Robert Browning: How to Know Him | Page 4

poet, six years her junior, one has only to read her letters. She
was a charming woman, feminine from her soul to her finger-tips, the
incarnation of _das Ewigweibliche_. Her intimate friends were mostly
what were then known as strong-minded women--I suppose to-day they
would seem like timid, shy violets. She was modest, gentle, winsome,
irresistible: profoundly learned, with the eager heart of a child.
Wimpole Street in London, "the long, unlovely street," as Tennyson
calls it, is holy ground to the lover of literature: for at Number 67 lived
Arthur Henry Hallam, and diagonally opposite, at Number 50, lived
Elizabeth Barrett. This street--utterly commonplace in appearance--is
forever associated with the names of our two great Victorian poets: and
the association with Tennyson is Death: with Browning, Love.
Not only was Elizabeth believed to be a hopeless invalid, but her father
had forbidden any of his children to marry. He was a religious man,
whose motto in his own household was apparently "Thou shalt have no
other gods before me." He had the particular kind of piety that is most
offensive to ordinary humanity. He gave his children, for whom he had
a stern and savage passion, everything except what they wanted. He
had an insane jealousy of any possible lover, and there is no doubt that
he would have preferred to attend the funeral of any one of his children
rather than a marriage. But Browning's triumphant love knew no
obstacles, and he persuaded Elizabeth Barrett to run away with him.
They were married in September, 1846, and shortly after left for Italy.
Her father refused to see either of them in subsequent years, and
returned his daughter's letters unopened. Is there any cause in nature for
these hard hearts?

Browning's faith wrought a miracle. Instead of dying on the journey to
Italy, Mrs. Browning got well, and the two lived together in unclouded
happiness for fifteen years, until 1861, when she died in his arms. Not a
scrap of writing passed between them from the day of her marriage to
the day of her death: for they were never separated. She said that all a
woman needed to be perfectly happy was three things--Life, Love,
Italy--and she had all three.
The relations between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning had all
the wonder and beauty of a mediaeval romance, with the notable
addition of being historically true. The familiar story of a damosel
imprisoned in a gloomy dungeon, guarded by a cruel dragon--and then,
when all her hope had vanished, rescued by the sudden appearance of
the brilliant knight, who carried her away from her dull prison to a land
of sunshine and happiness--this became the literal experience of
Elizabeth Barrett. Her love for her husband was the passionate love of a
woman for a man, glorified by adoration for the champion who had
miraculously transformed her life from the depths of despair to the
topmost heights of joy. He came, "pouring heaven into this shut house
of life." She expressed the daily surprise of her happiness in her
Sonnets, which one day she put shyly into his hands:
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear
and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To
bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique
tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad
years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had
flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping,
how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by
the hair;
And a voice said in mastery while I strove, ...
"Guess now
who holds thee?"--"Death!" I said. But, there, The silver answer rang ...
"Not Death, but Love."
My own Beloved, who hast lifted me
From this drear flat of earth
where I was thrown,
And in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
A
life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
Shines out again, as all the

angels see,
Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,
Who camest
to me when the world was gone,
And I who looked for only God,
found _thee_!
I find thee: I am safe, and strong, and glad.
As one
who stands in dewless asphodel
Looks backward on the tedious time
he had
In the upper life ... so I, with bosom-swell,
Make witness
here between the good and bad,
That Love, as strong as Death,
retrieves as well.
Browning replied to this wonderful tribute by appending to the fifty
poems published in 1855 his _One Word More_. He wrote this in a
metre different from any he had ever used, for he meant the poem to be
unique in his works, a personal expression of his love. He remarked
that Rafael wrote sonnets, that Dante painted a picture, each man going
outside the sphere of his genius to please the