Casa Guidi

“ Landor declared in one of his stately epitaphs on himself; Browning would, in this sense of the terms at least, have inverted their order. Casa Guidi windows commanded a view, not only of revolutionary throngs, but of the façade of the Pitti—a fact of at least equal significance. From the days of his boyish pilgrimages to the Dulwich Gallery across the Camberwell meadows, he had been an eager student and critic of painting; curious, too, if not yet expert in all the processes and technicalities of the studio. ”

“ Browning being yet felt, they went back to Florence. She died at last after a few days' illness in Browning's arms, on 29 June 1861, in their apartments in Casa Guidi. Thus closed, after sixteen years of unclouded marital happiness, one of the most interesting and romantic relations between a man and woman of genius which the history of literature presents to us.
Browning was overwhelmed by a disaster which he had refused to anticipate. Miss Isa Blagden, whose friendship had long been invaluable to the Brownings in Florence, was 'perfect in all kindness' to the bereaved poet. ”

“ On the little terrace outside there was more noble verse fashioned in the artist's creative silence than we can ever be aware of: but what a sacred place it must ever be for the lover of poetry! There, one ominous sultry eve, Browning, brooding over the story of a bygone Roman crime, foreshadowed "The Ring and the Book", and there, in the many years he dwelt in Casa Guidi, he wrote some of his finer shorter poems. There, also, "Aurora Leigh" was born, and many a lyric fresh with the dew of genius. ”

“ In October they returned to Florence, During this winter Browning was engaged in composing 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' which was published in March 1850. They gradually saw more people — Lever, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Kirkup, Greenough, Miss Isa Blagden. In September the Brownings went to Poggio al Vento, a villa two miles from Siena, for a few weeks. The following months, extremely quiet ones, were spent in Casa Guidi, the health of Elizabeth Browning not being quite so satisfactory as it had previously been since her marriage. ”

“ He proposed that Moxon should publish this at his own risk, but he declined; whereupon Browning made the same proposal to Chapman & Hall, or Forster did it for him, and they accepted. This edition appeared in two volumes in 1849, but contained only 'Bells and Pomegranates' and 'Paracelsus.' The Brownings had now been living in Florence, in furnished rooms, for more than a year, so they determined to set up a home for themselves. They took an apartment of 'six beautiful rooms and a kitchen, three of tliem quite palace rooms, and opening on a terrace' in the Casa Guidi. ”

“ The ‘Prometheus Bound’ was rewritten and printed in 5. 3. ‘The Seraphim, and other Poems,’ by E. B. Barrett, author of ‘A Translation of the Prometheus Bound,’ &c., 12mo, 1838. 4. ‘Poems by E. Barrett Barrett,’ author of ‘The Seraphim,’ &c., 2 vols. 12mo, 1844. Preface says, all written later than 3. 5. ‘Poems by E. B. Browning,’ 2nd edition, 2 vols. 12mo, 1850, containing new poems and an entirely new version of the ‘Prometheus.’ 3rd edition, 1853; 4th, 1856, &c. 6. ‘Casa Guidi Windows,’ a poem by E. B. Browning, 12mo, 1851. 7. ‘Aurora Leigh,’ by E. B. Browning, 8vo, 1857 ”

“ But the walls of the cottage were dry, for, many years before, Guida's mother had herself seen it built from cellar-rock to the linked initials over the doorway, stone by stone, and every corner of it was as free from damp as the mielles stretching in sandy desolation behind to the Mont es Pendus, where the law had its way with the necks of criminals.
In early childhood Madame Landresse had come with her father into exile from the sunniest valley in the hills of Chambery, where flowers and trees and sunshine had been her life. ”

“ It was a grand old building of gray stone, with a long facade, and was three stories in height. Its turrets and chimneys were noted for their picturesqueness. Its carved stone porches, its quaint wide windows, its steep roof, from which pert dormer-windows, saucily projected, were remarkable for their beauty or oddity. Despite its age, and its air of grandeur and stateliness, there was a home-like look about the great mansion that Lady Wynde did not fail to perceive at the first glance. ”

