The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861

VI

  Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,  'Tis worse than vain to tempt thee back!  Yet there is one who seems to be  Thine elder sister, in whose eyes  A faint, far northern light will rise  Sometimes and bring a dream of thee:  She is not that for which youth hoped;  But she hath blessings all her own,  Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,  And faith to sorrow given alone:  Almost I deem that it is thou  Come back with graver matron brow,  With deepened eyes and bated breath,  Like one who somewhere had met Death.  "But no," she answers, "I am she  Whom the gods love, Tranquillity;  That other whom you seek forlorn.  Half-earthly was; but I am born  Of the immortals, and our race  Have still some sadness in our face:  He wins me late, but keeps me long,  Who, dowered with every gift of passion,  In that fierce flame can forge and fashion  Of sin and self the anchor strong;  Can thence compel the driving force  Of daily life's mechanic course,  Nor less the nobler energies  Of needful toil and culture wise:  Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure,  Who can renounce and yet endure,  To him I come, not lightly wooed,  And won by silent fortitude."* * * * *

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Florence, July 5th, 1861.

  "When some belovèd voice that was to you  Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly,  And silence, against which you dare not cry,  Aches round you like a strong disease and new,—  What hope? what help? what music will undo  That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh,—  Not reason's subtle count,—not melody  Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew,—  Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,  Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees  To the clear moon,—nor yet the spheric laws  Self-chanted,—nor the angels' sweet All-hails,  Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these!  Speak THOU, availing Christ, and fill this pause!"

Thus sang the Muse of a great woman years ago; and now, alas! she, who, with constant suffering of her own, was called upon to grieve often for the loss of near and dear ones, has suddenly gone from among us, "and silence, against which we dare not cry, aches round us like a strong disease and new." Her own beautiful words are our words, the world's words,—and though the tears fall faster and thicker, as we search for all that is left of her in the noble poems which she bequeaths to humanity, there follows the sad consolation in feeling assured that she above all others felt the full value of life, the full value of death, and was prepared to meet her God humbly, yet joyfully, whenever He should claim her for His own. Her life was one long, large-souled, large-hearted prayer for the triumph of Right, Justice, Liberty; and she who lived for others was

       "poet true,  Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do  For Truth,—the ends being scarcely two."

Beauty was truth with her, the wife, mother, and poet, three in one, and such an earthly trinity as God had never before blessed the world with.

This day week, at half-past four o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Browning died. A great invalid from girlhood, owing to an unfortunate accident, Mrs. Browning's life was a prolonged combat with disease thereby engendered; and had not God given her extraordinary vitality of spirit, the frail body could never have borne up against the suffering to which it was doomed. Probably there never was a greater instance of the power of genius over the weakness of the flesh. Confined to her room in the country or city home of her father in England, Elizabeth Barrett developed into the great artist and scholar.

From her couch went forth those poems which have crowned her as "the world's greatest poetess"; and on that couch, where she lay almost speechless at times, and seeing none but those friends dearest and nearest, the soul-woman struck deep into the roots of Latin and Greek, and drank of their vital juices. We hold in kindly affection her learned and blind teacher, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who, she tells us, was "enthusiastic for the good and the beautiful, and one of the most simple and upright of human beings." The love of his grateful scholar, when called upon to mourn the good man's death, embalms his memory among her Sonnets, where she addresses him as her

  "Beloved friend, who, living many years  With sightless eyes raised vainly to the sun,  Didst learn to keep thy patient soul in tune  To visible Nature's elemental cheers!"

Nor did this "steadfast friend" forget his poet-pupil ere he went to "join the dead":—

  "Three gifts the Dying left me,—Aeschylus,  And Gregory Nazianzen, and a clock  Chiming the gradual hours out like a flock  Of stars, whose motion is melodious."

