Chapter 17 - Page 2

their grist to his mill.

And now, in addition to the large social tribute which he received, and
had to pay, he was drinking in all the enjoyment, and incurring all the
fatigue which the London musical world could create for him. In Italy
he had found the natural home of the other arts. The one poem, 'Old
Pictures in Florence', is sufficiently eloquent of long communion with
the old masters and their works; and if his history in Florence and Rome
had been written in his own letters instead of those of his wife, they
must have held many reminiscences of galleries and studios, and of the
places in which pictures are bought and sold. But his love for music
was as certainly starved as the delight in painting and sculpture was
nourished; and it had now grown into a passion, from the indulgence of
which he derived, as he always declared, some of the most beneficent
influences of his life. It would be scarcely an exaggeration to say that
he attended every important concert of the season, whether isolated or
given in a course. There was no engagement possible or actual, which did
not yield to the discovery of its clashing with the day and hour fixed
for one of these. His frequent companion on such occasions was Miss
Egerton-Smith.

Miss Smith became only known to Mr. Browning's general acquaintance
through the dedicatory 'A. E. S.' of 'La Saisiaz'; but she was, at the
time of her death, one of his oldest women friends. He first met her as
a young woman in Florence when she was visiting there; and the love
for and proficiency in music soon asserted itself as a bond of sympathy
between them. They did not, however, see much of each other till he had
finally left Italy, and she also had made her home in London. She there
led a secluded life, although free from family ties, and enjoying a
large income derived from the ownership of an important provincial
paper. Mr. Browning was one of the very few persons whose society she
cared to cultivate; and for many years the common musical interest took
the practical, and for both of them convenient form, of their going to
concerts together. After her death, in the autumn of 1877, he almost
mechanically renounced all the musical entertainments to which she had
so regularly accompanied him. The special motive and special facility
were gone--she had been wont to call for him in her carriage; the
habit was broken; there would have been first pain, and afterwards an
unwelcome exertion in renewing it. Time was also beginning to sap his
strength, while society, and perhaps friendship, were making increasing
claims upon it. It may have been for this same reason that music after
a time seemed to pass out of his life altogether. Yet its almost sudden
eclipse was striking in the case of