Newspaper Page Text
THE SUNNY SOUTH.
9
FORGOTTEN HISTORY.
Bright and Breezg Things Remembered
When Recalled.
ROBERT BROWNING.
Of the Victorian age, there has been, per
haps, no poet more widely, more diversely
criticised, alternately praised, derided, eu
logized, ignored. In view of this, it would
be both a difficult and thankless undertaking
to advance any new and original opinions
about the matter, but a brief sketch calling to
mind incidents in his life will not be unin
teresting.
Robert Browning’s grandfather was of old
Anglo-Saxon family,
of England, but had
no literary ambitions
that extended further
than an annual read
ing of the Bible and
“Tom Jones.” His
father was a deep stu
dent, indeed, he was
a bibliophile, and
from him and bis
mother, who, accord
ing to Carlyle was
“the. true type of a
Scottish gentlewom
an,” he inherited his
passion for literature.
At the time of Robert’s birth, May 7, 1812
it is positively stated that a great comet
disappeared from the sky. Whether it was a
herald of England’s coming poet one can not
say; whether astrologers of the time con
nected the two events, is doubtful, but, that
they did do so later, is certain.
That his poetic genius was as much a part
of himself as was the color of his eyes, is un
questioned, since, as a child just learning to
talk, he would lisp in numbers. At twelve
he had completed a volume of dramas, many
of which he had his school-fellows play.
His wealth of affection, and his broad,
human sympathy were manifested in his
boundless love for his mother, and his tender
ness to all dumb creatures of which he
usually had enough on hand to make a small
menagerie. Among his special pets were
monkeys, frogs, snakes, hedgehogs, eagles,
magpies and owls. This same sympathy
*:ansed him to resent all unfairness, all
adverse criticism of people, or things, as one
of Mrs. Orr’s anecdotes aptly illustrates. An
acidulated maiden lady was visiting his
mother. She spoke sarcastically of a matter
which he was too small to understand, but
by her manner of speech, he knew that she
had spoken bitterly. That night, to punish
her for her uncharitableness, he slipped out
of bed, put on such paraphernalia as his
youthful mind deemed suitable for a devil,
added a long paper tail, pulled the ugliest
face possible, and, regardless of dire conse
quence, rushed into the drawing-room where
his mother and his intended victim were drink
ing tea.
Some Browning writers, have said that the
poet at one time contemplated entering the
ministry. In his letters there is only one
incident which does in the least suggest such
an ambition on his part. After hearing an
impressive sermon, he came home, impro
vised a surplice and gown, crawled into a big
armchair, and extemporized so vehemently,
that his baby sister took fright and cried.
He majestically turned to his imaginary audi
ence and with great sterness, said: “Pew-
opener, remove that child.” This was his
first and last effort.
That the love of art for which he was so
remarkable in after years, was among his
earliest tendencies is evident from a letter
written when, at middle-age, he was basking
in the sunlight cf Italian art. He wrote:
“I love painting as I once did. In a drawer
of mine lies, I well know, a certain cottage
and rocks, in lead pencil and blackcurrant
jam juice (paint being rank poison, as they
said when I sucked my brushes), with my
father’s note in the corner. R. B. aetat,
two years and three months.”
At twelve, when his first volume was com
pleted, Robert met Miss Fowler, a well-
known writer, and became deeply attached to
her. She was nine years his senior, but she
was his judge, his critic, and it is believed
that she inspired “Pauline.” His early
efforts bad a Byronic tendency, and soon
Shelley and Keats weilded a slight influence,
but before he reached the university age,
his poetic individuality asserted itself, and
from that time on, he knew no master except
that burning, vigorous, eccentric, at times,
unequal and obscure, but, at all times, origi
nal—genius.
Among those who first recognized his
undeniable talent, were Lord. Houghton,
Leigh Hunt, Thackery, Wordsworth, Carlyle
and that curious man of letters, Walter Savage
Landor, of whom Mrs. Browning, twenty years
later, wrote a friend:
“The old lion roars softly in Latin alcaics
against his wife and Louis Napoleon; he
laughs carnivorously when I tell him he
will have to write an ode in honor ot the
Emperor to please me.”