We catch a glimpse of those communings over "our Sophocles the royal," "our Aeschylus the thunderous," "our Euripides the human," and "my Plato the divine one," in her pretty poem of "Wine of Cyprus," addressed to Mr. Boyd. The woman translates the remembrance of those early lessons into her heart's verse:—

  "And I think of those long mornings  Which my thought goes far to seek,  When, betwixt the folio's turnings,  Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek.  Past the pane, the mountain spreading,  Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,  While a girlish voice was reading,—  Somewhat low for [Greek: ais] and [Greek: ois]."

These "golden hours" were not without that earnest argument so welcome to candid minds:—

  "For we sometimes gently wrangled,  Very gently, be it said,—  Since our thoughts were disentangled  By no breaking of the thread!  And I charged you with extortions  On the nobler fames of old,—  Ay, and sometimes thought your Persons  Stained the purple they would fold."

What high honor the scholar did her friend and teacher, and how nobly she could interpret the "rhythmic Greek," let those decide who have read Mrs. Browning's translations of "Prometheus Bound" and Bion's "Lament for Adonis."

Imprisoned within the four walls of her room, with books for her world and large humanity for her thought, the lamp of life burning so low at times that a feather would be placed on her lips to prove that there was still breath, Elizabeth Barrett read and wrote, and "heard the nations praising" her "far off." She loved

       "Art for art,  And good for God himself, the essential Good,"

until destiny (a destiny with God in it) brought two poets face to face and heart to heart. Mind had met mind and recognized its peer previously to that personal interview which made them one in soul; but it was not until after an acquaintance of two years that Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning were united in marriage for time and for eternity, a marriage the like of which can seldom be recorded. What wealth of love she could give is evidenced in those exquisite sonnets purporting to be from the Portuguese, the author being too modest to christen them by their right name, Sonnets from the Heart. None have failed to read the truth through this slight veil, and to see the woman more than the poet in such lines as these:—

  "I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange  My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee!"

We have only to turn to the concluding poem in "Men and Women," inscribed to E.B.B., to see how reciprocal was this great love.

From their wedding-day Mrs. Browning seemed to be endowed with new life. Her health visibly improved, and she was enabled to make excursions in England prior to her departure for the land of her adoption, Italy, where she found a second and a dearer home. For nearly fifteen years Florence and the Brownings have been one in the thoughts of many English and Americans; and Casa Guidi, which has been immortalized by Mrs. Browning's genius, will be as dear to the Anglo-Saxon traveller as Milton's Florentine residence has been heretofore. Those who now pass by Casa Guidi fancy an additional gloom has settled upon the dark face of the old palace, and grieve to think that those windows from which a spirit-face witnessed two Italian revolutions, and those large mysterious rooms where a spirit-hand translated the great Italian Cause into burning verse, and pleaded the rights of humanity in "Aurora Leigh," are hereafter to be the passing homes of the thoughtless or the unsympathizing.

Those who have known Casa Guidi as it was could hardly enter the loved rooms now and speak above a whisper. They who have been so favored can never forget the square anteroom, with its great picture and piano-forte, at which the boy Browning passed many an hour,—the little dining-room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning,—the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat,—and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where she always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered walls and the old pictures of saints that looked out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. Large book-cases, constructed of specimens of Florentine carving selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming over with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with more gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. Dante's grave profile, a cast of Keats's face and brow taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand musings. A quaint mirror, easy-chairs and sofas, and a hundred nothings that always add an indescribable charm, were all massed in this room. But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low arm-chair near the door. A small table, strewn with writing-materials, books, and newspapers, was always by her side.

To those who loved Mrs. Browning (and to know her was to love her) she was singularly attractive. Hers was not the beauty of feature; it was the loftier beauty of expression. Her slight figure seemed hardly large enough to contain the great heart that beat so fervently within, and the soul that expanded more and more as one year gave place to another. It was difficult to believe that such a fairy hand could pen thoughts of such ponderous weight, or that such a "still small voice" could utter them with equal force. But it was Mrs. Browning's face upon which one loved to gaze,—that face and head which almost lost themselves in the thick curls of her dark brown hair. That jealous hair could not hide the broad, fair forehead, "royal with the truth," as smooth as any girl's, and

"Too large for wreath of modern wont."

