酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part43_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页


that doesn't at once comprehend you!

He knows every word you have ever written; long ago `Sordello'



was an open book to him from title-page to closing line,

and ALL you have printed since has been as eagerly and studiously devoured.



He reads you aloud (and his reading is a fine art) to crowds

of astonished people, he swears by you, he thinks no one save Shakspere



has a right to be mentioned in the same century with you.

You are the great enthusiasm of his life.



Pardon me, you are smiling, I dare say. You hear any amount

of such things, doubtless. But a genuine living appreciation



is always worth having in this old world, it is like a strong fresh breeze

from off the brine, that puts a sense of life and power into a man.



You cannot be the worse for it.

Yours very sincerely,



Celia Thaxter.

==



When Mr. Thaxter died, in February 1885, his son wrote to Mr. Browning

to beg of him a few lines to be inscribed on his father's tombstone.



The little poem by which the request was answered has not yet, I believe,

been published.



==

`Written to be inscribed on the gravestone of Levi Thaxter.'



Thou, whom these eyes saw never, -- say friends true

Who say my soul, helped onward by my song,



Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too?

I gave but of the little that I knew:



How were the gift requited, while along

Life's path I pace, could'st thou make weakness strong,



Help me with knowledge -- for Life's old, Death's new!

R. B.



April 19, '85.

==



A publication which connected itself with the labours of the Society,

without being directly inspired by it, was the annotated `Strafford'



prepared by Miss Hickey for the use of students. It may be agreeable

to those who use the little work to know the estimate



in which Mr. Browning held it. He wrote as follows:

==



19, Warwick Crescent, W.: February 15, 1884.

Dear Miss Hickey, -- I have returned the Proofs by post, --



nothing can be better than your notes -- and with a real wish to be of use,

I read them carefully that I might detect never so tiny a fault, --



but I found none -- unless (to show you how minutely I searched,)

it should be one that by `thriving in your contempt,' I meant simply



`while you despise them, and for all that, they thrive and are powerful

to do you harm.' The idiom you prefer -- quite an authorized one --



comes to much the same thing after all.

You must know how much I grieve at your illness -- temporary as



I will trust it to be -- I feel all your goodness to me --

or whatever in my books may be taken for me -- well, I wish you knew



how thoroughly I feel it -- and how truly I am and shall ever be

Yours affectionately,



Robert Browning.

==



From the time of the foundation of the New Shakspere Society,

Mr. Browning was its president. In 1880 he became a member



of the Wordsworth Society. Two interesting letters to Professor Knight,

dated respectively 1880 and 1887, connect themselves



with the working of the latter; and, in spite of their distance in time,

may therefore be given together. The poem which formed the subject



of the first was `The Daisy';* the selection referred to in the second

was that made in 1888 by Professor Knight for the Wordsworth Society,



with the co-operation of Mr. Browning and other eminentliterary men.

--



* That beginning `In youth from rock to rock, I went.'

--






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号