[West Cowes]: September 13, 1856 [postmark].
My dearest Sarianna,—Robert comes suddenly down on me with news that he is going to write to you, so, though I have been writing letters all the morning, I must throw in a few words. As to keeping Penini at the sea longer, he will have been three weeks at the sea to-morrow, and you must remember how late into the year it is getting—and we with so much work before us! And if Peni recovered his roses at Ventnor, I recovered my cough (from the piercing east winds); but I am better since, and last night slept well. It's far too early for cough, however, in any shape. We have heaps of business to do in London—heaps—and the book is only half-done. Still, we are asked to stay here till three days after Madame Braun's arrival, and it isn't fixed yet when she will arrive; so that I daresay Peni will have a full month of the sea, after all. Then I have a design upon Robert's good-nature, of persuading him to go round by Taunton to London (something like going round the earth to Paris), that I may see my poor forsaken sister Henrietta, who wants us to give her a week in her cottage, pathetically bewailing herself that she has no means for the expense of going to London this time—that she has done it twice for me, and can't this time (the purse being low); and unless we go to her, she must do without seeing me, in spite of a separation of four years. So I am anxious to go, of course.
Robert will have told you of our dear friend here. We began by finding him much better than we expected, but gradually the sad truth deepens that he is very ill—oh, it deepens and saddens at once. The face lights up with the warm, generous heart; then the fire drops, and you see the embers. The breath is very difficult—it is hard to live. He leans on the table, saying softly and pathetically 'My God! my God!' Now and then he desires aloud to pass away and be at rest. I cannot tell you what his kindness is—his consideration is too affecting; kinder he is than ever. Miss Bayley is an excellent nurse—at once gentle and decided—and, if she did but look further than this life and this death, she would be a perfect companion for him. Peni creeps about like a mouse; but he goes out, and he isn't over-tired, as he was at Ventnor. We think he is altogether better in looks and ways.
Your affectionate
Ba.
A short visit to Taunton seems to have been made about the end of September, as anticipated in the last letter, and then, at some time in the course of October, they set out for Florence. But Mrs. Browning, in thus quitting England for the last time, left behind her as a legacy the completed volume of 'Aurora Leigh.' This poem was the realisation of her early scheme, which goes back at least to the year 1844, of writing a novel in verse—a novel modern in setting and ideas, and embodying her own ideals of social and moral progress. And to a large extent she succeeded. As a vehicle of her opinions, the scheme and style of the poem proved completely adequate. She moves easily through the story; she handles her metre with freedom and command; she can say her say without exaggeration or unnatural strain. Further, the opinions themselves, as those who have learnt to know her through her letters will feel sure, are lofty and honourable, and full of a genuine enthusiasm for humanity. As a novel, 'Aurora Leigh' may be open to the criticism that most of the characters fail to impress us with a sense of reality and vitality, and that the hero hardly wins the sympathy from the reader which he is meant to win. But as a poem it is unquestionably a very remarkable work—not so full of permanent poetic spirit as the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' not so readily popular as 'The Cry of the Children' or 'Cowper's Grave'—but a highly characteristic work of one whose character was made up of pure thoughts and noble ideals, which, in spite of the inevitable change of manners and social interests with the lapse of years, will retain into an indefinite future a very considerable intrinsic value as poetry, and a very high rank among the works of its author.
At the time of its publication its success was immediate. The subjects touched on were largely such as always attract interest, because they are open to much controversy; and the freshness of style and originality of conception (for almost the only other novel-poem in the language is 'Don Juan,' which can hardly be regarded as of the same type as 'Aurora Leigh') attracted a multitude of readers. A second edition was required in a fortnight, a third in a few months—a success which must have greatly pleased the authoress, who had put her inmost self into her work, and had laboured hard to leave behind her an adequate representation of her poetic art.