Life and Letters of Robert Browning [99]
as to the rights and decencies involved
in the present case; and, as we hear no more of the letters to Mr. . . .,
we may perhaps assume that their intending publisher was acting in ignorance,
but did not wish to act in defiance, of Mr. Browning's feeling in the matter.
In the course of this year, 1863, Mr. Browning brought out,
through Chapman and Hall, the still well-known and well-loved
three-volume edition of his works, including `Sordello',
but again excluding `Pauline'. A selection of his poems which appeared
somewhat earlier, if we may judge by the preface, dated November 1862,
deserves mention as a tribute to friendship. The volume had been prepared
by John Forster and Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), `two friends,'
as the preface states, `who from the first appearance of `Paracelsus'
have regarded its writer as among the few great poets of the century.'
Mr. Browning had long before signalized his feeling for Barry Cornwall
by the dedication of `Colombe's Birthday'. He discharged
the present debt to Mr. Procter, if such there was, by the attentions
which he rendered to his infirm old age. For many years he visited him
every Sunday, in spite of a deafness ultimately so complete
that it was only possible to converse with him in writing.
These visits were afterwards, at her urgent request,
continued to Mr. Procter's widow.
Chapter 15
1863-1869
Pornic -- `James Lee's Wife' -- Meeting at Mr. F. Palgrave's --
Letters to Miss Blagden -- His own Estimate of his Work --
His Father's Illness and Death; Miss Browning -- Le Croisic --
Academic Honours; Letter to the Master of Balliol --
Death of Miss Barrett -- Audierne -- Uniform Edition of his Works --
His rising Fame -- `Dramatis Personae' -- `The Ring and the Book';
Character of Pompilia.
The most constant contributions to Mr. Browning's history
are supplied during the next eight or nine years by extracts from his letters
to Miss Blagden. Our next will be dated from Ste.-Marie, near Pornic,
where he and his family again spent their holiday in 1864 and 1865.
Some idea of the life he led there is given at the close of a letter
to Frederic Leighton, August 17, 1863, in which he says:
==
`I live upon milk and fruit, bathe daily, do a good morning's work,
read a little with Pen and somewhat more by myself, go to bed early,
and get up earlyish -- rather liking it all.'
==
This mention of a diet of milk and fruit recalls a favourite habit
of Mr. Browning's: that of almost renouncing animal food
whenever he went abroad. It was partly promoted by the inferior quality
of foreign meat, and showed no sign of specially agreeing with him,
at all events in his later years, when he habitually returned to England
looking thinner and more haggard than before he left it.
But the change was always congenial to his taste.
A fuller picture of these simple, peaceful, and poetic Pornic days
comes to us through Miss Blagden, August 18:
==
`. . . This is a wild little place in Brittany, something like that village
where we stayed last year. Close to the sea -- a hamlet of a dozen houses,
perfectly lonely -- one may walk on the edge of the low rocks by the sea
for miles. Our house is the Mayor's, large enough, clean and bare.
If I could, I would stay just as I am for many a day.
I feel out of the very earth sometimes as I sit here at the window;
with the little church, a field, a few houses, and the sea.
On a weekday there is nobody in the village, plenty of hay-stacks,
cows and fowls; all our butter, eggs, milk, are produced in the farm-house.
Such a soft sea, and such a mournful wind!
`I wrote a poem yesterday of 120 lines, and mean to keep writing
whether I like it or not. . . .'
==
That `window' was the `Doorway' in `James Lee's Wife'.
The sea, the field, and the fig-tree were visible from it.
A long interval in the correspondence, at all events
so far as we are concerned, carries us to the December of 1864,
and then Mr. Browning wrote:
==
`. . . on the other hand,
in the present case; and, as we hear no more of the letters to Mr. . . .,
we may perhaps assume that their intending publisher was acting in ignorance,
but did not wish to act in defiance, of Mr. Browning's feeling in the matter.
In the course of this year, 1863, Mr. Browning brought out,
through Chapman and Hall, the still well-known and well-loved
three-volume edition of his works, including `Sordello',
but again excluding `Pauline'. A selection of his poems which appeared
somewhat earlier, if we may judge by the preface, dated November 1862,
deserves mention as a tribute to friendship. The volume had been prepared
by John Forster and Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), `two friends,'
as the preface states, `who from the first appearance of `Paracelsus'
have regarded its writer as among the few great poets of the century.'
Mr. Browning had long before signalized his feeling for Barry Cornwall
by the dedication of `Colombe's Birthday'. He discharged
the present debt to Mr. Procter, if such there was, by the attentions
which he rendered to his infirm old age. For many years he visited him
every Sunday, in spite of a deafness ultimately so complete
that it was only possible to converse with him in writing.
These visits were afterwards, at her urgent request,
continued to Mr. Procter's widow.
Chapter 15
1863-1869
Pornic -- `James Lee's Wife' -- Meeting at Mr. F. Palgrave's --
Letters to Miss Blagden -- His own Estimate of his Work --
His Father's Illness and Death; Miss Browning -- Le Croisic --
Academic Honours; Letter to the Master of Balliol --
Death of Miss Barrett -- Audierne -- Uniform Edition of his Works --
His rising Fame -- `Dramatis Personae' -- `The Ring and the Book';
Character of Pompilia.
The most constant contributions to Mr. Browning's history
are supplied during the next eight or nine years by extracts from his letters
to Miss Blagden. Our next will be dated from Ste.-Marie, near Pornic,
where he and his family again spent their holiday in 1864 and 1865.
Some idea of the life he led there is given at the close of a letter
to Frederic Leighton, August 17, 1863, in which he says:
==
`I live upon milk and fruit, bathe daily, do a good morning's work,
read a little with Pen and somewhat more by myself, go to bed early,
and get up earlyish -- rather liking it all.'
==
This mention of a diet of milk and fruit recalls a favourite habit
of Mr. Browning's: that of almost renouncing animal food
whenever he went abroad. It was partly promoted by the inferior quality
of foreign meat, and showed no sign of specially agreeing with him,
at all events in his later years, when he habitually returned to England
looking thinner and more haggard than before he left it.
But the change was always congenial to his taste.
A fuller picture of these simple, peaceful, and poetic Pornic days
comes to us through Miss Blagden, August 18:
==
`. . . This is a wild little place in Brittany, something like that village
where we stayed last year. Close to the sea -- a hamlet of a dozen houses,
perfectly lonely -- one may walk on the edge of the low rocks by the sea
for miles. Our house is the Mayor's, large enough, clean and bare.
If I could, I would stay just as I am for many a day.
I feel out of the very earth sometimes as I sit here at the window;
with the little church, a field, a few houses, and the sea.
On a weekday there is nobody in the village, plenty of hay-stacks,
cows and fowls; all our butter, eggs, milk, are produced in the farm-house.
Such a soft sea, and such a mournful wind!
`I wrote a poem yesterday of 120 lines, and mean to keep writing
whether I like it or not. . . .'
==
That `window' was the `Doorway' in `James Lee's Wife'.
The sea, the field, and the fig-tree were visible from it.
A long interval in the correspondence, at all events
so far as we are concerned, carries us to the December of 1864,
and then Mr. Browning wrote:
==
`. . . on the other hand,