et out on the Marsala expedition, I
was just on the point of sailing to join him when I received a letter
from the father of my fiancee, telling me that her perplexities and
distress of mind over our marriage had so increased that they feared
for her reason if she were not set at rest. I took the next steamer,
and ended the vacillation by insisting on being married at once.
Nothing but a morbid self-depreciation had prevented her from coming
to a decision in the matter long before, and there was no other
solution than to assume command and impose my will. We were married
two days after my landing, and returned to Paris a few days after.
When the spring opened we went down into Normandy, and there,
returning to the study of nature and living in quiet and freedom from
anxiety, I slowly and partially recovered my vision, and began to
regain in a measure the power of drawing. The landscape of the quiet
French country suited me perfectly, and I made two or three good
studies, but without getting into a really efficient condition for
painting, which I only did a year or two later at Rome.

Our winter in Paris had been greatly brightened by the acquaintance of
the Brownings, the father and sister of the poet. We lived in the same
section of Paris, near the Hotel des Invalides, and much of our time
was passed with them. "Old Mr. Browning" we have always called him,
though the qualification of "old," by which we distinguished him from
his son Robert, seemed a misnomer, for he had the perpetual juvenility
of a blessed child. If to live in the world as if not of it indicates
a saintly nature, then Robert Browning the elder was a saint: a
serene, untroubled soul, conscious of no moral or theological problem
to disturb his serenity, and as gentle as a gentle woman,--a man in
whom, it seemed to me, no moral conflict could ever have arisen to
cloud his frank acceptance of life as he found it come to him. He had,
many years before we knew him, inherited an estate in Jamaica, but on
learning that to work it to profit he must become a slave owner he
renounced the heritage. And, knowing him as we knew him, it is easy to
see that he would renounce it cheerfully and without any hesitation.
A man of a rougher and more energetic type might have tried the
experiment, or questioned the judgment, at least have regretted his
own integrity, but Browning could have done neither. The way was
clear, and the decision must have been as quick as that of