When the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum was completed and dedicated during the first three days of December 1951, there were no funds left for landscaping. Dr. Armstrong had hoped to create the Garden of Contentment beside the Library building at that time, but it was not to be. Finally, though, Dr. Armstrong’s dream has become reality.

Due to much-needed rain the dedication took place in the Library & Museum’s magnificent Foyer of Meditation. Pattie Orr, Dean of University Libraries and Vice President for Information Technology, presided and brought greetings to the nearly-two hundred guests, university librarians, teaching faculty and Baylor students who helped to celebrate the special occasion. Rita S.Patteson, Director of the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum, spoke of Dr. Armstrong’s  “Vision for the Garden of Contentment.” Dr. Kirstie Blair of the University of Glasgow and this year’s Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies, spoke winningly of the “Significance of the Armstrong Browning Library and Museum.” The Benediction ending the Dedication was a reading of “Pippa’s Song” from Robert Browning’s early play, Pippa Passes. Sue Wright, Chairwoman of the Library’s Board of Advocates, invited the audience to read “Pippa’s Song” with her.

Pippa’s Song

The year’s at the spriing

and day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hillside’s dew-pearled

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his Heaven –

All’s right with the world.

(Pippa Passes, 1841)