Life and Letters of Robert Browning [106]
in his work. The apotheosis of motherhood
which he puts forth through the aged priest in `Ivan Ivanovitch'
was due to the poetic necessity of lifting a ghastly human punishment
into the sphere of Divine retribution. Even in the advancing years
which soften the father into the grandfather, the essential quality
of early childhood was not that which appealed to him. He would admire
its flower-like beauty, but not linger over it. He had no special emotion
for its helplessness. When he was attracted by a child
it was through the evidence of something not only distinct from,
but opposed to this. `It is the soul' (I see) `in that speck of a body,'
he said, not many years ago, of a tiny boy -- now too big
for it to be desirable that I should mention his name, but whose mother,
if she reads this, will know to whom I allude -- who had delighted him
by an act of intelligent grace which seemed beyond his years.
The ingenuously unbounded maternal pride, the almost luscious
maternal sentiment, of Pompilia's dying moments can only
associate themselves in our mind with Mrs. Browning's personal utterances,
and some notable passages in `Casa Guidi Windows' and `Aurora Leigh'.
Even the exalted fervour of the invocation to Caponsacchi,
its blending of spiritual ecstasy with half-realized earthly emotion,
has, I think, no parallel in her husband's work.
`Pompilia' bears, still, unmistakably, the stamp of her author's genius.
Only he could have imagined her peculiar form of consciousness;
her childlike, wondering, yet subtle, perception of the anomalies of life.
He has raised the woman in her from the typical to the individual
by this distinguishing touch of his supreme originality;
and thus infused into her character a haunting pathos which renders it
to many readers the most exquisite in the whole range of his creations.
For others at the same time, it fails in the impressiveness
because it lacks the reality which habitually marks them.
So much, however, is certain: Mr. Browning would never have accepted
this `murder story' as the subject of a poem, if he could not in some sense
have made it poetical. It was only in an idealized Pompilia
that the material for such a process could be found. We owe it, therefore,
to the one departure from his usual mode of dramatic conception,
that the Poet's masterpiece has been produced. I know no other instance
of what can be even mistaken for reflected inspiration
in the whole range of his work, the given passages in `Pauline' excepted.
The postscript of a letter to Frederic Leighton written
so far back as October 17, 1864, is interesting in its connection
with the preliminary stages of this great undertaking.
==
`A favour, if you have time for it. Go into the church St. Lorenzo in Lucina
in the Corso -- and look attentively at it -- so as to describe it to me
on your return. The general arrangement of the building, if with a nave --
pillars or not -- the number of altars, and any particularity there may be --
over the High Altar is a famous Crucifixion by Guido.
It will be of great use to me. I don't care about the OUTSIDE.'
==
Chapter 16
1869-1873
Lord Dufferin; Helen's Tower -- Scotland; Visit to Lady Ashburton --
Letters to Miss Blagden -- St.-Aubin; The Franco-Prussian War --
`Herve Riel' -- Letter to Mr. G. M. Smith -- `Balaustion's Adventure';
`Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau' -- `Fifine at the Fair' --
Mistaken Theories of Mr. Browning's Work -- St.-Aubin;
`Red Cotton Nightcap Country'.
From 1869 to 1871 Mr. Browning published nothing; but in April 1870 he wrote
the sonnet called `Helen's Tower', a beautiful tribute to the memory of Helen,
mother of Lord Dufferin, suggested by the memorial tower
which her son was erecting to her on his estate at Clandeboye.
The sonnet appeared in 1883, in the `Pall Mall Gazette',
and was reprinted in 1886, in `Sonnets of the Century', edited by Mr. Sharp;
and again in the fifth part of the Browning Society's `Papers';
but it is still I think sufficiently
which he puts forth through the aged priest in `Ivan Ivanovitch'
was due to the poetic necessity of lifting a ghastly human punishment
into the sphere of Divine retribution. Even in the advancing years
which soften the father into the grandfather, the essential quality
of early childhood was not that which appealed to him. He would admire
its flower-like beauty, but not linger over it. He had no special emotion
for its helplessness. When he was attracted by a child
it was through the evidence of something not only distinct from,
but opposed to this. `It is the soul' (I see) `in that speck of a body,'
he said, not many years ago, of a tiny boy -- now too big
for it to be desirable that I should mention his name, but whose mother,
if she reads this, will know to whom I allude -- who had delighted him
by an act of intelligent grace which seemed beyond his years.
The ingenuously unbounded maternal pride, the almost luscious
maternal sentiment, of Pompilia's dying moments can only
associate themselves in our mind with Mrs. Browning's personal utterances,
and some notable passages in `Casa Guidi Windows' and `Aurora Leigh'.
Even the exalted fervour of the invocation to Caponsacchi,
its blending of spiritual ecstasy with half-realized earthly emotion,
has, I think, no parallel in her husband's work.
`Pompilia' bears, still, unmistakably, the stamp of her author's genius.
Only he could have imagined her peculiar form of consciousness;
her childlike, wondering, yet subtle, perception of the anomalies of life.
He has raised the woman in her from the typical to the individual
by this distinguishing touch of his supreme originality;
and thus infused into her character a haunting pathos which renders it
to many readers the most exquisite in the whole range of his creations.
For others at the same time, it fails in the impressiveness
because it lacks the reality which habitually marks them.
So much, however, is certain: Mr. Browning would never have accepted
this `murder story' as the subject of a poem, if he could not in some sense
have made it poetical. It was only in an idealized Pompilia
that the material for such a process could be found. We owe it, therefore,
to the one departure from his usual mode of dramatic conception,
that the Poet's masterpiece has been produced. I know no other instance
of what can be even mistaken for reflected inspiration
in the whole range of his work, the given passages in `Pauline' excepted.
The postscript of a letter to Frederic Leighton written
so far back as October 17, 1864, is interesting in its connection
with the preliminary stages of this great undertaking.
==
`A favour, if you have time for it. Go into the church St. Lorenzo in Lucina
in the Corso -- and look attentively at it -- so as to describe it to me
on your return. The general arrangement of the building, if with a nave --
pillars or not -- the number of altars, and any particularity there may be --
over the High Altar is a famous Crucifixion by Guido.
It will be of great use to me. I don't care about the OUTSIDE.'
==
Chapter 16
1869-1873
Lord Dufferin; Helen's Tower -- Scotland; Visit to Lady Ashburton --
Letters to Miss Blagden -- St.-Aubin; The Franco-Prussian War --
`Herve Riel' -- Letter to Mr. G. M. Smith -- `Balaustion's Adventure';
`Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau' -- `Fifine at the Fair' --
Mistaken Theories of Mr. Browning's Work -- St.-Aubin;
`Red Cotton Nightcap Country'.
From 1869 to 1871 Mr. Browning published nothing; but in April 1870 he wrote
the sonnet called `Helen's Tower', a beautiful tribute to the memory of Helen,
mother of Lord Dufferin, suggested by the memorial tower
which her son was erecting to her on his estate at Clandeboye.
The sonnet appeared in 1883, in the `Pall Mall Gazette',
and was reprinted in 1886, in `Sonnets of the Century', edited by Mr. Sharp;
and again in the fifth part of the Browning Society's `Papers';
but it is still I think sufficiently