Life and Letters of Robert Browning [84]
thought of leaving Italy for one day more than I can help --
and satisfy my English predilections by newspapers and a book or two.
One gets nothing of that kind here, but the stuff out of which books grow, --
it lies about one's feet indeed. Yet for me, there would be
one book better than any now to be got here or elsewhere,
and all out of a great English head and heart, -- those `Memoirs'
you engaged to give us. Will you give us them?
Goodbye now -- if ever the whim strikes you to `make beggars happy'
remember us.
Love to Tottie, and love and gratitude to you, dear Mr. Fox,
From yours ever affectionately,
Robert Browning.
==
In the summer of this year, the poet with his wife and child
joined his father and sister at Havre. It was the last time
they were all to be together.
Chapter 13
1858-1861
Mrs. Browning's Illness -- Siena -- Letter from Mr. Browning to Mr. Leighton
-- Mrs. Browning's Letters continued -- Walter Savage Landor --
Winter in Rome -- Mr. Val Prinsep -- Friends in Rome:
Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright -- Multiplying Social Relations -- Massimo d'Azeglio
-- Siena again -- Illness and Death of Mrs. Browning's Sister --
Mr. Browning's Occupations -- Madame du Quaire --
Mrs. Browning's last Illness and Death.
I cannot quite ascertain, though it might seem easy to do so,
whether Mr. and Mrs. Browning remained in Florence again
till the summer of 1859, or whether the intervening months were divided
between Florence and Rome; but some words in their letters
favour the latter supposition. We hear of them in September
from Mr. Val Prinsep, in Siena or its neighbourhood; with Mr. and Mrs. Story
in an adjacent villa, and Walter Savage Landor in a `cottage' close by.
How Mr. Landor found himself of the party belongs to a little chapter
in Mr. Browning's history for which I quote Mr. Colvin's words.*
He was then living at Fiesole with his family, very unhappily, as we all know;
and Mr. Colvin relates how he had thrice left his villa there,
determined to live in Florence alone; and each time been brought back
to the nominal home where so little kindness awaited him.
--
* `Life of Landor', p. 209.
--
==
`. . . The fourth time he presented himself in the house of Mr. Browning
with only a few pauls in his pocket, declaring that nothing should ever
induce him to return.
`Mr. Browning, an interview with the family at the villa having satisfied him
that reconciliation or return was indeed past question, put himself at once
in communication with Mr. Forster and with Landor's brothers in England.
The latter instantly undertook to supply the needs of their eldest brother
during the remainder of his life. Thenceforth an income
sufficient for his frugal wants was forwarded regularly for his use
through the friend who had thus come forward at his need. To Mr. Browning's
respectful and judicious guidance Landor showed himself docile from the first.
Removed from the inflictions, real and imaginary, of his life at Fiesole,
he became another man, and at times still seemed to those about him like
the old Landor at his best. It was in July, 1859, that the new arrangements
for his life were made. The remainder of that summer he spent at Siena,
first as the guest of Mr. Story, the American sculptor and poet,
next in a cottage rented for him by Mr. Browning near his own.
In the autumn of the same year Landor removed to a set of apartments
in the Via Nunziatina in Florence, close to the Casa Guidi,
in a house kept by a former servant of Mrs. Browning's,
an Englishwoman married to an Italian.* Here he continued to live
during the five years that yet remained to him.'
--
* Wilson, Mrs. Browning's devoted maid, and another most faithful servant
of hers and her husband's, Ferdinando Romagnoli.
--
Mr. Landor's presence is also referred to, with the more important
circumstance of a recent illness of Mrs. Browning's,
in two characteristic and interesting letters of this period,
and satisfy my English predilections by newspapers and a book or two.
One gets nothing of that kind here, but the stuff out of which books grow, --
it lies about one's feet indeed. Yet for me, there would be
one book better than any now to be got here or elsewhere,
and all out of a great English head and heart, -- those `Memoirs'
you engaged to give us. Will you give us them?
Goodbye now -- if ever the whim strikes you to `make beggars happy'
remember us.
Love to Tottie, and love and gratitude to you, dear Mr. Fox,
From yours ever affectionately,
Robert Browning.
==
In the summer of this year, the poet with his wife and child
joined his father and sister at Havre. It was the last time
they were all to be together.
Chapter 13
1858-1861
Mrs. Browning's Illness -- Siena -- Letter from Mr. Browning to Mr. Leighton
-- Mrs. Browning's Letters continued -- Walter Savage Landor --
Winter in Rome -- Mr. Val Prinsep -- Friends in Rome:
Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright -- Multiplying Social Relations -- Massimo d'Azeglio
-- Siena again -- Illness and Death of Mrs. Browning's Sister --
Mr. Browning's Occupations -- Madame du Quaire --
Mrs. Browning's last Illness and Death.
I cannot quite ascertain, though it might seem easy to do so,
whether Mr. and Mrs. Browning remained in Florence again
till the summer of 1859, or whether the intervening months were divided
between Florence and Rome; but some words in their letters
favour the latter supposition. We hear of them in September
from Mr. Val Prinsep, in Siena or its neighbourhood; with Mr. and Mrs. Story
in an adjacent villa, and Walter Savage Landor in a `cottage' close by.
How Mr. Landor found himself of the party belongs to a little chapter
in Mr. Browning's history for which I quote Mr. Colvin's words.*
He was then living at Fiesole with his family, very unhappily, as we all know;
and Mr. Colvin relates how he had thrice left his villa there,
determined to live in Florence alone; and each time been brought back
to the nominal home where so little kindness awaited him.
--
* `Life of Landor', p. 209.
--
==
`. . . The fourth time he presented himself in the house of Mr. Browning
with only a few pauls in his pocket, declaring that nothing should ever
induce him to return.
`Mr. Browning, an interview with the family at the villa having satisfied him
that reconciliation or return was indeed past question, put himself at once
in communication with Mr. Forster and with Landor's brothers in England.
The latter instantly undertook to supply the needs of their eldest brother
during the remainder of his life. Thenceforth an income
sufficient for his frugal wants was forwarded regularly for his use
through the friend who had thus come forward at his need. To Mr. Browning's
respectful and judicious guidance Landor showed himself docile from the first.
Removed from the inflictions, real and imaginary, of his life at Fiesole,
he became another man, and at times still seemed to those about him like
the old Landor at his best. It was in July, 1859, that the new arrangements
for his life were made. The remainder of that summer he spent at Siena,
first as the guest of Mr. Story, the American sculptor and poet,
next in a cottage rented for him by Mr. Browning near his own.
In the autumn of the same year Landor removed to a set of apartments
in the Via Nunziatina in Florence, close to the Casa Guidi,
in a house kept by a former servant of Mrs. Browning's,
an Englishwoman married to an Italian.* Here he continued to live
during the five years that yet remained to him.'
--
* Wilson, Mrs. Browning's devoted maid, and another most faithful servant
of hers and her husband's, Ferdinando Romagnoli.
--
Mr. Landor's presence is also referred to, with the more important
circumstance of a recent illness of Mrs. Browning's,
in two characteristic and interesting letters of this period,