Her large brown eyes were beautiful, and were in truth the windows of her soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the poet-passion of heart and of intellect; and in gazing into them it was easy to read why Mrs. Browning wrote. God's inspiration was her motive power, and in her eyes was the reflection of this higher light.

  "And her smile it seemed half holy,  As if drawn from thoughts more far  Than our common jestings are."

Mrs. Browning's character was wellnigh perfect. Patient in long suffering, she never spoke of herself, except when the subject was forced upon her by others, and then with no complaint. She judged not, saving when great principles were imperilled, and then was ready to sacrifice herself upon the altar of Right. Forgiving as she wished to be forgiven, none approached her with misgivings, knowing her magnanimity. She was ever ready to accord sympathy to all, taking an earnest interest in the most insignificant, and so humble in her greatness that her friends looked upon her as a divinity among women. Thoughtful in the smallest things for others, she seemed to give little thought to herself; and believing in universal goodness, her nature was free from worldly suspicions. The first to see merit, she was the last to censure faults, and gave the praise that she felt with a generous hand. No one so heartily rejoiced at the success of others, no one was so modest in her own triumphs, which she looked upon more as a favor of which she was unworthy than as a right due to her. She loved all who offered her affection, and would solace and advise with any. She watched the progress of the world with tireless eye and beating heart, and, anxious for the good of the whole world, scorned to take an insular view of any political question. With her a political question was a moral question as well. Mrs. Browning belonged to no particular country; the world was inscribed upon the banner under which she fought. Wrong was her enemy; against this she wrestled, in whatever part of the globe it was to be found.

A noble devotion to and faith in the regeneration of Italy was a prominent feature in Mrs. Browning's life. To her, Italy was from the first a living fire, not the bed of dead ashes at which the world was wont to sneer. Her trust in God and the People was supreme; and when the Revolution of 1848 kindled the passion of liberty from the Alps to Sicily, she, in common with many another earnest spirit, believed that the hour for the fulfilment of her hopes had arrived. Her joyful enthusiasm at the Tuscan uprising found vent in the "Eureka" which she sang with so much fervor in Part First of "Casa Guidi Windows."

  "But never say 'No more'  To Italy's life! Her memories undismayed  Still argue 'Evermore'; her graves implore  Her future to be strong and not afraid;  Her very statues send their looks before."

And even she was ready to believe that a Pope might be a reformer.

  "Feet, knees, and sinews, energies divine,  Were never yet too much for men who ran  In such hard ways as must be this of thine,  Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art,  Pope, prince, or peasant! If, indeed, the first,  The noblest therefore! since the heroic heart  Within thee must be great enough to burst  Those trammels buckling to the baser part  Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed  With the same finger."

The Second Part of "Casa Guidi Windows" is a sad sequel to the First, but Mrs. Browning does not deride. She bows before the inevitable, but is firm in her belief of a future living Italy.

  "In the name of Italy  Meantime her patriot dead have benison;  They only have done well;—and what they did  Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber!"

Her short-lived credence in the good faith of Popes was buried with much bitterness of heart:—

  "And peradventure other eyes may see,  From Casa Guidi windows, what is done  Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be,  Pope Pius will be glorified in none."

It is a matter of great thankfulness that God permitted Mrs. Browning to witness the second Italian revolution before claiming her for heaven. No patriot Italian, of whatever high degree, gave greater sympathy to the aspirations of 1859 than Mrs. Browning, an echo of which the world has read in her "Poems before Congress" and still later contributions to the New York "Independent." Great was the moral courage of this frail woman to publish the "Poems before Congress" at a time when England was most suspicious of Napoleon. Greater were her convictions, when she abased England and exalted France for the cold neutrality of the one and the generous aid of the other in this war of Italian independence. Bravely did she bear up against the angry criticism excited by such anti-English sentiment. Strong in her right, Mrs. Browning was willing to brave the storm, confident that truth would prevail in the end. Apart from certain tours de force in rhythm, there is much that is grand and as much that is beautiful in these Poems, while there is the stamp of power upon every page. It is felt that a great soul is in earnest about vital principles, and earnestness of itself is a giant as rare as forcible. Though there are few now who look upon Napoleon as

"Larger so much by the heart"

than others "who have governed and led," there are many who acknowledge him to be

"Larger so much by the head,"

and regard him as she did,—Italy's best friend in the hour of need. Her disciples are increasing, and soon "Napoleon III. in Italy" will be read with the admiration which it deserves.

