1844-1849
Introduction to Miss Barrett --Engagement --Motives for Secrecy --Marriage --Journey to Italy --Extract of Letter from Mr.Fox --Mrs.Browning's Letters to Miss Mitford --Life at Pisa --Vallombrosa --Florence;Mr.Powers;Miss Boyle --Proposed British Mission to the Vatican --Father Prout --Palazzo Guidi --Fano;Ancona --'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon'at Sadler's Wells.
During his recent intercourse with the Browning family Mr.Kenyon had often spoken of his invalid cousin,Elizabeth Barrett,and had given them copies of her works;and when the poet returned to England,late in 1844,he saw the volume containing 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship',which had appeared during his absence.On hearing him express his admiration of it,Mr.Kenyon begged him to write to Miss Barrett,and himself tell her how the poems had impressed him;'for,'he added,'my cousin is a great invalid,and sees no one,but great souls jump at sympathy.'Mr.Browning did write,and,a few months,probably,after the correspondence had been established,begged to be allowed to visit her.She at first refused this,on the score of her delicate health and habitual seclusion,emphasizing the refusal by words of such touching humility and resignation that I cannot refrain from quoting them.'There is nothing to see in me,nothing to hear in me.I am a weed fit for the ground and darkness.'
But her objections were overcome,and their first interview sealed Mr.Browning's fate.
There is no cause for surprize in the passionate admiration with which Miss Barrett so instantly inspired him.To begin with,he was heart-whole.
It would be too much to affirm that,in the course of his thirty-two years,he had never met with a woman whom he could entirely love;but if he had,it was not under circumstances which favoured the growth of such a feeling.She whom he now saw for the first time had long been to him one of the greatest of living poets;she was learned as women seldom were in those days.It must have been apparent,in the most fugitive contact,that her moral nature was as exquisite as her mind was exceptional.She looked much younger than her age,which he only recently knew to have been six years beyond his own;and her face was filled with beauty by the large,expressive eyes.