Life and Letters of Robert Browning [80]
very distinctive stories, but they would be out of place here.*
--
* I am induced, on second thoughts, to subjoin one of these, for its testimony
to the moral atmosphere into which the child had been born.
He was sometimes allowed to play with a little boy not of his own class --
perhaps the son of a `contadino'. The child was unobjectionable,
or neither Penini nor his parents would have endured the association;
but the servants once thought themselves justified
in treating him cavalierly, and Pen flew indignant to his mother,
to complain of their behaviour. Mrs. Browning at once sought
little Alessandro, with kind words and a large piece of cake; but this,
in Pen's eyes, only aggravated the offence; it was a direct reflection
on his visitor's quality. `He doesn't tome for take,' he burst forth;
`he tomes because he is my friend.' How often, since I heard this first,
have we repeated the words, `he doesn't tome for take,'
in half-serious definition of a disinterested person or act!
They became a standing joke.
--
Mrs. Browning seems now to have adopted the plan of writing
independent letters to her sister-in-law; and those available for our purpose
are especially interesting. The buoyancy of tone which has habitually
marked her communications, but which failed during the winter in Rome,
reasserts itself in the following extract. Her maternal comments
on Peni and his perfections have hitherto been so carefully excluded,
that a brief allusion to him may be allowed on the present occasion.
==
1857.
`My dearest Sarianna, . . . Here is Penini's letter, which takes up
so much room that I must be sparing of mine -- and, by the way,
if you consider him improved in his writing, give the praise to Robert,
who has been taking most patient pains with him indeed.
You will see how the little curly head is turned with carnival doings.
So gay a carnival never was in our experience, for until last year
(when we were absent) all masks had been prohibited, and now everybody
has eaten of the tree of good and evil till not an apple is left.
Peni persecuted me to let him have a domino -- with tears and embraces --
he "ALMOST NEVER in all his life had had a domino," and he would like it so.
Not a black domino! no -- he hated black -- but a blue domino,
trimmed with pink! that was his taste. The pink trimming I coaxed him out of,
but for the rest, I let him have his way. . . . For my part,
the universal madness reached me sitting by the fire (whence I had not stirred
for three months), and you will open your eyes when I tell you that I went
(in domino and masked) to the great opera-ball. Yes! I did, really.
Robert, who had been invited two or three times to other people's boxes,
had proposed to return their kindness by taking a box himself
at the opera this night, and entertaining two or three friends
with galantine and champagne. Just as he and I were lamenting
the impossibility of my going, on that very morning the wind changed,
the air grew soft and mild, and he maintained that I might and should go.
There was no time to get a domino of my own (Robert himself
had a beautiful one made, and I am having it metamorphosed
into a black silk gown for myself!) so I sent out and hired one,
buying the mask. And very much amused I was. I like to see
these characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sarianna,
till I risk my reputation at the `bal de l'opera' at Paris).
Do you think I was satisfied with staying in the box? No, indeed.
Down I went, and Robert and I elbowed our way through the crowd
to the remotest corner of the ball below. Somebody smote me on the shoulder
and cried "Bella Mascherina!" and I answered as impudently
as one feels under a mask. At two o'clock in the morning, however,
I had to give up and come away (being overcome by the heavy air)
and ingloriously left Robert and our friends to follow at half-past four.
Think of the refinement and gentleness -- yes, I must call it SUPERIORITY
--
* I am induced, on second thoughts, to subjoin one of these, for its testimony
to the moral atmosphere into which the child had been born.
He was sometimes allowed to play with a little boy not of his own class --
perhaps the son of a `contadino'. The child was unobjectionable,
or neither Penini nor his parents would have endured the association;
but the servants once thought themselves justified
in treating him cavalierly, and Pen flew indignant to his mother,
to complain of their behaviour. Mrs. Browning at once sought
little Alessandro, with kind words and a large piece of cake; but this,
in Pen's eyes, only aggravated the offence; it was a direct reflection
on his visitor's quality. `He doesn't tome for take,' he burst forth;
`he tomes because he is my friend.' How often, since I heard this first,
have we repeated the words, `he doesn't tome for take,'
in half-serious definition of a disinterested person or act!
They became a standing joke.
--
Mrs. Browning seems now to have adopted the plan of writing
independent letters to her sister-in-law; and those available for our purpose
are especially interesting. The buoyancy of tone which has habitually
marked her communications, but which failed during the winter in Rome,
reasserts itself in the following extract. Her maternal comments
on Peni and his perfections have hitherto been so carefully excluded,
that a brief allusion to him may be allowed on the present occasion.
==
1857.
`My dearest Sarianna, . . . Here is Penini's letter, which takes up
so much room that I must be sparing of mine -- and, by the way,
if you consider him improved in his writing, give the praise to Robert,
who has been taking most patient pains with him indeed.
You will see how the little curly head is turned with carnival doings.
So gay a carnival never was in our experience, for until last year
(when we were absent) all masks had been prohibited, and now everybody
has eaten of the tree of good and evil till not an apple is left.
Peni persecuted me to let him have a domino -- with tears and embraces --
he "ALMOST NEVER in all his life had had a domino," and he would like it so.
Not a black domino! no -- he hated black -- but a blue domino,
trimmed with pink! that was his taste. The pink trimming I coaxed him out of,
but for the rest, I let him have his way. . . . For my part,
the universal madness reached me sitting by the fire (whence I had not stirred
for three months), and you will open your eyes when I tell you that I went
(in domino and masked) to the great opera-ball. Yes! I did, really.
Robert, who had been invited two or three times to other people's boxes,
had proposed to return their kindness by taking a box himself
at the opera this night, and entertaining two or three friends
with galantine and champagne. Just as he and I were lamenting
the impossibility of my going, on that very morning the wind changed,
the air grew soft and mild, and he maintained that I might and should go.
There was no time to get a domino of my own (Robert himself
had a beautiful one made, and I am having it metamorphosed
into a black silk gown for myself!) so I sent out and hired one,
buying the mask. And very much amused I was. I like to see
these characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sarianna,
till I risk my reputation at the `bal de l'opera' at Paris).
Do you think I was satisfied with staying in the box? No, indeed.
Down I went, and Robert and I elbowed our way through the crowd
to the remotest corner of the ball below. Somebody smote me on the shoulder
and cried "Bella Mascherina!" and I answered as impudently
as one feels under a mask. At two o'clock in the morning, however,
I had to give up and come away (being overcome by the heavy air)
and ingloriously left Robert and our friends to follow at half-past four.
Think of the refinement and gentleness -- yes, I must call it SUPERIORITY