SD2168. Diary Entry of Nathaniel Hawthorne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 351–352 (in part).
Florence,
June 9th [1858], Wednesday.
Mamma, Miss Shepard, and I, went last evening, at eight oclock, to see the Brownings; and after some search and inquiry, we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace in a street not very far from our own. It being dusk, I could not see the exterior, which, if I remember, Browning has celebrated in song; at all events, he has called one of his poems the ‘Casa Guidi Windows.’ The street is a narrow one; but on entering the house, we found a spacious staircase, and ample accommodations of vestibule and hall; the latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chaunting of priests in a church close by. Browning told us that this was the first church where an oratorio had ever been performed. He came into the ante-room to greet us; as did his little boy, Robert, whom they nickname Penny for fondness. This latter cognomen is a diminutive of Appennine, which was bestowed upon him at his first advent into the world, because he was so very small; there being a statue in Florence nicknamed Appennine, because it is so huge. I never saw such a boy as this before; so slender, fragile, and spritelike, not as if he were actually in ill-health, but as if he had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood. His face is very pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother’s, whose constitutional lack of stamina I suppose he inherits. He is nine years old, and seems at once less childlike and less manly than would befit that age. I should not quite like to be the father of such a boy; and should fear to stake so much interest and affection on him as he cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what is to become of him;—whether he will ever grow to be a man;—whether it is desirable that he should. His parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him gross and earthly, and giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in. He was born in Florence, and prides himself on being a Florentine, and is indeed as un-English a production as if he were native in another planet.
Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing-room and greeted us most kindly; a pale little woman, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate, only substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet, tenuity of voice. Really, I do not see how Mr. Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife, any more than an earthly child; both are of the elfin-breed, and will flit away from him, some day, when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards the human race, although only remotely akin to it. It is wonderful to see how small she is; how diminutive, and peaked, as it were, her face, without being ugly; how pale her cheek; how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in this world; and her black ringlets cluster down into her neck and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion. I could not form any judgement about her age; it may range any where within the limits of human life, or elfin-life. When I met her in London, at Mr. Milnes’s breakfast-table, she did not impress me so strangely; for the morning light is more prosaic than the dim illumination of their great, tapestried drawing-room; and besides, sitting next to her, she did not then have occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was not sensible what a slender pipe she has. It is as if a grasshopper should speak. It is marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive a creature, can impress us, as she does, with the certainty of her benevolence. It seems to me there were a million chances to one that she would have been a miracle of acidity and bitterness.
We were not the only guests. Mr. & Mrs. Eckers [sic, for Eckley], Americans, recently from the East, and on intimate terms with the Brownings, arrived after us; also, Miss Fanny Howarth [sic, for Haworth], an English literary lady, whom I have met several times in Liverpool; and lastly came the white head and palmer-like beard of Mr. Bryant, with his daughter. Mr. Browning was very efficient in keeping up conversation with everybody, and seemed to be in all parts of the room and in every group at the same moment; a most vivid and quick-thoughted person, logical and common-sensible, as I presume poets generally are, in their daily talk. Mr. Bryant, as usual, was homely and plain of manner, with an old-fashioned dignity, nevertheless, and a remarkable deference and gentleness of tone, in addressing Mrs. Browning. I doubt, however, whether he has any high appreciation either of her poetry or her husband’s; and it is my impression that they care as little about his.
We had some tea and some strawberries, and passed a pleasant evening. There was no very noteworthy conversation; the most interesting topic being that disagreeable, and now wearisome one, of spiritual communications, as regards which Mrs. Browning is a believer, and her husband an infidel. Bryant appeared not to have made up his mind on the matter, but told a story of a successful communication between Cooper, the novelist, and his sister, who had been dead fifty years. Browning and his wife had both been present at a spiritual session held by Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly hands; one of which had placed a laurel wreath on Mrs. Browning’s head. Browning, however, avowed his belief that these aforesaid hands were affixed to the feet of Mr. Hume, who lay extended in his chair, with his legs stretching far under the table. The marvellousness of the fact, as I have read of it, and heard it from other eye-witnesses, melted strangely away, in his rude, hearty gripe, and at the sharp touch of his logic; while his wife, ever and anon, put in a little shrill and gentle word of expostulation. I am rather surprised that Browning’s conversation should be so clear, and so much to the purpose of the moment; since his poetry can seldom proceed far without running into the high grass of latent meanings and obscure allusions.
Mrs. Browning’s health does not permit late hours; so we began to take leave at about ten oclock. I heard her ask Mr. Bryant if he did not mean to re-visit Europe, and heard him answer, not uncheerfully taking hold of his white hair, “It is getting rather too late in the evening now.” If any old age can be cheerful, I should think his might be; so good a man, so cool, so calm—so bright, too, we may say—his life has been like the days that end in pleasant sunsets. He has a great loss, however—or what ought to be a great loss—soon to be encountered in the death of his wife, who, I think, can hardly live to reach America. He is not eminently an affectionate man. I take him to be one who cannot get closely home to his sorrow, nor feel it so sensibly as he gladly would; and in consequence of that deficiency, the world lacks substance to him. It is partly the result, perhaps, of his not having sufficiently cultivated his animal and emotional nature; his poetry shows it, and his personal intercourse—though kindly—does not stir one’s blood in the least.
Little Penny, during the evening, sometimes helped the guests to cake and strawberries; joined in the conversation when he had anything to say, or sat down upon a couch to enjoy his own meditations. He has long curling hair, and has not yet emerged from his frock and drawers. It is funny to think of putting him into breeches. His likeness to his mother is strange to behold.
Publication: Hawthorne, 14, 300–303.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
___________________