Beautiful in its pathos is the poem of "A Court Lady," and there are few satires more biting than "An August Voice," which, as an interpretation of the Napoleonic words, is perfect. Nor did she fail to vindicate the Peace of Villafranca:—

  "But He stood sad before the sun  (The peoples felt their fate):  'The world is many,—I am one;  My great Deed was too great.  God's fruit of justice ripens slow:  Men's souls are narrow; let them grow.  My brothers, we must wait.'"

And truly, what Napoleon then failed, from opposition, to accomplish by the sword, has since been, to a great extent, accomplished by diplomacy.

But though Mrs. Browning wrote her "Tale of Villafranca" in full faith, after many a mile-stone in time lay between her and the fact, her friends remember how the woman bent and was wellnigh crushed, as by a thunderbolt, when the intelligence of this Imperial Treaty was first received. Coming so quickly upon the heels of the victories of Solferino and San Martino, it is no marvel that what stunned Italy should have almost killed Mrs. Browning. That it hastened her into the grave is beyond a doubt, as she never fully shook off the severe attack of illness occasioned by this check upon her life-hopes. The summer of 1859 was a weary, suffering season for her in consequence; and although the following winter, passed in Rome, helped to repair the evil that had been wrought, a heavy cold, caught at the end of the season, (and for the sake of seeing Rome's gift of swords to Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel,) told upon her lungs. The autumn of 1860 brought with it another sorrow in the death of a beloved sister, and this loss seemed more than Mrs. Browning could bear; but by breathing the soft air of Rome again she seemed to revive, and indeed wrote that she was "better in body and soul."

Those who have known Mrs. Browning in later years thought she never looked better than upon her return to Florence in the first days of last June, although the overland journey had been unusually fatiguing to her. But the meeting was a sad one; for Cavour had died, and the national loss was as severe to her as a personal bereavement. Her deep nature regarded Italy's benefactor in the light of a friend; for had he not labored unceasingly for that which was the burden of her song? and could she allow so great a man to pass away without many a heart-ache? It is as sublime as it is rare to see such intense appreciation of great deeds as Mrs. Browning could give. Her fears, too, for Italy, when the patriot pilot was hurried from the helm, gave rise to much anxiety, until quieted by the assuring words of the new minister, Ricasoli.

Nor was Mrs. Browning so much engrossed in the Italian regeneration that she had no thought for other nations and for other wrongs. Her interest in America was very great,—

  "For poets, (bear the word!)  Half-poets even, are still whole democrats:  Oh, not that we're disloyal to the high,  But loyal to the low, and cognizant  Of the less scrutable majesties."

In Mrs. Browning's poem of "A Curse for a Nation," where she foretold the agony in store for America, and which has fallen upon us with the swiftness of lightning, she was loath to raise her poet's voice against us, pleading,—

  "For I am hound by gratitude,  By love and blood,  To brothers of mine across the sea,  Who stretch out kindly hands to me."

