Life and Letters of Robert Browning [12]
the old lady and his mother
were drinking tea. He was snatched up and carried away
before he had had time to judge the effect of his apparition;
but he did not think, looking back upon the circumstances in later life,
that Aunt Betsy had deserved quite so ill of her fellow-creatures
as he then believed.
--
His imaginative emotions were largely absorbed by religion.
The early Biblical training had had its effect, and he was,
to use his own words, `passionately religious' in those nursery years;
but during them and many succeeding ones, his mother filled his heart.
He loved her so much, he has been heard to say, that even as a grown man
he could not sit by her otherwise than with an arm round her waist.
It is difficult to measure the influence which this feeling may have exercised
on his later life; it led, even now, to a strange and touching little incident
which had in it the incipient poet no less than the loving child.
His attendance at Miss Ready's school only kept him from home
from Monday till Saturday of every week; but when called upon to confront
his first five days of banishment he felt sure that he would not survive them.
A leaden cistern belonging to the school had in, or outside it,
the raised image of a face. He chose the cistern for his place of burial,
and converted the face into his epitaph by passing his hand over and over it
to a continuous chant of: `In memory of unhappy Browning' --
the ceremony being renewed in his spare moments, till the acute stage
of the feeling had passed away.
The fondness for animals for which through life he was noted, was conspicuous
in his very earliest days. His urgent demand for `something to do'
would constantly include `something to be caught' for him:
`they were to catch him an eft;' `they were to catch him a frog.'
He would refuse to take his medicine unless bribed by the gift
of a speckled frog from among the strawberries; and the maternal parasol,
hovering above the strawberry bed during the search for
this object of his desires, remained a standing picture in his remembrance.
But the love of the uncommon was already asserting itself;
and one of his very juvenile projects was a collection of rare creatures,
the first contribution to which was a couple of lady-birds,
picked up one winter's day on a wall and immediately consigned
to a box lined with cotton-wool, and labelled, `Animals found surviving
in the depths of a severe winter.' Nor did curiosity in this case
weaken the power of sympathy. His passion for birds and beasts
was the counterpart of his father's love of children,
only displaying itself before the age at which child-love naturally appears.
His mother used to read Croxall's Fables to his little sister and him.
The story contained in them of a lion who was kicked to death by an ass
affected him so painfully that he could no longer endure
the sight of the book; and as he dared not destroy it, he buried it
between the stuffing and the woodwork of an old dining-room chair,
where it stood for lost, at all events for the time being.
When first he heard the adventures of the parrot who insisted
on leaving his cage, and who enjoyed himself for a little while
and then died of hunger and cold, he -- and his sister with him --
cried so bitterly that it was found necessary to invent a different ending,
according to which the parrot was rescued just in time
and brought back to his cage to live peacefully in it ever after.
As a boy, he kept owls and monkeys, magpies and hedgehogs,
an eagle, and even a couple of large snakes, constantly bringing home
the more portable creatures in his pockets, and transferring them
to his mother for immediate care. I have heard him speak admiringly
of the skilful tenderness with which she took into her lap a lacerated cat,
washed and sewed up its ghastly wound, and nursed it back to health.
The great intimacy with the life and habits of animals
which reveals itself in his works is readily explained by these facts.
Mr. Ready's establishment was chosen
were drinking tea. He was snatched up and carried away
before he had had time to judge the effect of his apparition;
but he did not think, looking back upon the circumstances in later life,
that Aunt Betsy had deserved quite so ill of her fellow-creatures
as he then believed.
--
His imaginative emotions were largely absorbed by religion.
The early Biblical training had had its effect, and he was,
to use his own words, `passionately religious' in those nursery years;
but during them and many succeeding ones, his mother filled his heart.
He loved her so much, he has been heard to say, that even as a grown man
he could not sit by her otherwise than with an arm round her waist.
It is difficult to measure the influence which this feeling may have exercised
on his later life; it led, even now, to a strange and touching little incident
which had in it the incipient poet no less than the loving child.
His attendance at Miss Ready's school only kept him from home
from Monday till Saturday of every week; but when called upon to confront
his first five days of banishment he felt sure that he would not survive them.
A leaden cistern belonging to the school had in, or outside it,
the raised image of a face. He chose the cistern for his place of burial,
and converted the face into his epitaph by passing his hand over and over it
to a continuous chant of: `In memory of unhappy Browning' --
the ceremony being renewed in his spare moments, till the acute stage
of the feeling had passed away.
The fondness for animals for which through life he was noted, was conspicuous
in his very earliest days. His urgent demand for `something to do'
would constantly include `something to be caught' for him:
`they were to catch him an eft;' `they were to catch him a frog.'
He would refuse to take his medicine unless bribed by the gift
of a speckled frog from among the strawberries; and the maternal parasol,
hovering above the strawberry bed during the search for
this object of his desires, remained a standing picture in his remembrance.
But the love of the uncommon was already asserting itself;
and one of his very juvenile projects was a collection of rare creatures,
the first contribution to which was a couple of lady-birds,
picked up one winter's day on a wall and immediately consigned
to a box lined with cotton-wool, and labelled, `Animals found surviving
in the depths of a severe winter.' Nor did curiosity in this case
weaken the power of sympathy. His passion for birds and beasts
was the counterpart of his father's love of children,
only displaying itself before the age at which child-love naturally appears.
His mother used to read Croxall's Fables to his little sister and him.
The story contained in them of a lion who was kicked to death by an ass
affected him so painfully that he could no longer endure
the sight of the book; and as he dared not destroy it, he buried it
between the stuffing and the woodwork of an old dining-room chair,
where it stood for lost, at all events for the time being.
When first he heard the adventures of the parrot who insisted
on leaving his cage, and who enjoyed himself for a little while
and then died of hunger and cold, he -- and his sister with him --
cried so bitterly that it was found necessary to invent a different ending,
according to which the parrot was rescued just in time
and brought back to his cage to live peacefully in it ever after.
As a boy, he kept owls and monkeys, magpies and hedgehogs,
an eagle, and even a couple of large snakes, constantly bringing home
the more portable creatures in his pockets, and transferring them
to his mother for immediate care. I have heard him speak admiringly
of the skilful tenderness with which she took into her lap a lacerated cat,
washed and sewed up its ghastly wound, and nursed it back to health.
The great intimacy with the life and habits of animals
which reveals itself in his works is readily explained by these facts.
Mr. Ready's establishment was chosen