The great actor Macraedy, became interest
ed in the poet about the time he brought out
that daring work Paracelsus, and said to him :
“Write a play Browning and keep me
from going to America.”
“Strafford” was the result, and was dedi
cated to Macraedy.
Soon after this he met Miss Haworth, a
charming, cultured lady, who is “Eyebright”
in Sordello. At this time of his life Miss
Bridell-Fox describes him as “the glass of
fashion, the mould of form, and addicted to
lemon-colored kid gloves.”
His drama, “A Blot in the Scutcheon”
was laughed at by Macraedy’s actors, because
it was first read by the prompter, “a grotesque
person with a red nose and wooden leg.”
“Pied Piper of Hamlin,” was written to
amuse Macready’s “little invalid son.” Bells
and Pomegranates, a collection of dramas and
poems created some favorable notice.
His romantic marriage to that invalid gen
ius, the almost spiritualized Elizabeth Bar
rett, which took place at St. Pancras church,
Sep. 12, 1846, is too well-known to dwell
upon. A few days after their secret marriage,
she stole away from her father’s home and
the two embarked for Havre on their way to
Paris; the only cloud in her married life was
her father’s refusal to forgive or see her
again.
Their marriage was an ideal one, because
they had not only genuine love for each
other, but that equally important factor, in
tellectual sympathy. As a husband, he was
as uncommon as he was as a poet, of this
Fanny Kemble said:
“Browning is the only man I ever saw,
who behaved like a Christian to his wife.”
His great love and poetic instinct caused
him to commemorate his marriage by going
to the church kneeling down and kissing the
paving stones
The Brownings made their home in that
“Flower of all cities and city of all flowers,”
Florence, where they had the charming com
panionship of the Trollopes, Miss Blagden,
Landor, Jarves, George Eliot, Frances Power
Cobbe, Miss Hosmer, the Hawthornes and
other celebrities.
From Florence they often went to Rome,
where they gathered around them kindred
spirits in the Kembles, Story’s, Sarlorises;
in Paris, they knew George Sand and Lamar
tine. Robert Browning felt the force of the
maxim about the prophet in his own country.
Pblegmatic England (outside of a few rare
spirits), did not awaken to the honor she had
done herself in producing such a son, until
long after America had paid him tribute by
taking him to her heart, as is testified by an
extract from a letter of Mrs. Browning to her
sister-in-law.
“An English lady of rank, an acquaintance
of ours, asked, the other day, the American
Minister at Rome, whether Robert was an
American. The minister answered: ‘Is it
possible you ask me this? Why, there is not
so poor village in the United States where
they would not tell you that Robert Browning
is an Englishman, and that they are sorry he
is not an American.’ ”
Browning was so conscious of his power,
that he was peculiarly invulnerable to criti
cism, saying:
“As I began, so I shall end, taking my own
course, pleasing myself, or aiming at doing
so, and thereby, I hope, pleasing God.”
After bis wife died he came back to Eng
land, and worked incessantly, as his numer
ous poems are testimonial.
Tardy England then began to show a dis
position to honor him; in 1879 the Cambridge
College conferred on him the degree of LL.
D., in 1882. the Oxford D. C. L., in 1884,
the Edinburgh, and in 1886, he suceeded
Lord Houghton as Foreign Correspondent
to the Royal Academy.
But all these honors came too late, they
were Dead Sea fruit, because his wife, that
frail being who had labored with him, who
had every worthy ambition for him, who
longed to see him properly understood, and
appreciated, was not there to see her hopes
realized.
In 1878 he and his sister journey to
Ravenna, to visit the grave of and “spend a
day in the pine woods consecrated by Dante.”
