VI
LITERATURE
"Think of the achievements of a great writer—a great poet—their works embrace the past, the present, and the future: their fame is for ever growing through the gifts they have made to the dead: the pleasure they have still the power to bestow upon the living: and the delight of bequeathing their wealth to unknown ages while their language lives."
Browning
The most prominent man of letters known to my wife and to me was Robert Browning, who looked as unlike the conventional idea of a poet as I resemble a sweep; his appearance seemed to me a better "make-up" for a family physician or legal adviser.
Many years ago my wife and I were present at the wedding of an old friend's daughter and afterwards at the reception. On entering the drawing-room, which had heavy blinds and was rather sombre, my wife mistook an elderly and bearded guest for the host, went behind him, turned his head round, and, as she thought, kissed her congratulations to the bride's father. The recipient of the mistaken salute proved to be Browning, who avowed that whenever and wherever he met my wife he was to be treated in the same way. The ceremony was afterwards always gone through, and more than once in the open street.
When he first dined with us he was made happy in finding a bottle of port by his hand, that he might help himself and not be offered other wines. I remember a story he told us of Longfellow when he visited England. The two poets were driving in a hansom, and a heavy shower suddenly came on. Longfellow insisted upon thrusting his umbrella through the trap in the roof of the cab that the driver might protect himself from the rain, which he did.
At a dinner given at the old Star and Garter, Richmond, Browning met my wife on the terrace with an impromptu, hurriedly scrawled on a menu, which I may give imperfectly:
"Her advent was not hailed with shouts,
Nor banners, garlands, cymbals, drums;
The trees breathed gently sighs of love,
And whispered softly, 'Hush! she comes!'"