The stranger did so arrange that his visit should extend itself over the magic date of “November 5th,” and on that day he stood at the portal to DeVere Gardens house.
“I was taken up to the poet’s study,” he writes. “There had been that day a memorial meeting for Matthew Arnold, to which Browning had been, and he spoke with reminiscent sadness of Arnold’s life.
“‘I have been thinking all the way home of his hardships,’ said Mr. Browning. ‘He once told me, when I asked why he had not recently written any poetry, that he could not afford to, but that when he had saved enough, he intended to give up all other work, and devote himself to poetry. I wonder if he has turned to it now?’ Browning added musingly.”
One interesting incident related by this caller is that, having just been reading and being greatly impressed by Mr. Nettleship’s analysis and interpretation of “Childe Roland,” he asked the author if he accepted it. “Oh, no,” replied Mr. Browning; “not at all. Understand, I don’t repudiate it, either; I only mean that I was conscious of no allegorical intention in writing it. ’Twas like this; one year in Florence I had been rather lazy; I resolved that I would write something every day. Well, the first day I wrote about some roses, suggested by a magnificent basket that some one had sent my wife. The next day ‘Childe Roland’ came upon me as a kind of dream. I had to write it, then and there, and I finished it the same day, I believe. But it was simply that I had to do it. I did not know then what I meant beyond that, and I’m sure I don’t know now. But I am very fond of it.”
This interesting confession emboldened the visitor to ask if the poet considered ‘James Lee’s wife’ quite guiltless in her husband’s estrangement. “Well, I’m not sure,” replied Mr. Browning; “I was always very fond of her, but I fancy she had not much tact, and did not quite know how to treat her husband. I think she worried him a little. But if you want to know any more,” he continued, with a twinkle in his eye, “you had better ask the Browning Society,—you have heard of it, perhaps?”
When Robert Barrett Browning purchased the Palazzo Rezzonico, the acquirement was a delight to his father, not unmixed with a trace of consternation, for it is one of the grandest and most imposing palaces in Italy. Up to 1758 it was occupied by Cardinal Rezzonico himself, when, at that date, he became Pope under the title of Clement XIII. This palace, built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, commands an unparalleled situation on the Grand Canal, and the majestic structure of white marble, with its rich carvings, the baroque ornaments of its key-stones, its classic cornices and tripartite loggias, its columns and grand architectural lines, is remarked, even in Venice, the city of palaces, for its sumptuous magnificence. As Mr. Browning had before remarked to Mrs. Bronson, “Pen” was infatuated with Venice. It is equally true that much of the infatuation of the ethereal city for subsequent visitors was due in no small measure to the beautiful and reverent manner in which Robert Barrett Browning made this palace a very Valhalla of the wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here the son gathered every exquisite treasure associated with his mother, and when, three years later, his father breathed his last within this noble palace, the younger Browning added to the associations of his mother those, also, of his father’s books, art, and intimate possessions. With his characteristic courtesy and generous consideration Mr. Barrett Browning permitted visitors, for many years, through his entire ownership of the palace, to visit and enjoy the significant collections, treasures which his taste and his love had there gathered.
Portrait of Robert Barrett Browning
(“Penini”), as a Child.
Painted at Siena, by Hamilton Wild, 1859.
On the façade of the palace two stately entrances open upon the broad flight of marble steps that lead down to the water, and on the architraves are carved river-gods. In the spacious court was placed his own statue of “Dryope.” Ascending one marble flight of the grand escalier, one entered a lofty apartment whose noble proportions and richness of effect were most impressive. The floor, of red marble, in its rich, Byzantine hue, harmonized with a richly painted ceiling, which was one celebrated in Venetian art. From this vast salon opened, through richly carved doors, a series of rooms, each made vital with the portraits, sketches, busts, and other memorials of the poets. There were Story’s busts of Browning and of his wife; there was Robert Barrett Browning’s bust of his father,—one of the most remarkable among portrait busts in contemporary art; the portraits of Robert and Elizabeth Browning painted by Gordigiani of Rome, about 1855; a lovely pastel of Mrs. Browning when she was a child, representing her as standing in a garden, holding up her apron filled with flowers; there was her little writing-desk, and other intimate personal mementoes about. The immense array of presentation copies from other authors to the poets made an interesting library of themselves, as did the various translations of their own poems into many languages. There was a portrait of Browning painted when a young man, with a troubadour cloak falling over his shoulders; and a most interesting portrait of Milsand, painted by Barrett Browning, as a gift to his father.