On his return to England she wanted to
heap the honor of “Lord Rectorship of the
University of St. Andrews,” on him, but he
declined. His last day were spent in Venice
where, on Dec. 12, 1889 he died.
The Venetians begged to be allowed to
keep the ashes of the man whom they had
loved and honored, but England claimed her
own, and his remains were placed in the
Poet’s Corner, Westminister Abbey, Dec. 31,
1889.
Merchant—Have you had any experience
•in china ware?
Applicant—Years of it, sir.
Merchant—What do you do when you
areak a valuable piece ?
Applicant—Well—er—I usually put it
together again and place it where some cus
tomers will knock it over.
Merchant—You’ll do.—London Fun.
DANTE ALIGHIERI—1265-1321.
Born and reared when civilization and
literature were in what might be aptly called
a chrysalis state, and having no poetical pro
genitor, this youthful prodigy burst forth like
a Vesuvius, ot, more properly, a Niagara, in a
torrent of metrical measure, that swept the
minds of readers before it as a whirlwind
sweeps the dry leaf. His vehement, passion
ate eloquence gives one the sensation of being
swiftly lifted from one’s feet in the earnest
effort to reach the altitude to which the poet
rapidly takes the struggling, but willing
thought.
Living as he did, in the ennervating air of
a court which was remarkable for neither its
morality nor its love of literature—but whose
predominating ambition was centered in the
barbarous knight errantry so popular in the
middle ages—it must have been peculiarly
difficult to rise so successfully above such
DAKTI.
environments. Nothing short of superior
genius could have enabled him to mount the
swift-winged, high-soaring, Pegasus, and
ride it as few poets ever rode before, and as
no Italian poet has ever ridden since.
“Love,” which Gabrielle D. Annunzio,
(who, by the way, bids fair to be Italy’s
Dante of to-day), describes as being “the
greatest human sorrow,” and which Addi
son calls “the mother of poetry,” was Dante’s
never failing inspiration.
When a boy of nine, be met the eight year
old Beatrice, daughter of the rich Florentine,
Portinacis, and fromj*‘that moment,” he says,
“love ruled my soul; a new life was awakened
within me.” His first work of consequence
was Vita Nuova, poems full of love for Beat
rice. He describes her with the same pains
taking minuteness that Petrarch describes
his Laura. Beatrice was tall, stately, grace
ful, with beautiful curling hair, broad fore
head, dimpled chin, slender neck, and arms
of marble whiteness. But his special admira
tion were her eyes of which he says: “Love
is'enthroned in the eyes of my Beatrice: she
ennobles everything she looks upon.”
But for this wealth of imperishable love,
Dante might never have been anything but
the courtier, the good citizen, the embassa
dor, the warrior and bold knight. To this
overwhelming love, we are indebted for the
Divina Commedia, which is a colossal monu
ment to Italian literature, and in which the
poet immortalizes himself and his Beatrice.
In this notable work he represents himself
as being led by Virgil, as the impersonation
of reason, through the infernal regions; then
by Beatrice, as representative of revelation,
but at last, St. Bernard conducts him through
several heavens until he reaches the Trinity.
In impetuous, potent language, he pictures
hell as a great inverted hollow, beginning
small at the center of the earth and enlarged
by gradually expanding circles.
Purgatory is delineated as a terraced moun
tain rising from the ocean, the top terrace
being paradise.
From paradise he continues his journey
through the seven heavens, the stars, and on
to the throne of God. During his celestial
sojourn he converses with many of the illus
trious dead, and these conversations fill the
reader alternately with horror, and pity,
aversion and grief.
He propounds, and solves questions of
philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, and the
ology, and with burning words denounces the
social and moral condition of Italy. His De
Monarchia, which Cardinal Pagetto ordered
publicly burned in the streets of. Bologna,
was written after he was, for political reasons,
banished from Florence by Pope Boniface.
After his expulsion from his native city,
where he had served in the most important
civil offices, he wandered from court to court,
and was under noble protection at Padua,
Verona, etc.
