Life and Letters of Robert Browning [91]
had undertaken to forward it,
and his position in Rome, besides the known Liberal sympathies
of Mr. and Mrs. Browning and himself, had laid it open to political suspicion.
Mrs. Surtees Cook died in the course of the winter.
Mr. Browning always believed that the shock and sorrow of this event
had shortened his wife's life, though it is also possible
that her already lowered vitality increased the dejection into which
it plunged her. Her own casual allusions to the state of her health
had long marked arrested progress, if not steady decline. We are told,
though this may have been a mistake, that active signs of consumption
were apparent in her even before the illness of 1859,
which was in a certain sense the beginning of the end.
She was completely an invalid, as well as entirely a recluse,
during the greater part if not the whole of this last stay in Rome.
She rallied nevertheless sufficiently to write to Miss Browning in April,
in a tone fully suggestive of normal health and energy.
==
`. . . In my own opinion he is infinitely handsomer and more attractive than
when I saw him first, sixteen years ago. . . . I believe people in general
would think the same exactly. As to the modelling -- well,
I told you that I grudged a little the time from his own particular art.
But it does not do to dishearten him about his modelling.
He has given a great deal of time to anatomy with reference to
the expression of form, and the clay is only the new medium
which takes the place of drawing. Also, Robert is peculiar
in his ways of work as a poet. I have struggled a little with him
on this point, for I don't think him right; that is to say,
it would not be right for me . . . But Robert waits for an inclination,
works by fits and starts; he can't do otherwise he says,
and his head is full of ideas which are to come out in clay or marble.
I yearn for the poems, but he leaves that to me for the present. . . .
You will think Robert looking very well when you see him;
indeed, you may judge by the photographs meanwhile. You know, Sarianna,
how I used to forbid the moustache. I insisted as long as I could,
but all artists were against me, and I suppose that the bare upper lip
does not harmonise with the beard. He keeps the hair now closer,
and the beard is pointed. . . . As to the moony whiteness of the beard,
it is beautiful, _I_ think, but then I think him all beautiful,
and always. . . .'
==
Mr. Browning's old friend, Madame du Quaire,* came to Rome in December.
She had visited Florence three years before, and I am indebted to her
for some details of the spiritualist controversy by which its English colony
was at that time divided. She was now a widow, travelling with her brother;
and Mr. Browning came whenever he could, to comfort her in her sorrow,
and, as she says, discourse of nature, art, the beautiful,
and all that `conquers death'. He little knew how soon
he would need the same comfort for himself. He would also declaim passages
from his wife's poems; and when, on one of these occasions,
Madame du Quaire had said, as so many persons now say, that she much preferred
his poetry to hers, he made this characteristic answer, to be repeated
in substance some years afterwards to another friend: `You are wrong --
quite wrong -- she has genius; I am only a painstaking fellow.
Can't you imagine a clever sort of angel who plots and plans,
and tries to build up something -- he wants to make you see it as he sees it
-- shows you one point of view, carries you off to another,
hammering into your head the thing he wants you to understand;
and whilst this bother is going on God Almighty turns you off a little star --
that's the difference between us. The true creative power is hers, not mine.'
--
* Formerly Miss Blackett, and sister of the member for New Castle.
--
Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi on June 29, 1861, soon after
their return to Florence. She had had a return of the bronchial affection
to which she was subject; and a new doctor who was called in
and his position in Rome, besides the known Liberal sympathies
of Mr. and Mrs. Browning and himself, had laid it open to political suspicion.
Mrs. Surtees Cook died in the course of the winter.
Mr. Browning always believed that the shock and sorrow of this event
had shortened his wife's life, though it is also possible
that her already lowered vitality increased the dejection into which
it plunged her. Her own casual allusions to the state of her health
had long marked arrested progress, if not steady decline. We are told,
though this may have been a mistake, that active signs of consumption
were apparent in her even before the illness of 1859,
which was in a certain sense the beginning of the end.
She was completely an invalid, as well as entirely a recluse,
during the greater part if not the whole of this last stay in Rome.
She rallied nevertheless sufficiently to write to Miss Browning in April,
in a tone fully suggestive of normal health and energy.
==
`. . . In my own opinion he is infinitely handsomer and more attractive than
when I saw him first, sixteen years ago. . . . I believe people in general
would think the same exactly. As to the modelling -- well,
I told you that I grudged a little the time from his own particular art.
But it does not do to dishearten him about his modelling.
He has given a great deal of time to anatomy with reference to
the expression of form, and the clay is only the new medium
which takes the place of drawing. Also, Robert is peculiar
in his ways of work as a poet. I have struggled a little with him
on this point, for I don't think him right; that is to say,
it would not be right for me . . . But Robert waits for an inclination,
works by fits and starts; he can't do otherwise he says,
and his head is full of ideas which are to come out in clay or marble.
I yearn for the poems, but he leaves that to me for the present. . . .
You will think Robert looking very well when you see him;
indeed, you may judge by the photographs meanwhile. You know, Sarianna,
how I used to forbid the moustache. I insisted as long as I could,
but all artists were against me, and I suppose that the bare upper lip
does not harmonise with the beard. He keeps the hair now closer,
and the beard is pointed. . . . As to the moony whiteness of the beard,
it is beautiful, _I_ think, but then I think him all beautiful,
and always. . . .'
==
Mr. Browning's old friend, Madame du Quaire,* came to Rome in December.
She had visited Florence three years before, and I am indebted to her
for some details of the spiritualist controversy by which its English colony
was at that time divided. She was now a widow, travelling with her brother;
and Mr. Browning came whenever he could, to comfort her in her sorrow,
and, as she says, discourse of nature, art, the beautiful,
and all that `conquers death'. He little knew how soon
he would need the same comfort for himself. He would also declaim passages
from his wife's poems; and when, on one of these occasions,
Madame du Quaire had said, as so many persons now say, that she much preferred
his poetry to hers, he made this characteristic answer, to be repeated
in substance some years afterwards to another friend: `You are wrong --
quite wrong -- she has genius; I am only a painstaking fellow.
Can't you imagine a clever sort of angel who plots and plans,
and tries to build up something -- he wants to make you see it as he sees it
-- shows you one point of view, carries you off to another,
hammering into your head the thing he wants you to understand;
and whilst this bother is going on God Almighty turns you off a little star --
that's the difference between us. The true creative power is hers, not mine.'
--
* Formerly Miss Blackett, and sister of the member for New Castle.
--
Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi on June 29, 1861, soon after
their return to Florence. She had had a return of the bronchial affection
to which she was subject; and a new doctor who was called in