Life and Letters of Robert Browning [97]
the sight
of a pen now, and see a pile of unanswered things on the table before me?
-- on this very table. Do you tell me in turn all about yourself.
I shall be interested in the minutest thing you put down.
What sort of weather is it? You cannot but be better at your new villa than
in the large solitary one. There I am again, going up the winding way to it,
and seeing the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the top of the wall
under the olive-trees! Once more, good-bye. . . .'
==
The hatred of writing of which he here speaks refers probably
to the class of letters which he had lately been called upon to answer,
and which must have been painful in proportion to the kindness
by which they were inspired. But it returned to him many years later,
in simple weariness of the mental and mechanical act, and with such force
that he would often answer an unimportant note in person,
rather than make the seemingly much smaller exertion of doing so with his pen.
It was the more remarkable that, with the rarest exceptions,
he replied to every letter which came to him.
The late summer of the former year had been entirely unrefreshing,
in spite of his acknowledgment of the charms of St.-Enogat.
There was more distraction and more soothing in the stay
at Cambo and Biarritz, which was chosen for the holiday of 1862.
Years afterwards, when the thought of Italy carried with it less longing
and even more pain, Mr. Browning would speak of a visit to the Pyrenees,
if not a residence among them, as one of the restful possibilities
of his later and freer life. He wrote to Miss Blagden:
==
Biarritz, Maison Gastonbide: Sept. 19, '62.
`. . . I stayed a month at green pleasant little Cambo,
and then came here from pure inability to go elsewhere --
St.-Jean de Luz, on which I had reckoned, being still fuller of Spaniards
who profit by the new railway. This place is crammed with gay people
of whom I see nothing but their outsides. The sea, sands,
and view of the Spanish coast and mountains, are superb
and this house is on the town's outskirts. I stay till the end of the month,
then go to Paris, and then get my neck back into the old collar again.
Pen has managed to get more enjoyment out of his holiday
than seemed at first likely -- there was a nice French family at Cambo
with whom he fraternised, riding with the son and escorting the daughter
in her walks. His red cheeks look as they should. For me, I have got on
by having a great read at Euripides -- the one book I brought with me,
besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be;
and of which the whole is pretty well in my head, --
the Roman murder story you know.
`. . . How I yearn, yearn for Italy at the close of my life! . . .'
==
The `Roman murder story' was, I need hardly say, to become
`The Ring and the Book'.
It has often been told, though with curious confusion as regards the date,
how Mr. Browning picked up the original parchment-bound record
of the Franceschini case, on a stall of the Piazza San Lorenzo.
We read in the first section of his own work that he plunged instantly
into the study of this record; that he had mastered it by the end of the day;
and that he then stepped out on to the terrace of his house
amid the sultry blackness and silent lightnings of the June night,
as the adjacent church of San Felice sent forth its chants,
and voices buzzed in the street below, -- and saw the tragedy
as a living picture unfold itself before him. These were his last days
at Casa Guidi. It was four years before he definitely began the work.
The idea of converting the story into a poem cannot even have occurred to him
for some little time, since he offered it for prose treatment to Miss Ogle,
the author of `A Lost Love'; and for poetic use, I am almost certain,
to one of his leading contemporaries. It was this slow process of incubation
which gave so much force and distinctness to his ultimate presentment
of the characters; though it infused a large measure
of a pen now, and see a pile of unanswered things on the table before me?
-- on this very table. Do you tell me in turn all about yourself.
I shall be interested in the minutest thing you put down.
What sort of weather is it? You cannot but be better at your new villa than
in the large solitary one. There I am again, going up the winding way to it,
and seeing the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the top of the wall
under the olive-trees! Once more, good-bye. . . .'
==
The hatred of writing of which he here speaks refers probably
to the class of letters which he had lately been called upon to answer,
and which must have been painful in proportion to the kindness
by which they were inspired. But it returned to him many years later,
in simple weariness of the mental and mechanical act, and with such force
that he would often answer an unimportant note in person,
rather than make the seemingly much smaller exertion of doing so with his pen.
It was the more remarkable that, with the rarest exceptions,
he replied to every letter which came to him.
The late summer of the former year had been entirely unrefreshing,
in spite of his acknowledgment of the charms of St.-Enogat.
There was more distraction and more soothing in the stay
at Cambo and Biarritz, which was chosen for the holiday of 1862.
Years afterwards, when the thought of Italy carried with it less longing
and even more pain, Mr. Browning would speak of a visit to the Pyrenees,
if not a residence among them, as one of the restful possibilities
of his later and freer life. He wrote to Miss Blagden:
==
Biarritz, Maison Gastonbide: Sept. 19, '62.
`. . . I stayed a month at green pleasant little Cambo,
and then came here from pure inability to go elsewhere --
St.-Jean de Luz, on which I had reckoned, being still fuller of Spaniards
who profit by the new railway. This place is crammed with gay people
of whom I see nothing but their outsides. The sea, sands,
and view of the Spanish coast and mountains, are superb
and this house is on the town's outskirts. I stay till the end of the month,
then go to Paris, and then get my neck back into the old collar again.
Pen has managed to get more enjoyment out of his holiday
than seemed at first likely -- there was a nice French family at Cambo
with whom he fraternised, riding with the son and escorting the daughter
in her walks. His red cheeks look as they should. For me, I have got on
by having a great read at Euripides -- the one book I brought with me,
besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be;
and of which the whole is pretty well in my head, --
the Roman murder story you know.
`. . . How I yearn, yearn for Italy at the close of my life! . . .'
==
The `Roman murder story' was, I need hardly say, to become
`The Ring and the Book'.
It has often been told, though with curious confusion as regards the date,
how Mr. Browning picked up the original parchment-bound record
of the Franceschini case, on a stall of the Piazza San Lorenzo.
We read in the first section of his own work that he plunged instantly
into the study of this record; that he had mastered it by the end of the day;
and that he then stepped out on to the terrace of his house
amid the sultry blackness and silent lightnings of the June night,
as the adjacent church of San Felice sent forth its chants,
and voices buzzed in the street below, -- and saw the tragedy
as a living picture unfold itself before him. These were his last days
at Casa Guidi. It was four years before he definitely began the work.
The idea of converting the story into a poem cannot even have occurred to him
for some little time, since he offered it for prose treatment to Miss Ogle,
the author of `A Lost Love'; and for poetic use, I am almost certain,
to one of his leading contemporaries. It was this slow process of incubation
which gave so much force and distinctness to his ultimate presentment
of the characters; though it infused a large measure