第52章 Chapter 11(5)

He is the son of Judge Story,the biographer of his father,and for himself,sculptor and poet --and she a sympathetic graceful woman,fresh and innocent in face and thought.We go backwards and forwards to tea and talk at one another's houses.

'...Since I began this letter we have had a grand donkey excursion to a village called Benabbia,and the cross above it on the mountain-peak.

We returned in the dark,and were in some danger of tumbling down various precipices --but the scenery was exquisite --past speaking of for beauty.Oh,those jagged mountains,rolled together like pre-Adamite beasts and setting their teeth against the sky --it was wonderful....'

Mr.Browning's share of the work referred to was 'In a Balcony';also,probably,some of the 'Men and Women';the scene of the declaration in 'By the Fireside'was laid in a little adjacent mountain-gorge to which he walked or rode.A fortnight's visit from Mr.,now Lord,Lytton,was also an incident of this summer.

The next three letters from which I am able to quote,describe the impressions of Mrs.Browning's first winter in Rome.

Rome:43Via Bocca di Leone,3o piano.Jan.18,54.

'...Well,we are all well to begin with --and have been well --our troubles came to us through sympathy entirely.A most exquisite journey of eight days we had from Florence to Rome,seeing the great monastery and triple church of Assisi and the wonderful Terni by the way --that passion of the waters which makes the human heart seem so still.

In the highest spirits we entered Rome,Robert and Penini singing actually --for the child was radiant and flushed with the continual change of air and scene....You remember my telling you of our friends the Storys --how they and their two children helped to make the summer go pleasantly at the Baths of Lucca.They had taken an apartment for us in Rome,so that we arrived in comfort to lighted fires and lamps as if coming home,--and we had a glimpse of their smiling faces that evening.

In the morning before breakfast,little Edith was brought over to us by the manservant with a message,"the boy was in convulsions --there was danger."We hurried to the house,of course,leaving Edith with Wilson.Too true!All that first day we spent beside a death-bed;for the child never rallied --never opened his eyes in consciousness --and by eight in the evening he was gone.In the meanwhile,Edith was taken ill at our house --could not be moved,said the physicians ...gastric fever,with a tendency to the brain --and within two days her life was almost despaired of --exactly the same malady as her brother's....

Also the English nurse was apparently dying at the Story's house,and Emma Page,the artist's youngest daughter,sickened with the same disease.

'...To pass over the dreary time,I will tell you at once that the three patients recovered --only in poor little Edith's case Roman fever followed the gastric,and has persisted ever since in periodical recurrence.She is very pale and thin.

Roman fever is not dangerous to life,but it is exhausting....

Now you will understand what ghostly flakes of death have changed the sense of Rome to me.The first day by a death-bed,the first drive-out,to the cemetery,where poor little Joe is laid close to Shelley's heart ("Cor cordium"says the epitaph)and where the mother insisted on going when she and I went out in the carriage together --I am horribly weak about such things --I can't look on the earth-side of death --I flinch from corpses and graves,and never meet a common funeral without a sort of horror.

When I look deathwards I look OVER death,and upwards,or I can't look that way at all.So that it was a struggle with me to sit upright in that carriage in which the poor stricken mother sat so calmly --not to drop from the seat.Well --all this has blackened Rome to me.I can't think about the Caesars in the old strain of thought --the antique words get muddled and blurred with warm dashes of modern,everyday tears and fresh grave-clay.

Rome is spoilt to me --there's the truth.Still,one lives through one's associations when not too strong,and I have arrived at almost enjoying some things --the climate,for instance,which,though pernicious to the general health,agrees particularly with me,and the sight of the blue sky floating like a sea-tide through the great gaps and rifts of ruins....We are very comfortably settled in rooms turned to the sun,and do work and play by turns,having almost too many visitors,hear excellent music at Mrs.Sartoris's (A.K.)once or twice a week,and have Fanny Kemble to come and talk to us with the doors shut,we three together.This is pleasant.I like her decidedly.

'If anybody wants small talk by handfuls,of glittering dust swept out of salons,here's Mr.Thackeray besides!...'

Rome:March 29.

'...We see a good deal of the Kembles here,and like them both,especially Fanny,who is looking magnificent still,with her black hair and radiant smile.A very noble creature indeed.Somewhat unelastic,unpliant to the age,attached to the old modes of thought and convention --but noble in qualities and defects.I like her much.She thinks me credulous and full of dreams --but does not despise me for that reason --which is good and tolerant of her,and pleasant too,for I should not be quite easy under her contempt.Mrs.Sartoris is genial and generous --her milk has had time to stand to cream in her happy family relations,which poor Fanny Kemble's has not had.Mrs.Sartoris'house has the best society in Rome --and exquisite music of course.