The Love Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning. Robert Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 2 Monument to Michael Angelo, by Vasari Church of Santa Croce, Florence 80 Old Monastery at Vallombrosa 98 The Guardian Angel, Guercino Church of San Agostino, Fano 103 Monument to Dante, by Stefano Ricci Piazza di Santa Croce, Florence 108 Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 113 Statue of Savonarola, by E. Pazzi Sala dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 116 Fresco of Dante, by Giotto The Bargello, Florence 121 Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (known as the Duomo) 126 The Ponte Vecchio and the Arno, Florence 142 Casa Guidi 146 The Clasped Hands of the Brownings Cast in bronze from the model taken by Harriet Hosmer in Rome, 1853 153 The Campagna and Ruins of the Claudian Aqueducts, Rome 156 The Coronation of the Virgin, by Filippo Lippi Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence 166 Andrea del Sarto. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife Pitti Gallery, Florence 170 Equestrian Statue of Ferdinando de’ Medici, by Giovanni da Bologna Piazza dell’ Annunziata, Florence 174 Villa Petraja, near Florence 178 Church of San Miniato, near Florence 182 The Palazzo Barberini, Via Quattro Fontane, Rome 188 The English Cemetery, Florence 197 Tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 200 Kate Field From the portrait by Elihu Vedder, Florence, 1860 208 The Pallazzo Riccardi, Florence 214 Bust of Robert Browning, by his Son 226 Portrait of Robert Browning in 1882, by his Son 242 Church of San Lorenzo, Florence 246 Portrait of Robert Barrett Browning, as a Child, 1859 263 Portrait of Robert Browning, by George Frederick Watts, R.A. 270 Mrs. Arthur Bronson, by Ellen Montalba, in Asolo 274 Miss Edith Bronson, (Comtessa Rucellai) 280 Portrait of Professor Hiram Corson, by J. Colin Forbes, R.A. 290 Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice 294 Engraved Facsimile of a letter from Robert Browning to Professor Hiram Corson 260

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      1812-1833

      “Allons! after the Great Companions! and to belong to them!”

       “To know the universe itself as a road—as many roads—as

       roads for travelling souls.”

      The Most Exquisite Romance of Modern Life—Ancestry and Youth of Robert Browning—Love of Music—Formative Influences—The Fascination of Byron—A Home “Crammed with Books”—The Spell of Shelley—“Incondita”—Poetic Vocation Definitely Chosen—“Pauline.”

      Such a very page de Contes is the life of the wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that it is difficult to realize that this immortal idyl of Poetry, Genius, and Love was less than fifteen years in duration, out of his seventy-seven, and her fifty-five years of life. It is a story that has touched the entire world

      “... with mystic gleams,

       Like fragments of forgotten dreams,”

      this story of beautiful associations and friendships, of artistic creation, and of the entrance on a wonderful realm of inspiration and loveliness. At the time of their marriage he was in his thirty-fifth, and she in her forty-first year, although she is described as looking so youthful that she was like a girl, in her slender, flower-like grace; and he lived on for twenty-eight years after

      “Clouds and darkness

       Fell upon Camelot,”

      with the death of his “Lyric Love.” The story of the most beautiful romance that the world has ever known thus falls into three distinctive periods,—that of the separate life of each up to the time of their marriage; their married life, with its scenic setting in the enchantment of Italy; and his life after her withdrawal from earthly scenes. The story is also of duplex texture; for the outer life, rich in associations, travel, impressions, is but the visible side of the life of great creative art. A delightful journey is made, but its record is not limited to the enjoyment of friends and place; a poem is written whose charm and power persist through all the years.

      

      Busts of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

      Made in 1861 by William Wetmore Story

      No adequate word could be written of the Brownings that did not take account of this twofold life of the poets. It is almost unprecedented that the power and resplendence and beauty of the life of art should find, in the temporal environment, so eminent a correspondence of beauty as it did with Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Not that they were in any wise exempt from sorrow and pain; the poet, least of all, would choose to be translated, even if he might, to some enchanted region remote from all the mingled experiences of humanity; it is the common lot of destiny, with its prismatic blending of failure and success, of purpose and achievement, of hope and defeat, of love and sorrow, out of which the poet draws his song. He would not choose

      “That jar of violet wine set in the air,

       That palest rose sweet in the night of life,”

      to the exclusion of the common experiences of the day.

       “Who never ate his bread in sorrow,

       Who never spent the darksome hours

       Weeping, and watching for the morrow,

       He knows you not, ye unseen Powers.”

      But to those who,