This comment, although no more than a passing word spoken in play, gives a correct indication of Browning’s feeling, fully shared in by his wife, towards the religious movement in England which was altering the face of the established Church.  “Puseyism” was for them a kind of child’s play which unfortunately had religion for its play-ground; they viewed it with a superior smile, in which there was more of pity than of anger.  Both of them, though one was a writer for the stage and the other could read Madame Bovary without flinching and approved the morals of La Dame aux Camelias, had their roots in English Puritanism.[46] And now the time had come when Browning was to embody some of his Puritan thoughts and feelings relating to religion in a highly original poem.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 40:  “Why am I a Liberal?” Edited by Andrew Reid.  London, 1885.]

[Footnote 41:  Letters of E.B.B., i. 442.]

[Footnote 42:  To Miss Mitford, August 24, 1848.]

[Footnote 43:  Casa Guidi Windows, i.]

[Footnote 44:  “Jane Eyre” was lent to E.B.B. by Mrs Story.]

[Footnote 45:  To Miss Mitford, Feb. 18, 1850.]

[Footnote 46:  In January 1859, Pen was reading an Italian translation of Monte Cristo, and announced, to his father’s and mother’s amusement, that after Dumas he would proceed to “papa’s favourite book, Madame Bovary".]

Chapter VII

Christmas Eve and Easter Day

Christmas Eve and Easter Day was published by Chapman & Hall in the year 1850.  It was reported to the author that within the first fortnight two hundred copies had been sold, with which evidence of moderate popularity he was pleased; but the initial success was not maintained and subsequently the book became, like Sordello, a “remainder.”  As early as 1845, in the opening days of the correspondence with Miss Barrett, when she had called upon her friend to speak as poet in his own person and to speak out, he assured her that whereas hitherto he had only made men and women utter themselves on his behalf and had given the truth not as pure white light but broken into prismatic hues, now he would try to declare directly that which was in him.  In place of his men and women he would have her to be a companion in his work, and yet, he adds, “I don’t think I shall let you hear, after all, the savage things about Popes and imaginative religions that I must say.”  We can only conjecture as to whether the theme of the poem of 1850 was already in Browning’s mind.  His wife’s influence certainly was not unlikely to incline him towards the choice of a subject which had some immediate relation to contemporary thought.  She knew that poetry to be of permanent value must do more than reflect a passing fashion; that in a certain sense it must in its essence be out of time