SD1758. Thomas Chase to Anthony Chase Family
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 370–372 (in part).
Beautiful Florence
15th June 1854
Dearest Father, Mother & Sisters
I left Pau on the 3rd of April accompanied by Eddie Spring. We had a very pleasant & interesting journey in the South of France going by Diligence as far as Montpelier. The horses used with some of these vehicles are lame, halt, blind & present an appearance of wretchedness which could not be conceived by the wildest imagination. Ropes are used for reins & for traces & other parts of the harness. The carriages themselves are not uncomfortable, particularly in the coupe, in front, with windows & room for three persons, & the banquetts on top, protected by a leather |hand|: in one of these places we always rode. At Toulouse we spent several days very pleasantly with Mr. Kelly, an Irishman, who is at the head of a mercantile house in New York. I shall not here attempt to give the details of our visits to Montpelier, Nismes with its beautiful ruins, Arles, with its handsome noble-looking women, & Marseilles. From Marseilles to Genoa by land–a most lovely route. At Nice we stopped a day or two & one night at a station between Nice & Genoa, so as to see the whole road by day:—mountains & the Mediterranean! and we on a narrow road between them, dallying alternately with one and the other, now climbing to dizzy heights and now opening its arms to the south sea. One evening that water had a delicate rose color, rare & most exquisite. The poets speak of “light which never was on sea or land,” but it must be indeed an exalted imagination that can picture to itself more beautiful effects of color than those one sees on Italian and Greek waters. Another visit to Genoa, the superb city of palaces and a more intimate acquaintance with its treasures; thence by steamer to Civita Vecchia, & by diligence to Rome. In Rome we spent a month delightfully, in excellent lodgings, which had been occupied during the winter by the Hon. George P. Marsh, late minister to Constantinople, & which were very cheap—$8. a month. The antiquities & the galleries were very thoroughly and minutely visited; & a week was spent delightfully in an excursion, partly on foot & partly on donkies, to Albano, Monte Cave, Alba Longa, Frascati, Tusculum, Palestrina, & Tivoli—with the accompaniments of nightingales & other melodious singing birds and an incredible profusion of beautiful flowers. At Rome I became acquainted with Crawford, Miss Hosmer, & Robert & Elizabeth Browning, with other interesting, though less famous people. I requested an interview with the Brownings, in a note in which I alluded to my having gathered flowers for Mrs B. in Greece. I received immediately a very kind reply in which they gave me a very cordial invitation to call, and appointed half past ten the next morning as the hour. (Now, in what I may have to say of them, I must have it understood beforehand that not one word is to be printed or in any way made public. I presume there would be no danger of this being done, even if I said nothing about it, but Extracts from private letters, particularly gossip about distinguished people, often find their way into the newspapers; and I have so deep a dislike of the practice of putting in print small talk about the private life of persons whom one knows only through the courtesy offered to strangers, that I feel bound to make this formal prohibition.) There have been private letters of mine, parts of which I should have been willing to have had published; & I regretted that I did not tell you that Uncle Milton might, if he liked, put my letters from Malta last spring into the Spy. I found Mrs Browning seated in an armchair, her dark complexioned face, & the lines under her eyes, marked with traces of suffering, but with the stamp of a high intellect and exquisite sensibility. Her forehead was shaded with thick black curls. She is short, slight, very slight and weak, & has some slight appearance of deformity about the chest. Her dress, black silk I think on the bust, & a skirt of blue with white spots. Her voice is low & tremulous, & very feeble, but sensitive & expressive. She thanked me very kindly for the pleasure the flowers had given her, & showed me the book in which they has been most tastefully arranged, with others, by Mrs. Marsh. I gave her some details in regard to the situations in which they were found. Mr. Browning entered in a few minutes: a fine healthy-looking man of some five and thirty, about the size of brother Pliny, with black hair very abundant, a sprinkling of gray in his beard, a rather dark complexion, and most expressive blue eyes. He talked with the greatest fluency in simple, natural, strong English: he is a great talker. Mrs. Browning said little, but what she did say was meaning<ful> and came just at the right time. I asked Browning if he had any one in view in his Lost Leader. —“Just for a handful of silver he left us” etc. He said he had not entirely any one person, but it was not fair to deny that he did have particular reference to a man—it was too bad to mention it now he was dead and gone—to Wordsworth! He felt deeply Wordsworth’s defections, his and Southey’s, giving their strength to the Tories, particularly considering Wordsworth’s immense influence on the young men of England. And though Wordsworth was never really a leader, certainly not a political leader, his influence was great, & it was hard to see it go over to the wrong side. Imagine me—who have always so loved & venerated Wordsworth, & so admired these lines of Browning’s, & considered them as embodying the most scathing and terrible denunciation that was ever fulmined against moral dereliction,—learning that Wordsworth was that “one lost soul more” of the poet! But it was easy to reconcile myself to it: it was not as a political leader or an advocate of social progress, that I admired Wordsworth: & his merit as a philosophical poet is not diminished by the fact that he did not combine in his sole person all excellencies, or even that he grievously erred in his political conduct.– Both Mr & Mrs Browning are very democratical in their opinions. Mrs. Browning said, “that its the great thing, for a people to be democratic, no matter what their form of government, whether republican or monarchical.” I perfectly agreed with Mr. Browning that the most hopeful political sign in Italy is the liberality of the Piedmontese government, & that in its provisions for popular education & its advances in religious freedom, it is doing more for Italy than all the schemes of the republicans. Yet certain leaders, with strange perversity, cry “Down with Piedmont” & say it is a greater obstacle in the path of freedom than even Naples, the vilest of the vile. Of the English, Browning said they were very slow to see that reforms were needed, but when they had once seen, and taken a step forward accordingly, they never go back. Never can they be made to submit to the corn laws again. Never again will there be a ministry, of any party so ever, who will profess that the present Constitution is perfect. The English, says Browning, are far from moving fast enough for his notion; still they do move.
