Life and Letters of Robert Browning by Mrs Sutherland Orr

Author:Mrs Sutherland Orr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, victorian, poet, poets, biography, biographies, the life of, documentary
ISBN: 9781781666838
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

1861-1863

Miss Blagden - Letters from Mr. Browning to Miss Haworth and Mr. Leighton - His Feeling in regard to Funeral Ceremonies - Establishment in London - Plan of Life - Letter to Madame du Quaire - Miss Arabel Barrett - Biarritz - Letters to Miss Blagden - Conception of 'The Ring and the Book' - Biographical Indiscretion - New Edition of his Works - Mr. and Mrs. Procter.

The friend who was nearest, at all events most helpful, to Mr. Browning in this great and sudden sorrow was Miss Blagden - Isa Blagden, as she was called by all her intimates. Only a passing allusion to her could hitherto find place in this fragmentary record of the Poet's life; but the friendship which had long subsisted between her and Mrs. Browning brings her now into closer and more frequent relation to it. She was for many years a centre of English society in Florence; for her genial, hospitable nature, as well as literary tastes (she wrote one or two novels, I believe not without merit), secured her the acquaintance of many interesting persons, some of whom occasionally made her house their home; and the evenings spent with her at her villa on Bellosguardo live pleasantly in the remembrance of those of our older generation who were permitted to share in them.

She carried the boy away from the house of mourning, and induced his father to spend his nights under her roof, while the last painful duties detained him in Florence. He at least gave her cause to deny, what has been so often affirmed, that great griefs are necessarily silent. She always spoke of this period as her 'apocalyptic month', so deeply poetic were the ravings which alternated with the simple human cry of the desolate heart: 'I want her, I want her!' But the ear which received these utterances has long been closed in death. The only written outbursts of Mr. Browning's frantic sorrow were addressed, I believe, to his sister, and to the friend, Madame du Quaire, whose own recent loss most naturally invoked them, and who has since thought best, so far as rested with her, to destroy the letters in which they were contained. It is enough to know by simple statement that he then suffered as he did. Life conquers Death for most of us; whether or not 'nature, art, and beauty' assist in the conquest. It was bound to conquer in Mr. Browning's case: first through his many-sided vitality; and secondly, through the special motive for living and striving which remained to him in his son. This note is struck in two letters which are given me to publish, written about three weeks after Mrs. Browning's death; and we see also that by this time his manhood was reacting against the blow, and bracing itself with such consoling remembrance as the peace and painlessness of his wife's last moments could afford to him.

Florence: July 19, '61.

Dear Leighton, - It is like your old kindness to write to me and to say what you do - I know you feel for me.

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