Life and Letters of Robert Browning [51]
confirm me
Truly yours,
Robert Browning.
==
Some fragments of correspondence, not all very interesting,
and his own allusion to an attack of illness, are our only record
of the poet's general life during the interval which separated
the publication of `Pippa Passes' from his second Italian journey.
An undated letter to Miss Haworth probably refers to the close of 1841.
==
`. . . I am getting to love painting as I did once. Do you know
I was a young wonder (as are eleven out of the dozen of us) at drawing?
My father had faith in me, and over yonder in a drawer of mine lies,
I well know, a certain cottage and rocks in lead pencil
and black currant jam-juice (paint being rank poison, as they said
when I sucked my brushes) with his (my father's) note in one corner,
"R. B., aetat. two years three months." "How fast, alas, our days we spend
-- How vain they be, how soon they end!" I am going to print "Victor",
however, by February, and there is one thing not so badly painted in there --
oh, let me tell you. I chanced to call on Forster the other day,
and he pressed me into committing verse on the instant, not the minute,
in Maclise's behalf, who has wrought a divine Venetian work, it seems,
for the British Institution. Forster described it well --
but I could do nothing better, than this wooden ware --
(all the "properties", as we say, were given, and the problem
was how to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason).
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing!
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice' streets to leave me space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.
Singing and stars and night and Venice streets and joyous heart,
are properties, do you please to see. And now tell me,
is this below the average of catalogue original poetry?
Tell me -- for to that end of being told, I write. . . .
I dined with dear Carlyle and his wife (catch me calling people "dear"
in a hurry, except in letter-beginnings!) yesterday.
I don't know any people like them. There was a son of Burns there,
Major Burns whom Macready knows -- he sung "Of all the airts",
"John Anderson", and another song of his father's. . . .'
==
In the course of 1842 he wrote the following note to Miss Flower,
evidently relating to the publication of her `Hymns and Anthems'.
==
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey: Tuesday morning.
Dear Miss Flower, -- I am sorry for what must grieve Mr. Fox;
for myself, I beg him earnestly not to see me till his entire convenience,
however pleased I shall be to receive the letter you promise on his part.
And how can I thank you enough for this good news -- all this music
I shall be so thoroughly gratified to hear?
Ever yours faithfully,
Robert Browning.
==
His last letter to her was written in 1845; the subject being
a concert of her own sacred music which she was about to give;
and again, although more slightly, I anticipate the course of events,
in order to give it in its natural connection with the present one.
Mr. Browning was now engaged to be married, and the last ring
of youthful levity had disappeared from his tone; but neither
the new happiness nor the new responsibility had weakened his interest
in his boyhood's friend. Miss Flower must then have been slowly dying,
and the closing words of the letter have the solemnity of a last farewell.
==
Sunday.
Dear Miss Flower, -- I was very foolishly surprized at the sorrowful
finical notice you mention: foolishly; for, God help us, how else is it
with all critics of everything -- don't I hear them talk and see them write?
I dare-say he admires you as he said.
For me, I never had another feeling than entire admiration for your music
-- entire admiration -- I put it apart from
Truly yours,
Robert Browning.
==
Some fragments of correspondence, not all very interesting,
and his own allusion to an attack of illness, are our only record
of the poet's general life during the interval which separated
the publication of `Pippa Passes' from his second Italian journey.
An undated letter to Miss Haworth probably refers to the close of 1841.
==
`. . . I am getting to love painting as I did once. Do you know
I was a young wonder (as are eleven out of the dozen of us) at drawing?
My father had faith in me, and over yonder in a drawer of mine lies,
I well know, a certain cottage and rocks in lead pencil
and black currant jam-juice (paint being rank poison, as they said
when I sucked my brushes) with his (my father's) note in one corner,
"R. B., aetat. two years three months." "How fast, alas, our days we spend
-- How vain they be, how soon they end!" I am going to print "Victor",
however, by February, and there is one thing not so badly painted in there --
oh, let me tell you. I chanced to call on Forster the other day,
and he pressed me into committing verse on the instant, not the minute,
in Maclise's behalf, who has wrought a divine Venetian work, it seems,
for the British Institution. Forster described it well --
but I could do nothing better, than this wooden ware --
(all the "properties", as we say, were given, and the problem
was how to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason).
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing!
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice' streets to leave me space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.
Singing and stars and night and Venice streets and joyous heart,
are properties, do you please to see. And now tell me,
is this below the average of catalogue original poetry?
Tell me -- for to that end of being told, I write. . . .
I dined with dear Carlyle and his wife (catch me calling people "dear"
in a hurry, except in letter-beginnings!) yesterday.
I don't know any people like them. There was a son of Burns there,
Major Burns whom Macready knows -- he sung "Of all the airts",
"John Anderson", and another song of his father's. . . .'
==
In the course of 1842 he wrote the following note to Miss Flower,
evidently relating to the publication of her `Hymns and Anthems'.
==
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey: Tuesday morning.
Dear Miss Flower, -- I am sorry for what must grieve Mr. Fox;
for myself, I beg him earnestly not to see me till his entire convenience,
however pleased I shall be to receive the letter you promise on his part.
And how can I thank you enough for this good news -- all this music
I shall be so thoroughly gratified to hear?
Ever yours faithfully,
Robert Browning.
==
His last letter to her was written in 1845; the subject being
a concert of her own sacred music which she was about to give;
and again, although more slightly, I anticipate the course of events,
in order to give it in its natural connection with the present one.
Mr. Browning was now engaged to be married, and the last ring
of youthful levity had disappeared from his tone; but neither
the new happiness nor the new responsibility had weakened his interest
in his boyhood's friend. Miss Flower must then have been slowly dying,
and the closing words of the letter have the solemnity of a last farewell.
==
Sunday.
Dear Miss Flower, -- I was very foolishly surprized at the sorrowful
finical notice you mention: foolishly; for, God help us, how else is it
with all critics of everything -- don't I hear them talk and see them write?
I dare-say he admires you as he said.
For me, I never had another feeling than entire admiration for your music
-- entire admiration -- I put it apart from