Life and Letters of Robert Browning, Volume 1Houghton, Mifflin, 1891 - 646 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance admiration afterwards Alfred Domett BAGNI DI LUCCA Baths of Lucca beautiful became believe Bells and Pomegranates called Camberwell child Colombe's Birthday Dante Gabriel Rossetti daughter dear sir death dramatic England fancy father Florence Forster friendship genius George Sand hear heart husband imagine inspired intellectual interest Italian Italy Kenyon kind Kirkup Lady Lady Elgin later letter to Miss literary lived London Macready Macready's ment Milsand Miss Browning Miss Flower Miss Haworth mother nature never occasion once Paracelsus Paris passion Pauline perhaps person Pippa Passes play poem poet poet's poetic poetry probably remember Reuben Browning ROBERT BROWNING Robert Browning's Rome scarcely Scutcheon seems Serjeant Talfourd Shelley Shelley's sion sister Sordello spirit story Strafford summer sympathy tell thing thought tion told tragedy Venice verse wife winter woman words write written wrote young
Popular passages
Page 272 - ... the supreme Intelligence which apprehends all things in their absolute truth, — an ultimate view ever aspired to, if but partially attained, by the poet's own soul. Not what man sees, but what God sees — the Ideas of Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly on the Divine Hand — it is toward these that he struggles.
Page 166 - ... like an alternation or mixture of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought ; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose that such is actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such juxtaposition, would sufficiently .convey the desired meaning.
Page 108 - I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset, — mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has nothing in common, — judge it by principles on which it was never moulded, and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform.
Page 124 - Othello, and I told him I hoped I should make the blood come. It would indeed be some recompense for the miseries, the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts which I have endured in my profession if, by its exercise, I had awakened a spirit of poetry whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and adorn our degraded drama. May it be ! Acted Bertulphe better than the two preceding nights.
Page 164 - Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a Pit-full of goodnatured people applauded it : — ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention.
Page 210 - Barrett admitted indeed that he had nothing to urge against Robert Browning. When Mr. Kenyon, later, said to him that he could not understand his hostility to the marriage, since there was no man in the world to whom he would more gladly have given his daughter, if he had been so fortunate as to possess one, he replied : " I have no objection to the young man, but my daughter should have been thinking of another world.
Page 56 - Mrs. Browning went to Messrs. Ollier, and brought back " most of Shelley's writings, all in their first edition, with the exception of ' The Cenci.' " She brought also three volumes of the still less known John Keats, on being assured that one who liked Shelley's works would like these also.
Page 86 - In recognizing a poet we cannot stand upon trifles nor fret ourselves about such matters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for that afterwards, when larger works come before us. Archimedes in the bath had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown, but he first gave a glorious leap and shouted Eureka ! " Many persons have discovered Mr.
Page 184 - Blot in the Scutcheon." As a rule, Mr. Macready always read the new plays. But owing, I suppose, to some press of business, the task was intrusted on this occasion to the head prompter, — a clever man in his way, but wholly unfitted to bring out, or even to understand, Mr. Browning's meaning. Consequently, the delicate subtle lines were twisted, perverted, and sometimes even made ridiculous in his hands. My " cruel father " was a warm admirer of the poet.
Page 132 - He was then slim and dark, and very handsome ; and — may I hint it — just a trifle of a dandy, addicted to lemon-coloured kid gloves and such things : quite " the glass of fashion and the mould of form.