“ If it were not for the marble halls, and the decorations, and the foolishly expensive finish, the houses could be built round a court, and the flats could be shaped something like a Pompeiian house, with small sleeping-closets--only lit from the outside--and the rest of the floor thrown into two or three large cheerful halls, where all the family life could go on, and society could be transacted unpretentiously. Why, those tenements are better and humaner than those flats! There the whole family lives in the kitchen, and has its consciousness of being ”

“ The furniture is quaint and massive; but it is the rich mellow light streaming through the room that principally attracts the eye. Is it the western sun, tinted by the colored glass of the bay-window, or is it the ruddy hickory fire? What a remarkable chimney-place! few such can be seen now-a-days; they had gone out of date a hundred years ago; but it was ancient John Wyndham's fancy, as far as possible, to possess a fac-simile of the family mansion in England, in which his childish days had been spent. What elaborate carving upon the huge mantel-piece!—hunters with their guns and dogs ”

“ There are home visits by nurses, and two doctors keep office-hours.
34The Casa Ravello has four stories of brick, the windows made attractive by their gay boxes of geraniums, and air and light are at every window through the liberal space the courtyard leaves. The iron stairways come up through fire-towers, and there are netted verandahs safe and roomy for the youngsters of the family and the mothers resting or at work. On the roof in July and August is a playground, and a summer school for the children. ”

“ I devoutly exclaimed, as we stepped from the oriel window out upon the terrace. We did not walk much that day, the wind blew hard; the infant gasped for breath and hid his face on his nurse’s shoulder: we went in.
The next day I was occupied in my apartment with my tapestry, when Guilo abruptly entered, without knocking, and with a countenance pale and troubled, requested me to come immediately to his master: he wanted me. ”

“ The large apartment would serve for the reception, in a befitting manner, of a lady thickly veiled, reserving to the lady in question a double means of exit, either in a street somewhat deserted, or closely adjoining the forest. The smaller room might either shelter Manicamp for a time, who is De Guiche’s confidant, and would be the vigilant keeper of the door, or De Guiche himself, acting, for greater safety, the part of a master and confidant at the same time. ”

“ It is a one-storied dwelling with marble floors and white-washed walls, and is furnished with bran-new cane-bottomed chairs and other adornments belonging to a Cuban residence. The huge doors and windows of every apartment are thrown open to their widest and the interior being brilliantly lighted with gas, the view from the street is almost as complete as within the premises. Everybody crowds into the latter, and examines the arrangements of each chamber with as deep an interest as if they were wandering through an old baronial mansion with cards of invitation from its absent owner. ”

“ This cottage is also the subject of a legend which represents it as once being inhabited by an extraordinary old woman, of a tall stooping figure and fierce black eyes. Until of late years it has been the cause of some superstitious speculation among the neighbouring peasantry, and a large stone, hid under piles of deep green foliage, still marks the spot where she expired. At present, the cottage is converted into a lumber-house, and a gothic window in the gable, gives it the appearance of an old catholic chapel. ”

“ The furniture it contains is for use and comfort. It is never out of order, because it is subject to no formal rules. At the left of the hall is the real family home, more secluded and more significant of your own taste and feeling. Instead of many separate apartments for general family use, here are drawing-room, sitting-room, library and parlor, all in one. This is the domestic sanctuary, the essential family home into which outsiders come only by special invitation. ”

“ This room is the kitchen, reaching across the whole width of the house, and occupying what may be termed the west end of the structure. We notice that the carpetless floor is still damp, where it has been scrubbed to snowy whiteness; the stove shines with its glossy blackness; pots, kettles, dishes, chairs and table are all in place, and an air of exquisite neatness pervades the room.
Passing to our right we enter the sitting-room, not so large as the kitchen, and occupying the southeast corner of the house. There is a carpet on the floor--the only one Judd's mother possessed. ”

