1887-1889
Marriage of Mr.Barrett Browning --Removal to De Vere Gardens --Symptoms of failing Strength --New Poems;New Edition of his Works --Letters to Mr.George Bainton,Mr.Smith,and Lady Martin --Primiero and Venice --Letters to Miss Keep --The last Year in London --Asolo --Letters to Mrs.Fitz-Gerald,Mrs.Skirrow,and Mr.G.M.Smith.
The last years of Mr.Browning's life were introduced by two auspicious events,in themselves of very unequal importance,but each in its own way significant for his happiness and his health.
One was his son's marriage on October 4,1887,to Miss Fannie Coddington,of New York,a lady towards whom Mr.Barrett Browning had been strongly attracted when he was a very young man and she little more than a child;the other,his own removal from Warwick Crescent to De Vere Gardens,which took place in the previous June.The change of residence had long been with him only a question of opportunity.
He was once even in treaty for a piece of ground at Kensington,and intended building a house.That in which he had lived for so many years had faults of construction and situation which the lapse of time rendered only more conspicuous;the Regent's Canal Bill had also doomed it to demolition;and when an opening presented itself for securing one in all essentials more suitable,he was glad to seize it,though at the eleventh hour.He had mentally fixed on the new locality in those earlier days in which he still thought his son might eventually settle in London;and it possessed at the same time many advantages for himself.It was warmer and more sheltered than any which he could have found on the north side of the Park;and,in that close vicinity to Kensington Gardens,walking might be contemplated as a pleasure,instead of mere compulsory motion from place to place.
It was only too soon apparent that the time had passed when he could reap much benefit from the event;but he became aware from the first moment of his installation in the new home that the conditions of physical life had become more favourable for him.
He found an almost pathetic pleasure in completing the internal arrangements of the well-built,commodious house.It seems,on looking back,as if the veil had dropped before his eyes which sometimes shrouds the keenest vision in face of an impending change;and he had imagined,in spite of casual utterances which disclaimed the hope,that a new lease of life was being given to him.He had for several years been preparing for the more roomy dwelling which he would probably some day inhabit;and handsome pieces of old furniture had been stowed away in the house in Warwick Crescent,pending the occasion for their use.
He loved antiquities of this kind,in a manner which sometimes recalled his father's affection for old books;and most of these had been bought in Venice,where frequent visits to the noted curiosity-shops had been his one bond of habit with his tourist countrymen in that city.
They matched the carved oak and massive gildings and valuable tapestries which had carried something of Casa Guidi into his first London home.
Brass lamps that had once hung inside chapels in some Catholic church,had long occupied the place of the habitual gaselier;and to these was added in the following year one of silver,also brought from Venice --the Jewish 'Sabbath lamp'.Another acquisition,made only a few months,if indeed so long,before he left London for the last time,was that of a set of casts representing the Seasons,which were to stand at intervals on brackets in a certain unsightly space on his drawing-room wall;and he had said of these,which I think his son was procuring for him:'Only my four little heads,and then I shall not buy another thing for the house'--in a tone of childlike satisfaction at his completed work.
This summer he merely went to St.Moritz,where he and his sister were,for the greater part of their stay,again guests of Mrs.Bloomfield Moore.
He was determined to give the London winter a fuller trial in the more promising circumstances of his new life,and there was much to be done in De Vere Gardens after his return.
His father's six thousand books,together with those he had himself accumulated,were for the first time to be spread out in their proper array,instead of crowding together in rows,behind and behind each other.The new bookcases,which could stand in the large new study,were waiting to receive them.He did not know until he tried to fulfil it how greatly the task would tax his strength.
The library was,I believe,never completely arranged.
During this winter of 1887-8his friends first perceived that a change had come over him.They did not realize that his life was drawing to a close;it was difficult to do so when so much of the former elasticity remained;when he still proclaimed himself 'quite well'so long as he was not definitely suffering.But he was often suffering;one terrible cold followed another.There was general evidence that he had at last grown old.
He,however,made no distinct change in his mode of life.
Old habits,suspended by his longer imprisonments to the house,were resumed as soon as he was set free.He still dined out;still attended the private view of every,or almost every art exhibition.
He kept up his unceasing correspondence --in one or two cases voluntarily added to it;though he would complain day after day that his fingers ached from the number of hours through which he had held his pen.One of the interesting letters of this period was written to Mr.George Bainton,of Coventry,to be used,as that gentleman tells me,in the preparation of a lecture on the 'Art of Effective Written Composition'.It confirms the statement I have had occasion to make,that no extraneous influence ever permanently impressed itself on Mr.Browning's style.
29,De Vere Gardens:Oct.6,'87.
