A courtship that triumphed
By Reet Singh

NO medieval romance of a gallant knight rescuing a fair maiden from a castle can match the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. In this story, the fair maiden was a 39-year-old semi — invalid. Her castle was an unremarkable house on a quiet street in Victorian London and her rescuer was a poet six years her junior.

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, London, the only son of an official in the Bank of England, and his wife, Sarah Anne Wiedemann. Browning attended a private school in London, but his education was very informal. He studied languages, literature, and music, and read widely. During the early part of his life, Browning lacked money for the wide travel desirable to complete his education. In 1833-1834 he visited Russia. In 1838 he made his first visit to Italy.

It was poetry that brought them together. In 1845, on his return Robert Browning read Elizabeth’s recently published work The Geraldine’s Courtship. On the advice of John Kenyon, his friend and Elizabeth’s cousin, he wrote her a letter. ‘I... love these books with all my heart,’ he wrote her, ‘and I love you too.’ Yet at this time they had never met. She answered him and so began one of the most touching and dramatic courtships of all times.

Elizabeth was almost a prisoner in her father’s house. A man embittered by the loss of his wife, his fortune and his oldest son, Edward Barrett tyrannized all his children. A childhood accident to her spine and symptoms of tuberculoses almost restricted Elizabeth’s life. By 1845, she had already been confirmed for five years to a view-less back room. She lay there all day seeing only her family and few friends. For constant companionship she depended on her maid, Wilson and her spaniel, Flash. She devoted her days to reading Greek, Latin, French and German literature, writing to friends and composing poems.

Then Browning’s vibrant personality broke her solitude. She wrote to him at first but refused to see him — afraid that the intimacy that had developed would end once he saw her. Elizabeth was not a beauty although she was endowed with striking black eyes. But on Browning’s persistence, five months later, they met for the first time.

Browning’s love strengthened. The courtship was kept a secret. She was never free of her terror of her father, so Browning’s visits were limited to thrice a week or sometimes less than once a week too.

It was a year and four months before she finally took the irrevocable step. They were married secretly, in a neighbourhood church called St. Marylebone Church. Afterwards, she returned home. A week later, while everyone was at dinner, taking Flash in her arms to avoid the barking she and Wilson slipped out of the house. With Browning, they crossed the English Channel for Paris.

Edward Barrett never forgave his daughter. He returned her letters unopened and refused to even hear her name. The Brownings settled in Florence. Mrs Browning’s health improved rapidly. The Brownings rented Casa Guidi, the villa which became their chief place of residence. There they received English and American visitors. It was here that Elizabeth at the age of 43, gave birth to a healthy boy, baptised according to the Lutheran rites as Robert Wiedemann Barrett. The marriage was idyllically happy. Both wrote poetry and went on to become celebrities. The Brownings varied their life by making visits to England, France and Rome. Summer months found them in London, where they enjoyed the friendship of Carlyle, Tennyson, Ruskin, Kingsley, and Rossetti. The only unpleasant circumstance was that Mr Barrett continued to refuse to see his daughter.

Elizabeth’s health caught up with her. Robert Browning worried constantly over her failing health. On June 29, 1861, after returning to Casa Guidi, aged 55, with Browning holding her in his arms Elizabeth died. Her last word was ‘beautiful’. She was buried in the English cemetery in Florence.

Wishing to turn as completely as possible from his old life, Browning settled in London, where he planned his son’s preparation for the University of Oxford and edited his wife’s unpublished works. He was offered the editorship of the Cornhill Magazine on the retirement of Thackeray, but declined it. Yet he continued to write, and in time became a familiar figure at London social gatherings. In 1878, after a lapse of 17 years, Browning revisited Italy. By this time he had become a public figure.

On December 12, 1889, the day his poem Asolando was published in London, Browning died quietly at his son’s palazzo in Venice. He wanted to be buried if in Italy, beside his wife, if in England, beside his mother, if in France beside his father. But as the English cemetry in Florence had been closed, the offer of Westminster Abby was accepted. There on the last day of the year his body was laid to rest in the Poet’s Corner.