The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
Blagden’s poems was published after her death,” writes Thomas Adolphus Trollope. “They are not such as would take the world by storm, but it is impossible to read them without perceiving how choice a spirit their author must have been, and understanding how she was especially honored with the friendship of Mrs. Browning.”[14]
On the publication of “Red Cotton Night-cap Country,” Browning sent a first copy to Tennyson, and the Laureate’s son says of it: “Among the lines which my father liked were
‘Palatial, gloomy chambers for parade,
And passage lengths of lost significance’;
and he praised the simile about the man with his dead comrade in the lighthouse. He wrote to Mr. Browning: ‘My wife has just cut the leaves. I have yet again to thank you, and feel rather ashamed that I have nothing of my own to send you back.’”
An entry in Tennyson’s diary in the following December notes: “Mr. Browning dined with us. He was very affectionate and delightful. It was a great pleasure to hear his words,—that he had not had so happy a time for a long while as since we have been in town.”
Tennyson’s “Queen Mary” was published in 1875, and on receiving a copy from the author Browning wrote expressing thanks for the gift, and even more for “Queen Mary the poem.” He found it “astonishingly fine”; and he adds: “What a joy that such a poem should be, and be yours.” The relations between the two great poets of the Victorian age were always ideally beautiful, in their cordial friendship and their warm mutual appreciation.
In a note dated in the Christmas days of 1876 Browning writes:
My Dear Tennyson,—True thanks again, this time for the best of Christmas presents, another great work, wise, good, and beautiful. The scene where Harold is overborne to take the oath is perfect, for one instance. What a fine new ray of light you are entwining with your many-colored wreath!...
All happiness befall you and yours this good season and ever.[15]
The present Lord Tennyson, in his biography of his father, makes many interesting allusions to the friendship and the pleasant intercourse between the poets. “Browning frequently dined with us,” he says, “and the tête-à-tête conversations between him and my father on every imaginable topic were the best talk I have ever heard, so full of repartee, epigram, anecdote, depth, and wisdom, too brilliant to be possible to reproduce. These brother poets were two of the most widely read men of their time, absolutely without a touch of jealousy, and reveling, as it were, in each other’s power.... Browning had a faculty for absurd and abstruse rhymes, and I recall a dinner where Jebb, Miss Thackeray, and Browning were all present, and Browning said he could make a rhyme for every word in the language. We proposed rhinoceros, and without pause he said,
‘O, if you should see a rhinoceros
And a tree be in sight,
Climb quick, for his might
Is a match for the gods,—he can toss Eros.’”
A London friend relates that on one occasion Browning chanced upon a literal translation some one had made from the Norwegian:
“The soul where love abideth not resembles
A house by night, without a fire or torch,”
and remarked how easy it would be to put this into rhyme; and immediately transmuted it into the couplet,
“What seems the soul when love’s outside the porch? A house by night, without a fire or torch.”
When Browning’s “Inn Album” appeared, and he sent a copy to Tennyson, the Laureate responded:
“My Dear Browning,—You are the most brotherly of poets, and your brother in the muses thanks you with the affection of a brother. She would thank you too, if she could put hand to pen.”
Tennyson once remarked to his son, Hallam, that he wished he had written Browning’s lines:
“The little more, and how much it is,
The little less, and what worlds away.”
There was an interval of twelve years between the appearance of the “Dramatis Personæ” (in 1864) and the publication of “Pacchiarotto.” In this collection Browning’s amusing play of rhyme is much in evidence. Among Mr. Browning’s most enjoyable experiences were his frequent visits to Oxford and Cambridge, in both of which he was an honored guest. In the spring of 1877 he had an especially delightful stay at Oxford, the pleasure even beginning on the train, “full of men, all my friends,” he wrote of it; and continued: “I was welcomed on arrival by a Fellow who installed me in my rooms—then came the pleasant meeting with Jowett, who at once took me to tea with his other guests, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Dean of Westminster, Lord Airlie, and others.”
There was a banquet and much postprandial eloquence that night, and Browning mentions among the speakers Lord Coleridge, Professor Smith, Mr. Green (on science and literature with a most complimentary appreciation of Browning), and “a more rightly-directed one,” says the poet, “on Arnold, Swinburne, and the old pride of Balliol, Clough, which was cleverly and almost touchingly answered by dear Matthew Arnold.” The Dean of Westminster responded to the toast of “The Fellows and the Scholars,” and the entire affair lasted over six hours. “But the whole thing,” said Browning, “was brilliant, genial, and there was a warmth, earnestness, and refinement about it which I never experienced in any previous public dinner.”
The profound impression that Browning made both by his personality and his poetic work is further attested by his being again chosen Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. Dr. William Knight, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, urges Browning’s acceptance of this office, and begs the poet to realize “how the thoughtful youth of Scotland” estimate his work. Professor Knight closes by saying that his own obligations to Browning, “and to the author of ‘Aurora Leigh’ are such that of them silence is golden.” While Mr. Browning was deeply touched by this testimonial of esteem, he still, for the second time, declined the honor.
Many readers and lovers of Robert Browning’s poem “La Saisiaz” little dream of the singular story connected with it. “La Saisiaz” is a chalet above Geneva, high up in the Savoyard mountains, looking down on Geneva and Lake Leman. It is a tall, white house, with a red roof that attracted the lovers of beauty, solitude, and seclusion. Among the few habitués for many years were Robert Browning and his sister, Sarianna, and their friend, Miss Egerton-Smith. It was the bond of music that especially united Browning and this lady, and in London they were apt to frequent concerts together. “La Saisiaz” is surrounded by tall poplar trees, but the balcony from a third-floor window, which was Browning’s room, looked through a space in the trees out on the blue lake, and on this balcony he would draw out his chair and writing desk. Back of the chalet a steep path ran up the mountains, where the three friends often climbed, to enjoy a gorgeous and unrivaled sunset spectacle.
In 1877 they were all there as usual in August, and one evening had planned that the next day they would start early in the morning and pass the day on the mountain, going by carriage, a servant accompanying them carrying the basket of luncheon. In the early evening Browning and Miss Egerton-Smith were out, pacing up and down the “grass-grown path,” and talking of the infinite life which includes death and that which is beyond death. The next morning she did not appear, and Browning and his sister waited for her. They sat out on the terrace after having morning coffee, expecting to see the “tall white figure,” and finally Miss Browning went to her room to ask if she were ill, and she lay dead on the floor. Miss Egerton-Smith was buried in the neighboring cemetery of Collonge, where her grave, over which a wonderful willow tree bends, is still seen—a place of frequent pilgrimage to visitors in this region. Five days after her death Browning made the excursion up the mountain alone,
“But a bitter touched