Life and Letters of Robert Browning [11]
with her, by a fantastic account
of his possessions in houses, &c., of which the topographical details
elicited from her the remark, `Why, sir, you are quite a geographer.'
And though this kind of romancing is common enough among intelligent children,
it distinguishes itself in this case by the strong impression
which the incident had left on his own mind. It seems to have been
a first real flight of dramatic fancy, confusing his identity
for the time being.
The power of inventing did not, however, interfere with
his readiness to learn, and the facility with which he acquired
whatever knowledge came in his way had, on one occasion, inconvenient results.
A lady of reduced fortunes kept a small elementary school for boys,
a stone's-throw from his home; and he was sent to it as a day boarder
at so tender an age that his parents, it is supposed, had no object in view
but to get rid of his turbulent activity for an hour or two
every morning and afternoon. Nevertheless, his proficiency
in reading and spelling was soon so much ahead of that of the biggest boy,
that complaints broke out among the mammas, who were sure
there was not fair play. Mrs. ---- was neglecting her other pupils
for the sake of `bringing on Master Browning;' and the poor lady
found it necessary to discourage Master Browning's attendance
lest she should lose the remainder of her flock. This, at least,
was the story as he himself remembered it. According to Miss Browning
his instructress did not yield without a parting shot. She retorted
on the discontented parents that, if she could give their children
`Master Browning's intellect', she would have no difficulty
in satisfying them. After this came the interlude of home-teaching,
in which all his elementary knowledge must have been gained.
As an older child he was placed with two Misses Ready, who prepared boys
for entering their brother's (the Rev. Thomas Ready's) school;
and in due time he passed into the latter, where he remained
up to the age of fourteen.
He seems in those early days to have had few playmates beyond his sister,
two years younger than himself, and whom his irrepressible spirit
must sometimes have frightened or repelled. Nor do we hear anything
of childish loves; and though an entry appeared in his diary
one Sunday in about the seventh or eighth year of his age,
`married two wives this morning,' it only referred to
a vague imaginary appropriation of two girls whom he had just seen in church,
and whose charm probably lay in their being much bigger than he.
He was, however, capable of a self-conscious shyness
in the presence of even a little girl; and his sense of certain proprieties
was extraordinarily keen. He told a friend that on one occasion,
when the merest child, he had edged his way by the wall
from one point of his bedroom to another, because he was not fully clothed,
and his reflection in the glass could otherwise have been seen
through the partly open door.*
--
* Another anecdote, of a very different kind, belongs to an earlier period,
and to that category of pure naughtiness which could not fail
to be sometimes represented in the conduct of so gifted a child.
An old lady who visited his mother, and was characterized in the family
as `Aunt Betsy', had irritated him by pronouncing the word `lovers'
with the contemptuous jerk which the typical old maid
is sometimes apt to impart to it, when once the question had arisen
why a certain `Lovers' Walk' was so called. He was too nearly a baby
to imagine what a `lover' was; he supposed the name denoted
a trade or occupation. But his human sympathy resented Aunt Betsy's manner
as an affront; and he determined, after probably repeated provocation,
to show her something worse than a `lover', whatever this might be.
So one night he slipped out of bed, exchanged his nightgown
for what he considered the appropriate undress of a devil,
completed this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he could make,
and rushed into the drawing-room, where
of his possessions in houses, &c., of which the topographical details
elicited from her the remark, `Why, sir, you are quite a geographer.'
And though this kind of romancing is common enough among intelligent children,
it distinguishes itself in this case by the strong impression
which the incident had left on his own mind. It seems to have been
a first real flight of dramatic fancy, confusing his identity
for the time being.
The power of inventing did not, however, interfere with
his readiness to learn, and the facility with which he acquired
whatever knowledge came in his way had, on one occasion, inconvenient results.
A lady of reduced fortunes kept a small elementary school for boys,
a stone's-throw from his home; and he was sent to it as a day boarder
at so tender an age that his parents, it is supposed, had no object in view
but to get rid of his turbulent activity for an hour or two
every morning and afternoon. Nevertheless, his proficiency
in reading and spelling was soon so much ahead of that of the biggest boy,
that complaints broke out among the mammas, who were sure
there was not fair play. Mrs. ---- was neglecting her other pupils
for the sake of `bringing on Master Browning;' and the poor lady
found it necessary to discourage Master Browning's attendance
lest she should lose the remainder of her flock. This, at least,
was the story as he himself remembered it. According to Miss Browning
his instructress did not yield without a parting shot. She retorted
on the discontented parents that, if she could give their children
`Master Browning's intellect', she would have no difficulty
in satisfying them. After this came the interlude of home-teaching,
in which all his elementary knowledge must have been gained.
As an older child he was placed with two Misses Ready, who prepared boys
for entering their brother's (the Rev. Thomas Ready's) school;
and in due time he passed into the latter, where he remained
up to the age of fourteen.
He seems in those early days to have had few playmates beyond his sister,
two years younger than himself, and whom his irrepressible spirit
must sometimes have frightened or repelled. Nor do we hear anything
of childish loves; and though an entry appeared in his diary
one Sunday in about the seventh or eighth year of his age,
`married two wives this morning,' it only referred to
a vague imaginary appropriation of two girls whom he had just seen in church,
and whose charm probably lay in their being much bigger than he.
He was, however, capable of a self-conscious shyness
in the presence of even a little girl; and his sense of certain proprieties
was extraordinarily keen. He told a friend that on one occasion,
when the merest child, he had edged his way by the wall
from one point of his bedroom to another, because he was not fully clothed,
and his reflection in the glass could otherwise have been seen
through the partly open door.*
--
* Another anecdote, of a very different kind, belongs to an earlier period,
and to that category of pure naughtiness which could not fail
to be sometimes represented in the conduct of so gifted a child.
An old lady who visited his mother, and was characterized in the family
as `Aunt Betsy', had irritated him by pronouncing the word `lovers'
with the contemptuous jerk which the typical old maid
is sometimes apt to impart to it, when once the question had arisen
why a certain `Lovers' Walk' was so called. He was too nearly a baby
to imagine what a `lover' was; he supposed the name denoted
a trade or occupation. But his human sympathy resented Aunt Betsy's manner
as an affront; and he determined, after probably repeated provocation,
to show her something worse than a `lover', whatever this might be.
So one night he slipped out of bed, exchanged his nightgown
for what he considered the appropriate undress of a devil,
completed this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he could make,
and rushed into the drawing-room, where