Penni, I believe, used to be
an assistant of Raphael early in the sixteenth century, and Pennini
may have been nicknamed after him. His mother, who was an extravagant
woman on the emotional and spiritual plane, made the poor little boy
wear his hair curled in long ringlets down his back, and clad him in a
fancy costume of black velvet, with knickerbockers and black silk
stockings; he was homely of face, and looked "soft," as normal boys
would say. But his parents were determined to make an ideal
dream-child of him, and, of course, he had to submit. I had the
contempt for him which a philistine boy feels for a creature whom he
knows he can lick with one hand tied behind his back, and I had
nothing whatever to say to him. But Pennini was not such a mollycoddle
and ass as he looked, and when he grew up he gave evidence enough of
having a mind and a way of his own. My mother took him at his mother's
valuation, and both she and my father have expressed admiration of the
whole Browning tribe in their published journals. Mrs. Browning seemed
to me a sort of miniature monstrosity; there was no body to her, only
a mass of dark curls and queer, dark eyes, and an enormous mouth with
thick lips; no portrait of her has dared to show the half of it. Her
hand was like a bird's claw. Browning was a lusty, active, energetic
person, dashing and plunging this way and that with wonderful impetus
and suddenness; he was never still a moment, and he talked with
extraordinary velocity and zeal.
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