tion he is
exquisite,--and in music a most subtle weigher out to the ear of fine
airs." And she asks if he knows what it is to covet his neighbor's
poetry,--not his fame, but his poetry. It delights her to hear of his
garden full of roses and his soul full of comforts. She finds the
conception of his Pippa "most exquisite, and altogether original."

In one of Miss Barrett's letters a few weeks later there seems discernible
a forecast of "Aurora Leigh," when she writes that her chief intention is
the writing "of a sort of novel-poem," and one "as completely modern as
'Geraldine's Courtship,' running into the midst of our conventions, and
rushing into drawing-rooms and the like 'where angels fear to tread'; and
so meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, and
speaking the truth, as I conceive of it, out plainly." She is waiting for
a story; she will not take one, because she likes to make her own. Here is
without doubt the first conception of "Aurora Leigh."

Touching on Life in another letter, she records her feeling that "the
brightest place in the house is the leaning out of the window."

Browning replies: "And pray you not to lean out of the window when my own
foot is only on the stair."...

"But I did not mean to strike a tragic chord," she replies; "indeed I did
not. As to 'escaping with my life,' it was just a phrase ... for the rest
I am essentially better ... and feel as if it were intended for me to live
and not to die." And referring to a passage relating to Prometheus she
asks: "And tell me, if Aeschylus is not the divinest of all the divine
Greek souls?" She continues:

"But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are not
to think--whatever I may have written or implied--that I lean either
to the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world through
darkness instead of light ... and after a course of bitter mental
discipline and long bodily seclusion I come out with two lessons
learned--the wisdom of cheerfulness and the duty of social
intercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude in
society.... What we call life is a condition of the soul, and the soul
must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault.... And
I do like to hear testimonies like yours, to happiness, and I feel it
to be a testimony of a higher sort than the obvious one.... Remember,
that as you owe your unscathed joy to God, y