there is never enough of telling her.... And she, noting his
sitting up in the morning till six, and sleeping only till nine, wants to
know "how 'Lurias' can be made out of such ungodly imprudences? And what
is the reasonableness of it," she questions, "when we all know that
thinking, dreaming, creative people, like yourself, have two lives to bear
instead of one, and therefore ought to sleep more than others"; and he is
anticipating the day when he shall see her with his own eyes, and now a
day is named on which he will call, and he begs her not to mind his coming
in the least, for if she does not feel able to see him he will come again,
and again, as his time is of no importance.

It was on the afternoon of May 20 (1845) that Robert Browning and
Elizabeth Barrett first met, and of them it could almost have been said,
in words ascribed to Michael Angelo for Vittoria Colonna,--

"We are the only two, that, face to face,
Do know each other, as God doth know us both."

It is said that the first letter of Browning's to her after this meeting
is the only one destroyed of all this wonderful correspondence; and this
was such a letter as could only be interpreted into a desire for marriage,
which she, all tender thoughtfulness always for others, characteristically
felt would be fatal to his happiness because of her invalid state. He
begged her to return the letter, and he then destroyed it; and again
pleaded that their friendship and intellectual comradeship should
continue. "Your friendship and sympathy will be dear and precious to me
all my life, if you indeed leave them with me so long, or so little," she
writes; and she utterly forbids any further expression or she must do this
"to be in my own eyes and before God a little more worthy, or a little
less unworthy, of a generosity...." And he discreetly veils his ardors for
the time, and the wonderful letters run on.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO MICHAEL ANGELO, BY VASARI

CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE.

"_They are safe in heaven...._
_The Michaels and Rafaels...._"

Old Pictures in Florence.]

He is writing "The Flight of the Duchess," and sending it to her by
installments; she finds it "past speaking of," and she also refers to
"exquisite pages" of Landor's in the "Pentameron." And poems which he has
left with her,--she must have her own gladness from them in her own way.
And did he go to Chelsea, and hear the divine philosophy?

Apparently he did, for he