Thirty years afterwards, the last time I ever had the privilege of talking with Robert Browning (it was in Surrey House in London), I referred to these old days and to our friend, long laid in that Campo Santo at Florence. His voice fell and softened, and he said: “Ah, poor, dear Isa!” with deep feeling.
At that time I do not think that any one, certainly no one of the society which surrounded him, thought of Mr. Browning as a great poet, or as an equal one to his wife, whose Aurora Leigh was then a new book. The utter unselfishness and generosity wherewith he gloried in his wife’s fame,—bringing us up constantly good reviews of her poems and eagerly recounting how many editions had been called for,—perhaps helped to blind us, stupid that we were! to his own claims. Never, certainly did the proverb about the “irritabile genus” of Poets prove less true. All through his life, even when the world had found him out, and societies existed for what Mr. Frederic Harrison might justly have called a “culte” of Browning, if not a “latria,” he remained the same absolutely unaffected, unassuming, genial English gentleman.
Of Mrs. Browning I never saw much. Sundry visits we paid to each other missed, and when I did find her at home in Casa Guidi we did not fall on congenial themes. I was bubbling over with enthusiasm for her poetry, but had not the audacity to express my admiration, (which, in truth, had been my special reason for visiting Florence;) and she entangled me in erudite discussions about Tuscan and Bolognese schools of painting, concerning which I knew little and, perhaps, cared less. But I am glad I looked into the splendid eyes which lived like coals, in her pain-worn face, and revealed the soul which Robert Browning trusted to meet again on the threshold of eternity.[[18]] Was there ever such a testimony as their perfect marriage,—living on as it did in the survivor’s heart for a quarter of a century,—to the possibility of the eternal union of Genius and Love?
I received in later years from Mr. Browning several letters which I may as well insert in this place.
“19, Warwick Crescent, W.,
“December 28th, 1874.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,
“I return the Petition, for the one good reason, that I have just signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mr. Leslie Stephen. You have heard ‘I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort to suppress Vivisection.’ I dare not so honour my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts, but this I know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two. I return the paper, because I shall be probably shut up here for the next week or two, and prevented from seeing my friends, whoever would refuse to sign would certainly not be of the number.”
“Ever truly and gratefully yours,
“Robert Browning.”