There was not a shadow of declamation in his reading. For the time being he was just Andrea talking to his wife, the "Faultless Painter" as they called him, who knew his own faults but had not the strength to battle with them. It was Andrea himself we were in touch with, his dreamy sadness that we shared. His yearnings for requited love, his longings for the unattainable in art, drew us to him, and we would have helped him had we been able. That sorry business with the King of France was disgraceful—there was no denying it. He admitted himself that he had abused the king's friendship and misused his moneys, but surely for such a man as was Del Sarto, something could be done to settle matters, and once more to turn his genius to account.
And that Lucretia, his wife! his "serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!" Why will she not answer? The right words from her spoken now might yet make of him the good man and the great artist that a God may create, but that a woman must consecrate. One just felt as if one could give her a good shaking, if only to make her break the aggravating silence she so imperturbably maintains whilst he so pathetically pleads. As for the cousin, one would have liked to go out and give him a sound thrashing to stop his whistling once for all.
We were so impressed at the close of his reading that for a moment we remained hushed in a silence which none of us cared to break. He looked round at us, anxious lest he should not have brought home his meaning, and said, "Have I made it clear?"
It is rather a sudden transition from Del Sarto to myself, and from "sober pleasant Fiesole" in the background, to the Royal Academy in Piccadilly; but all artists of all times, the little ones as well as the great ones, have their grievous disappointments, and one place is as good or as bad as another to crush some of their fondest hopes.
Annually then, towards the end of April, when the judges at Burlington House had spoken, Browning had his visits of condolence to pay. How helpful and encouraging he would be, none of as, I am sure, could forget. I thanked him on one occasion, telling him that I valued his good opinion more than any other man's, and reminding him of his own words:—
| "And that's no way of holding up the soul, |
| Which nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knows |
| One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools." |
The one wise man always found a word of encouragement—
"Beware of despairing thoughts," he answered. "The darkest days, wait but till to-morrow, will have passed away."
In his ever simple, unassuming way he compared himself to me, recalling his failures, and telling me how for many years not a poem of his was read or could boast of a publisher willing to take it, and how now 3500 copies of the new edition of his works had been sold in a month. "To be sure, one must live long enough," he added, and quoted Philip von Artevelde's first speech, in which he says so many die before they've had a chance, and—
| "Then comes the man who has the luck to live, |
| And he's a miracle." |