I have been asked the question you put to me --tho'never asked so poetically and so pleasantly --I suppose a score of times:and I can only answer,with something of shame and contrition,that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in my mind --but simply as 'a model';you know,an artist takes one or two striking traits in the features of his 'model',and uses them to start his fancy on a flight which may end far enough from the good man or woman who happens to be 'sitting'for nose and eye.
I thought of the great Poet's abandonment of liberalism,at an unlucky juncture,and no repaying consequence that I could ever see.
But --once call my fancy-portrait 'Wordsworth'--and how much more ought one to say,--how much more would not I have attempted to say!
There is my apology,dear friends,and your acceptance of it will confirm me Truly yours,Robert Browning.
Some fragments of correspondence,not all very interesting,and his own allusion to an attack of illness,are our only record of the poet's general life during the interval which separated the publication of 'Pippa Passes'from his second Italian journey.
An undated letter to Miss Haworth probably refers to the close of 1841.
'...I am getting to love painting as I did once.Do you know I was a young wonder (as are eleven out of the dozen of us)at drawing?
My father had faith in me,and over yonder in a drawer of mine lies,I well know,a certain cottage and rocks in lead pencil and black currant jam-juice (paint being rank poison,as they said when I sucked my brushes)with his (my father's)note in one corner,"R.B.,aetat.two years three months.""How fast,alas,our days we spend --How vain they be,how soon they end!"I am going to print "Victor",however,by February,and there is one thing not so badly painted in there --oh,let me tell you.I chanced to call on Forster the other day,and he pressed me into committing verse on the instant,not the minute,in Maclise's behalf,who has wrought a divine Venetian work,it seems,for the British Institution.Forster described it well --but I could do nothing better,than this wooden ware --(all the "properties",as we say,were given,and the problem was how to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason).
I send my heart up to thee,all my heart In this my singing!
For the stars help me,and the sea bears part;The very night is clinging Closer to Venice'streets to leave me space Above me,whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.
Singing and stars and night and Venice streets and joyous heart,are properties,do you please to see.And now tell me,is this below the average of catalogue original poetry?
Tell me --for to that end of being told,I write....
I dined with dear Carlyle and his wife (catch me calling people "dear"in a hurry,except in letter-beginnings!)yesterday.
I don't know any people like them.There was a son of Burns there,Major Burns whom Macready knows --he sung "Of all the airts","John Anderson",and another song of his father's....'
In the course of 1842he wrote the following note to Miss Flower,evidently relating to the publication of her 'Hymns and Anthems'.
New Cross,Hatcham,Surrey:Tuesday morning.
Dear Miss Flower,--I am sorry for what must grieve Mr.Fox;for myself,I beg him earnestly not to see me till his entire convenience,however pleased I shall be to receive the letter you promise on his part.
And how can I thank you enough for this good news --all this music I shall be so thoroughly gratified to hear?
Ever yours faithfully,Robert Browning.
His last letter to her was written in 1845;the subject being a concert of her own sacred music which she was about to give;and again,although more slightly,I anticipate the course of events,in order to give it in its natural connection with the present one.
Mr.Browning was now engaged to be married,and the last ring of youthful levity had disappeared from his tone;but neither the new happiness nor the new responsibility had weakened his interest in his boyhood's friend.Miss Flower must then have been slowly dying,and the closing words of the letter have the solemnity of a last farewell.
Sunday.
Dear Miss Flower,--I was very foolishly surprized at the sorrowful finical notice you mention:foolishly;for,God help us,how else is it with all critics of everything --don't I hear them talk and see them write?
I dare-say he admires you as he said.
