Dr. Dowden, Brooke, Corson, Herford, Hodell, Chesterton, and other authoritative critics allude to their recognition of Mrs. Browning in the character of Pompilia; and no reader of this immortal masterpiece of poetic art can ever fail to find his pulses thrilling with those incomparable lines, spoken in her last hour on earth by Pompilia:
“O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death!
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I’ the coming course, the new path I must tread—
······
Tell him that if I seem without him now,
That’s the world’s insight! Oh, he understands!
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So let him wait God’s instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty!...”
In the entire range of Browning’s heroines Pompilia is the most exalted and beautiful character.
CHAPTER X
1869-1880
| “I am strong in the spirit, deep-thoughted, clear-eyed; I could walk, step for step, with an angel beside, On the heaven-heights of truth. Oh, the soul keeps its youth ······ “’Twixt the heavens and the earth can a poet despond? O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet!” |
In Scotland with the Storys—Browning’s Conversation—An Amusing Incident—With Milsand at St. Aubin’s—“Red Cotton Night-cap Country”—Robert Barrett Browning’s Gift for Art—Alfred Domett (“Waring”)—“Balaustion’s Adventure”—Browning and Tennyson—“Pacchiarotto”—Visits Jowett at Oxford—Declines Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews—“La Saisiaz”—Italy Revisited—The Dream of Asolo—“Ivanovitch”—Pride in His Son’s Success—“Dramatic Idylls.”
In the summer of 1869 the Storys, with their daughter, came from Rome and joined Browning with his sister and his son, for a holiday in Scotland. They passed some time at a little inn on Loch Achnault, where Lady Marian Alford also came, and there are still vivid reminiscences of picnic lunches on the heather, and of readings by the poet from “The Ring and the Book.” Chapters from “Rob Roy” also contributed to the enjoyment of evenings when the three ladies of the party—Mrs. Story, Lady Marian, and the lovely young girl, Miss Edith Story—were glad to draw a little nearer to the blazing fire which, even in August, is not infrequently to be desired in Scotland. Lord Dufferin was also a friend of those days, and for the tower he had built at Clandeboye in the memory of his mother, Helen, Countess of Gifford, Browning wrote, soon after, his poem entitled “Helen’s Tower.” Mrs. Orr speaks of this poem as little known, and not included in his published works; but it is now to be found in all the complete editions of Browning. After this Arcadian sojourn Browning and his son, with Miss Browning, were the guests of Lady Ashburton at Loch Luichart Lodge.