But to be praised, by such a man as Browning, as was our countryman the artist Page! “A man of genius, living constantly in an elevated sphere, living in the sphere of high art, like the old Greeks.” These are some of the words Browning applied to him. He pronounced Page the first painter living, saying that he deemed himself not incompetent to make the comparison. Knowing well what art is at this day in England, France, Germany, & Italy, & having an extensive acquaintance with the best artists of these countries; but Page is first of all. Page was just completing a portrait of Browning, which the poet pronounced “wo<nderful>. What relief! The head is alive! I really believe it would produce all the astonishing effects recorded of some of the old Greek paintings: surround it with curtains & drapery & it would be pronounced a living man. And it is worthy, too, of all the highest praise of perfection as a work of art, & as representing, so my friends say, the mind & soul.” I left, amidst kind expressions of regret that I had not sought them sooner, and invitations to call again, both at Rome and in Florence.
Since arriving here, I have called on them with Eddie, and looked from “Casa Guidi Windows.” We went early one Sunday evening, and stayed till nearly eleven o’clock, taking tea with them. Mr. Powers came a few minutes after us, & then Mr & Mrs Francis Geo. Shaw. We had dined at the Shaws that day, with Mr. & Mrs. Powers; & it was a pleasant reunion in the evening. Everything was so easy and agreeable, that it would have been much harder & stiffer for us to leave, after a short call, than to stay as we did. Page’s portrait of the poet was exhibited: he had presented it to Mrs. B., a kindness which quite overwhelmed her: as she told us with great feeling, “it was too much.” Browning sat 54 times, never less than an hour & a half, & generally two hours. With some artists such a length of time would have been unendurable; but, said Browning, it is a great pleasure to sit and hear Page talk. I had seen the portrait in Rome, in Page’s studio, & was delighted to have the opportunity of seeing it again. It is simply the head, with the neck & merest bit of the bust: Page preferred to throw all his energy into the head. It is, really, alive: put a pin into the flesh, it would bleed: more than this, it is the face of Robert Browning, the poet, it is the mind of Robert Browning that you see. The eyes are wonderful; liquid and living, and full of thought: the sight is introverted. As Powers said, Browning in the picture is not seeing what passes in the outward world around him, but is in meditation, his eyes having the introverted look which one often notices in the man himself. There is nothing theatrical or for effect about it: no “fine frenzy” put on. The face is true, genuine, & unaffected. As Browning said to us, it is not his face in excitement, in enthusiasm, or in depression, but it is the stuff out of which these expressions are made, it is his face. It was pleasant to see the poet get onto the floor and look up at this portrait. He never tires of gazing at it; & Mrs. B. says she fears he will share the fate of Narcissus! He loves Page with the most beautiful affection.
Browning’s forehead is broad & his head large at the base, but not what would be called a large head. He said he was confident his was the smallest head in the company, & hats were brought when it was found that his head was smaller than Powers’s and mine but the same size (as far as the fitting of hats is concerned) as Mr. Shaw’s. Browning said he believed poets generally had small heads: Byron’s was small, & Shell[e]y’s & Keats’s, (Leigh (Lee pronunciation) Hunt having recorded that he could not get either of their hats on to his head, though his head was small—but he is an inferior poet to either Shell[e]y or Keats.), Geo Byron’s brain was one of the heaviest known.– Browning says his constitution has undergone an entire change since his marriage & residence in Tuscany, what with change of climate & diet. He used to have dizzy headaches. His circulation is slow, & a Physician told him he ought to live 100 years. Mrs. B’s circulation is too rapid. Of sensitiveness of touch he told an interesting fact—some ladies in England can tell the difference between port, & sherry, by dipping their fingers into the glasses—a feat particularly difficult in England, where the preferred sherry is of a dark, thick quality, & the preferred port a light thin one, hardly distinguishable in appearance from sherry. He heard Mrs. Kemble say in Rome that her father, a celebrated epicure, used to bring his wines to her to taste & express an opinion upon before selecting them to drink himself—she not drinking wine, and he valuing so highly the judgment of a fresh taste. For tea we had tea & coffee, thin buttered slice<s of> bread, short cakes & cakes. …
Mr. Ogden, of Chicago, a princely looking man, & a man of princely fortune, we have met not only in Paris, but in Rome & here. He is a fit representative of the better class of Americans. Of great intelligence & the most graceful & winning manners, he is a friend of progress & an active member of the Free Soil party. He is intimate with the Brownings. …
Mr. & Mrs. Gale leave in a few days for Paris, & hope to reach America early in the autumn. I have sent some engravings in a box of their things to go in a sailing vessel from Leghorn. They live in Casa Guidi, the appartment above the Brownings. …
Address, on integral page: Anthony Chase Esq. / Worcester, / Massachusetts / Etats-Unis de’Amérique.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Haverford College.
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