“ In the first gray light of dawn she rose, went to the closet, took out her old clothes, and dressed herself in them, and casting scarcely a look on the new clothes or round the sweet little chamber, she stole softly down stairs. She found a housemaid in the hall, who, not knowing the plans of her master and mistress in regard to the little girl, let her out, and she ran swiftly home. She found the cottage door unfastened, for the poor have little fear of burglars. ”

“ But the father never made his fortune; anyway, he never called for the child, and Mrs. Wedge had found in her grand-daughter a companion and a comfort, passing her days in peace and quiet. Therefore when the new owner offered her a home there, and wages besides, in return for her agreement to undertake his small services, she accepted—having become attached to the place—and lived on as before.
The house itself, which was built of stone, and almost square, contained ten rooms; four of about the same size below, and four exactly like them above, and two in the attic or half story in the roof. ”

“ Hence it is that in our country there is danger that our villas will be anything rather than national. The retired professional man, the wealthy merchant and mechanic, wish to build in the country. Instead of consulting home-comfort and pleasurable association, they select some Italian villa, Elizabethan house, or Swiss cottage, as their model. Ten chances to one the Italian villa, designed for the border of a lake, will be placed near a dusty high road ”

“ The lovers were seized, brought back in tribulation to the castle, and imprisoned, one in her chamber, the other in a dungeon. But love finds many devices: whether it was a golden key that opened her door, or whether it was her eloquent tongue and pleading looks, I know not, but certain it is that in the dead of night, when all but two in the castle were sunk in profound slumber, a fair lady softly stepped into her father's apartment, drew a large bunch of keys from under his pillow, and proceeding down to the dungeons by the secret passage, set Don Fernando at liberty! ”

“ Communicating with the hall by a wide door beautifully draped with some astonishingly cheap material is the parlor, fully equal in every respect to my library, and adjoining that the dining-room, nearly as large. On the same side is a green-house between two bay windows, the whole arrangement having a wonderful air of gentility and culture. I am convinced that you ought to invest three-fourths of your father's wedding present in some safe business, and with the remainder build a house like this, buying a small lot for it, and defer the larger house for a few years. ”

“ Since it was built, there’s not been such a home
At Krindlesyke: it’s only been a house ...
Jim:
’Twas just about as homely as a hearse
In my young days: but my luck’s turned, it seems.
Judith:
It takes more than four walls to make a home,
114 And such a home as Michael’s made for Ruth.
Though she’s a fendy lass; she’s too like me,
And needs a helpmate, or she’ll waste herself;
And, with another man, she might have wrecked,
Instead of building. She’s got her man, her mate:
Husband and father, born, day in, day out,
He works to keep a home for wife and weans. ”

“ It had in former times been an inn, or farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with many small rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases, half-landings and narrow passages, and a few large rooms, their low ceilings resting on old oak beams, black as ebony. Outside, it was the most picturesque and doubtless the oldest house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall ancient chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with age and lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman—for that was what the man was—living in such a big place. ”

“ Within the little cottage all is as prim and dainty and neat as without, for the sweet-faced old housewife gives as close heed to the household as the “gudeman” of the house to the flock and the cow and the hedgerows. And this was the home to which Chris had come—to the grandparents who had cared for his orphaned boyhood, and whom he never would have left but for the more certain prospect of well-paid work across the water. ”

“ Some houses, all of themselves, and before you meet a soul who lives in them, are silently indifferent to you. Some make you feel that you are not wanted in the least; these usually have a lot of gilt furniture, and what are called objects of art set stiffly about. Some seem to be having an untidy good time all to themselves, in which you are not included.
The De Guenther house, staid and softly toned, did none of these things. It gave the Liberry Teacher, in her neat, last year's best suit, a feeling as of gentle welcome-home. ”