As a poet, he undeniably stands among the
greatest of the world, and by far the greatest
Italy ever produced. The astute Macaulay said
of his style: “ I know nothing with which it
can be compared. The noblest models of
Greek composition must yield to it. His
words are the fewest and the best which it is
possible to use.”
When we have reason to believe that, had
there been no Beatrice, there possibly bad
been no immortal Dante, we are filled wfth
disappointment that his love was never re
ciprocated and that she should have married
the nobleman Simone de Bardi.
She died at the early age of twenty-four,
and Dante’s grief almost drove him to mad
ness. Some years later he married Gemma,
the daughter of the powerful House of
Donati, and became the father of seven chil
dren, but his pure, chaste, ideal love for the
sainted Beatrice was his inspiration until his
death. His works have been translated into
most of the European languages, the best
being, perhaps, Kannegiesser’s, which is in
the original rhyme and measure.
Dante had an ardent admirer in Giovanni
Bocaccio, who was so unquestionably a
genius himself, that he felt no petty jealousy
of those who were greater. It was through
his instrumentality that the Florentine repub
lic set apart a certain sum to be spent yearly
on lectures explaining the “Divine Comedy. ”
The authorities manifested their good
judgment by appointing Boccacio Dantean
professor. With Bocaccio it was a labor of
love, and among his numerous works, his
“Commento.sopra la Commedia di Dante” is
by no means the least interesting.
The last years of the poet’s life were spent
at Ravenna, under the protection of Guido
Novello da Polenta..
Each year finds many literary pilgrims
journeying to Ravenna to visit the earth that
holds the ashes of Italy’s laurel-crowned poet;
the poet into whose hand tne great Giotto
placed the emblematically pomegranate fruit.
POPULAR NOVELISTS.
Harold Frederick in England; William Black
in America. Each is Popular in the
Other’s Country.
Harold Frederic is an American author who
is very popular in England, and William
Black is an English novelist whose books are
most read in America. They bqth stand very
high among the story-writers of to-day, and
of course all readers of their books are inter
ested in knowing how they live and work.
Harold Frederic, now that he has gained
the approbation of the English public, is sure
to become popular on this side of the water.
That follows, as a matter of course. He has
just written a novel, “The Damnation of
Theron Ware,” which Mr. Gladstone has pro
nounced to be the best of the century. This
is indeed high praise, for the Grand Old Man
keeps up to date in all matters, and his judg
ment of fiction is acknowledged to be re
markably good and sound.
Mr. Frederic is a man who has climbed
from the lowest rung on the ladder of jour
nalism to the top notch, where he has stepped
off into the roof garden where popular novel
ists dwell and enjoy all the pleasures of fame
and fortune. He was born in New York
State, and when he was eighteen became a
proof-reader in a Utica newspaper office.
From proof-reading he stepped to reporting,
and three years later became editor of the
good old Utica Observer. In 1882 he was ap
pointed editor of the Albany Journal,
one of tbe most influential newspapers in the
State, but by rashly swinging that staid old
Republican organ out of the party and mak
ing it a free trade paper he antagonized a
lot of wealthy men, who bought the paper
and summarily dismissed him from the sanc-
HAROLD FREDERICK.
turn. He lost nothing, however, by this turn
of affairs, for the New York Times employed
him as Albany correspondent and in 1884 sent
him to England. He has been the London
correspondent for that paper ever since.
During his twelve years in England Mr.
Frederic has been busy with his pen. Besides
his regular weekly letters he has written
several novels, among them being “Seth’s
Brother’s Wife,” “In the Valley,” “The
Lauton Girl,” “The Return of the O’Maho-
ny,” “The Copperhead” and a batch of
shorter tales. They have been strong, stirring
stories of American life, with lots of human
interest in them.
The way Mr. Frederic writes novel is in
teresting. He pays but little attention to the
plot in his preparatory work, but he some-
Continned on Sixteenth page.
Principal of the
RORERT BROWNING.
