The old friendship between Browning and Domett was renewed with constant intercourse and interchange of delightful letters. Milsand was in the habit of passing a part of every spring with Browning in his home in Warwick Crescent, and with the arrival of Domett a warm and sincere friendship united all three.
Once, in Scotland, as the guest of Ernest Benzon, when Browning missed part of a visit from Milsand, the poet said: “No words can express the love I have for Milsand, increasingly precious as he is.” The Benzons were at that time in the hills above Loch Tummel, where Jowett was staying, Swinburne also with the Master of Balliol. Had there been a phonograph to register the conversation of such a trio as Jowett, Browning, and Swinburne, its records would be eagerly sought.
A fragmentary record, indeed, remains in a note made by Edwin Harrison, who was with Jowett at this time. In his diary Mr. Harrison recorded:
“R. B. was in the neighborhood, staying at Little Milton, above Loch Tummel, where he was perpetrating ‘Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau’ at the rate of so many lines a day, neither more nor less. He walked over to see Jowett one afternoon, very keen about a fanciful rendering he had imagined for lines in the Alcestis. A few evenings later we met him and his son at dinner at Altaine House, by the foot of the loch. You may be sure that where Jowett and Browning were, the conversation was animated and interesting.”
In “Balaustion’s Adventure” the poet seemed to take captive the popular appreciation of the day, for more than three thousand copies had been sold within the first six months, and his sister told Domett that she regarded it as the most swiftly appreciated poem of all her brother’s works. Certainly it is one of the most alluring of Browning’s works,—this delightful treatment of the interwoven life of mortals and of the immortal gods.
The June of 1872 brought to Browning the sad news of the death of his wife’s dearest friend, Isa Blagden. “A little volume of Isabella Blagden’s poems was published after her death,” writes Thomas Adolphus Trollope. “They are not such as would take the world by storm, but it is impossible to read them without perceiving how choice a spirit their author must have been, and understanding how she was especially honored with the friendship of Mrs. Browning.”[14]
On the publication of “Red Cotton Night-cap Country,” Browning sent a first copy to Tennyson, and the Laureate’s son says of it: “Among the lines which my father liked were
‘Palatial, gloomy chambers for parade,
And passage lengths of lost significance’;
and he praised the simile about the man with his dead comrade in the lighthouse. He wrote to Mr. Browning: ‘My wife has just cut the leaves. I have yet again to thank you, and feel rather ashamed that I have nothing of my own to send you back.’”
An entry in Tennyson’s diary in the following December notes: “Mr. Browning dined with us. He was very affectionate and delightful. It was a great pleasure to hear his words,—that he had not had so happy a time for a long while as since we have been in town.”