And in one of her last letters, addressed to an American friend who had reminded her of her prophecy and of its present fulfilment, she replied,—"Never say that I have 'cursed' your country. I only declared the consequence of the evil in her, and which has since developed itself in thunder and flame. I feel with more pain than many Americans do the sorrow of this transition-time; but I do know that it is transition, that it is crisis, and that you will come out of the fire purified, stainless, having had the angel of a great cause walking with you in the furnace." Are not such burning, hopeful words from such a source—worthy of the grateful memory of the Americans? Our cause has lost an ardent supporter in Mrs. Browning; and did we dare rebel against God's will, we should grieve deeply that she was not permitted to glorify the Right in America as she has glorified it in Italy. Among the last things that she read were Motley's letters on the "American Crisis," and the writer will ever hold in dear memory the all but final conversation had with Mrs. Browning, in which these letters were discussed and warmly approved. In referring to the attitude taken by foreign nations with regard to America, she said,—"Why do you heed what others say? You are strong, and can do without sympathy; and when you have triumphed, your glory will be the greater." Mrs. Browning's most enthusiastic admirers are Americans; and I am sure, that, now she is no longer of earth, they will love her the more for her sympathy in the cause which is nearest to all hearts.

Mrs. Browning's conversation was most interesting. It was not characterized by sallies of wit or brilliant repartee, nor was it of that nature which is most welcome in society. It was frequently intermingled with trenchant, quaint remarks, leavened with a quiet, graceful humor of her own; but it was eminently calculated for a tête-à-tête. Mrs. Browning never made an insignificant remark. All that she said was always worth hearing;—a greater compliment could not be paid her. She was a most conscientious listener, giving you her mind and heart, as well as her magnetic eyes. Though the latter spoke an eager language of their own, she conversed slowly, with a conciseness and point that, added to a matchless earnestness, which was the predominant trait of her conversation as it was of her character, made her a most delightful companion. Persons were never her theme, unless public characters were under discussion, or friends were to be praised,—which kind office she frequently took upon herself. One never dreamed of frivolities in Mrs. Browning's presence, and gossip felt itself out of place. _Your_self (not _her_self) was always a pleasant subject to her, calling out all her best sympathies in joy, and yet more in sorrow. Books and humanity, great deeds, and, above all, politics, which include all the grand questions of the day, were foremost in her thoughts, and therefore oftenest on her lips. I speak not of religion, for with her everything was religion. Her Christianity was not confined to church and rubric: it meant civilization.

Association with the Brownings, even though of the slightest nature, made one better in mind and soul. It was impossible to escape the influence of the magnetic fluid of love and poetry that was constantly passing between husband and wife. The unaffected devotion of one to the other wove an additional charm around the two, and the very contrasts in their natures made the union a more beautiful one. All remember Mrs. Browning's pretty poem on her "Pet Name":—

  "I have a name, a little name,  Uncadenced for the ear,  Unhonored by ancestral claim,  Unsanctified by prayer and psalm  The solemn font anear.* * * * *  "My brother gave that name to me,  When we were children twain,—  When names acquired baptismally  Were hard to utter, as to see  That life had any pain."

It was this pet name of two small letters lovingly combined that dotted Mr. Browning's spoken thoughts, as moonbeams fleck the ocean, and seemed the pearl-bead that linked conversation together in one harmonious whole. But what was written has now come to pass. The pet name is engraved only in the hearts of a few.

  "Though I write books, it will be read  Upon the leaves of none;  And afterward, when I am dead,  Will ne'er be graved, for sight or tread,  Across my funeral stone."

Mrs. Browning's letters are masterpieces of their kind. Easy and conversational, they touch upon no subject without leaving an indelible impression of the writer's originality; and the myriad matters of universal interest with which many of them are teeming will render them a precious legacy to the world, when the time shall have arrived for their publication. Of late, Italy has claimed the lion's share in these unrhymed sketches of Mrs. Browning in the négligée of home. Prose has recorded all that poetry threw aside; and thus much political thought, many an anecdote, many a reflection, and much womanly enthusiasm have been stored up for the benefit of more than the persons to whom these letters were addressed. And while we wait patiently for this great pleasure, which must sooner or later be enjoyed and appreciated, we may gather a foretaste of Mrs. Browning's power in prose-writing from her early essays, and from the admirable preface to the "Poems before Congress." The latter is simple in its style, and grand in teachings that find few followers among nations in these enlightened days.