if you knew exactly what such a wish means, you would need no assuring in addition that I am Yours affectionately and gratefully ever Robert Browning.

      The person of whom he saw most was his sister-in-law, whom he visited, I believe, every evening. Miss Barrett had been a favourite sister of Mrs. Browning’s, and this constituted a sufficient title to her husband’s affection. But she was also a woman to be loved for her own sake. Deeply religious and very charitable, she devoted herself to visiting the poor — a form of philanthropy which was then neither so widespread nor so fashionable as it has since become; and she founded, in 1850, the first Training School or Refuge which had ever existed for destitute little girls. It need hardly be added that Mr. and Miss Browning cooperated in the work. The little poem, ‘The Twins’, republished in 1855 in ‘Men and Women’, was first printed (with Mrs. Browning’s ‘Plea for the Ragged Schools of London’) for the benefit of this Refuge. It was in Miss Barrett’s company that Mr. Browning used to attend the church of Mr. Thomas Jones, to a volume of whose ‘Sermons and Addresses’ he wrote a short introduction in 1884.

      On February 15, 1862, he writes again to Miss Blagden.

      Feb. 15, ‘62.

      ‘… While I write, my heart is sore for a great calamity just befallen poor Rossetti, which I only heard of last night — his wife, who had been, as an invalid, in the habit of taking laudanum, swallowed an overdose — was found by the poor fellow on his return from the working-men’s class in the evening, under the effects of it — help was called in, the stomach-pump used; but she died in the night, about a week ago. There has hardly been a day when I have not thought, “if I can, tomorrow, I will go and see him, and thank him for his book, and return his sister’s poems.” Poor, dear fellow! …

      ‘… Have I not written a long letter, for me who hate the sight of a pen now, and see a pile of unanswered things on the table before me? — on this very table. Do you tell me in turn all about yourself. I shall be interested in the minutest thing you put down. What sort of weather is it? You cannot but be better at your new villa than in the large solitary one. There I am again, going up the winding way to it, and seeing the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the top of the wall under the olive-trees! Once more, goodbye… .’

      The hatred of writing of which he here speaks refers probably to the class of letters which he had lately been called upon to answer, and which must have been painful in proportion to the kindness by which they were inspired. But it returned to him many years later, in simple weariness of the mental and mechanical act, and with such force that he would often answer an unimportant note in person, rather than make the seemingly much smaller exertion of doing so with his pen. It was the more remarkable that, with the rarest exceptions, he replied to every letter which came to him.

      The late summer of the former year had been entirely unrefreshing, in spite of his acknowledgment of the charms of St.-Enogat. There was more distraction and more soothing in the stay at Cambo and Biarritz, which was chosen for the holiday of 1862. Years afterwards, when the thought of Italy carried with it less longing and even more pain, Mr. Browning would speak of a visit to the Pyrenees, if not a residence among them, as one of the restful possibilities of his later and freer life. He wrote to Miss Blagden:

      Biarritz, Maison Gastonbide: Sept. 19, ‘62.

      ‘… I stayed a month at green pleasant little Cambo, and then came here from pure inability to go elsewhere — St.-Jean de Luz, on which I had reckoned, being still fuller of Spaniards who profit by the new railway. This place is crammed with gay people of whom I see nothing but their outsides. The sea, sands, and view of the Spanish coast and mountains, are superb and this house is on the town’s outskirts. I stay till the end of the month, then go to Paris, and then get my neck back into the old collar again. Pen has managed to get more enjoyment out of his holiday than seemed at first likely — there was a nice French family at Cambo with whom he fraternised, riding with the son and escorting the daughter in her walks. His red cheeks look as they should. For me, I have got on by having a great read at Euripides — the one book I brought with me, besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be; and of which the whole is pretty well in my head, — the Roman murder story you know.

      ‘… СКАЧАТЬ