1878-1884
He revisits Italy;Asolo;Letters to Mrs.Fitz-Gerald --Venice --Favourite Alpine Retreats --Mrs.Arthur Bronson --Life in Venice --A Tragedy at Saint-Pierre --Mr.Cholmondeley --Mr.Browning's Patriotic Feeling;Extract from Letter to Mrs.Charles Skirrow --'Dramatic Idyls'--'Jocoseria'--'Ferishtah's Fancies'.
The catastrophe of La Saisiaz closed a comprehensive chapter in Mr.Browning's habits and experience.It impelled him finally to break with the associations of the last seventeen autumns,which he remembered more in their tedious or painful circumstances than in the unexciting pleasure and renewed physical health which he had derived from them.He was weary of the ever-recurring effort to uproot himself from his home life,only to become stationary in some more or less uninteresting northern spot.The always latent desire for Italy sprang up in him,and with it the often present thought and wish to give his sister the opportunity of seeing it.
Florence and Rome were not included in his scheme;he knew them both too well;but he hankered for Asolo and Venice.He determined,though as usual reluctantly,and not till the last moment,that they should move southwards in the August of 1878.
Their route lay over the Spluegen;and having heard of a comfortable hotel near the summit of the Pass,they agreed to remain there till the heat had sufficiently abated to allow of the descent into Lombardy.
The advantages of this first arrangement exceeded their expectations.
It gave them solitude without the sense of loneliness.
A little stream of travellers passed constantly over the mountain,and they could shake hands with acquaintances at night,and know them gone in the morning.They dined at the table d'hote,but took all other meals alone,and slept in a detached wing or 'dependance'
of the hotel.Their daily walks sometimes carried them down to the Via Mala;often to the top of the ascent,where they could rest,looking down into Italy;and would even be prolonged over a period of five hours and an extent of seventeen miles.
Now,as always,the mountain air stimulated Mr.Browning's physical energy;and on this occasion it also especially quickened his imaginative powers.
He was preparing the first series of 'Dramatic Idylls';and several of these,including 'Ivan Ivanovitch',were produced with such rapidity that Miss Browning refused to countenance a prolonged stay on the mountain,unless he worked at a more reasonable rate.
They did not linger on their way to Asolo and Venice,except for a night's rest on the Lake of Como and two days at Verona.
In their successive journeys through Northern Italy they visited by degrees all its notable cities,and it would be easy to recall,in order and detail,most of these yearly expeditions.But the account of them would chiefly resolve itself into a list of names and dates;for Mr.Browning had seldom a new impression to receive,even from localities which he had not seen before.I know that he and his sister were deeply struck by the deserted grandeurs of Ravenna;and that it stirred in both of them a memorable sensation to wander as they did for a whole day through the pinewoods consecrated by Dante.
I am nevertheless not sure that when they performed the repeated round of picture-galleries and palaces,they were not sometimes simply paying their debt to opportunity,and as much for each other's sake as for their own.Where all was Italy,there was little to gain or lose in one memorial of greatness,one object of beauty,visited or left unseen.
But in Asolo,even in Venice,Mr.Browning was seeking something more:
the remembrance of his own actual and poetic youth.How far he found it in the former place we may infer from a letter to Mrs.Fitz-Gerald.
Sept.28,1878.
And from 'Asolo',at last,dear friend!So can dreams come FALSE.
--S.,who has been writing at the opposite side of the table,has told you about our journey and adventures,such as they were:
but she cannot tell you the feelings with which I revisit this --to me --memorable place after above forty years'absence,--such things have begun and ended with me in the interval!
It was TOO strange when we reached the ruined tower on the hill-top yesterday,and I said 'Let me try if the echo still exists which I discovered here,'(you can produce it from only ONE particular spot on a remainder of brickwork --)and thereupon it answered me plainly as ever,after all the silence:for some children from the adjoining 'podere',happening to be outside,heard my voice and its result --and began trying to perform the feat --calling 'Yes,yes'--all in vain:
so,perhaps,the mighty secret will die with me!We shall probably stay here a day or two longer,--the air is so pure,the country so attractive:
but we must go soon to Venice,stay our allotted time there,and then go homeward:you will of course address letters to Venice,not this place:it is a pleasure I promise myself that,on arriving I shall certainly hear you speak in a letter which I count upon finding.
The old inn here,to which I would fain have betaken myself,is gone --levelled to the ground:I remember it was much damaged by a recent earthquake,and the cracks and chasms may have threatened a downfall.
This Stella d'Oro is,however,much such an unperverted 'locanda'
as its predecessor --primitive indeed are the arrangements and unsophisticate the ways:but there is cleanliness,abundance of goodwill,and the sweet Italian smile at every mistake:we get on excellently.
To be sure never was such a perfect fellow-traveller,for my purposes,as S.,so that I have no subject of concern --if things suit me they suit her --and vice-versa.
