ABSTRACT
Barrett’s partner was marked by energy and impulsivity. In his interview with Pen Browning, William Lyon Phelps affi rms this sense of Browning’s energy: “[h]e was amazingly vivacious and impulsive, with a great fl ow of talk. He constantly acted on impulse, and was boyish and enthusiastic even
in old age” (1913, 418). Phelps elaborates on this impression in his biography of Browning, adding that
[t]he salient feature of his character was his boyish vivacity and enthusiasm. If he looked out of the window and saw a friend coming along the street to call, he would often rush out and embrace him. In conversation he was extraordinarily eager and impulsive, with a great fl ow of talk on an enormous range of subjects. If he liked anything, he spoke of it in the heartiest manner, laughing aloud with delight. (30)
Phelps’ portrait echoes Edmund Gosse’s impressions of the poet who would greet visitors at his home with a “loud trumpet-note from the other end of the passage, the talk already in full fl ood at a distance of twenty feet” (1890, 81-82). To Gosse, like Phelps, Browning is characterized by energy: “He missed the morbid over-refi nement of the age; the processes of his mind were sometimes even a little coarse, and always delightfully direct . . . The vibration of his loud voice, his hard fi st upon the table, would make very short work with cobwebs” (91-92). Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne describes his childhood memory of Browning greeting him and his parents. To Hawthorne, the adult Browning is “still a boy, leaping across the narrow Siena street, apparently over a waggon that was passing, both hands outstretched, his vivid face alight in his brown jungle of bushy hair and beard, buoyant, impetuous, torrential in speech, greeting my father and mother, and even the urchin with them” (1928; Garrett 2000, 123-24). And Sarianna writes of her brother who has deferred a visit because of Barrett’s ill-health,
I know Robert’s impetuous disposition so well that I am convinced I were only to write in a certain tone, – to complain, for example, of his indifference, or neglect, or any other untrue accusation, he would set off at all hasards, – but I would much rather spare him the pain which I see it gives him to decline coming, and I myself have suggested it. (23 Apr. [1858]; ABL/JMA) 1
There is little separation between thought and its physical manifestation in these anecdotes. Indeed, Browning tells Barrett in one of the courtship letters,
[a]s for my walking fast, that is exactly my use & wont . . I am famous for it, – as my father is for driving old lady-friends into illnesses, and then saying innocently, “I took care to walk very slowly.” When I have anything to occupy my mind, I all but run – but the pen can’t run, for this letter must go, and nothing said. ([25 May 1846]; BC 12.357)
Sarianna Browning expressed her concern at her brother’s accident-proneness, which may be linked to his impulsivity. “[H]e has had so many
accidents,” Sarianna writes, “that I fear something fatal may happen at last” (14 July [1858]; ABL/JMA).
