marked
that he really had no choice in the matter, as the Apochryphal legends and
myths and improvisations that had even then begun to weave themselves
about the remarkable and unusual story of the acquaintance, courtship, and
marriage of his parents, could only be dissipated by the simple truth, as
revealed in their own letters.

Their love took its place in the spiritual order; it was a bond that made
itself the mystic force in their mutual development and achievement; and
of which the woman, whose reverence for the Divine Life was the strongest
element in her nature, could yet say,--

"And I, who looked for only God, found thee!"

Life, as well as Literature, would have been the poorer had not Mr.
Barrett Browning so wisely and generously enriched both by the publication
of this correspondence.

Not the least among the beautiful expressions that have been made by those
spirits so touched to fine issues as to enter into the spiritual
loveliness of these letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, is
a sonnet by a New England poet, Rev. William Brunton,--a poet who "died
too soon," but whose love for the poetry of the Brownings was as ardent as
it was finely appreciative:

"Oh! dear departed saints of highest song,
Behind the screen of time your love lay hid,
Its fair unfoldment was in life forbid--
As doing such divine affection wrong,
But now we read with interest deep and strong,
And lift from off the magic jar the lid,
And lo! your spirit stands the clouds amid
And speaks to us in some superior tongue!

"Devotion such as yours is heavenly-wise,
And yet the possible of earth ye show;
Ye dwellers in the blue of summer skies,
Through you a finer love of love we know;
It is as if the angels moved with men,
And key of Paradise were found again!"

CHAPTER VI

1846-1850

"And on her lover's arm she leant
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
To that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, beyond the day,
Through all the world she followed him."

MARRIAGE AND ITALY--"IN THAT NEW WORLD"--THE HAUNTS OF PETRARCA--THE MAGIC
LAND--IN PISA--VALLOMBROSA--"UN BEL GIRO"--GUERCINO'S ANGEL--CASA
GUIDI--BIRTH OF ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING--BAGNI DI LUCCA--"SONNETS
FROM THE PORTUGUESE"--THE ENCHANTMENT OF ITALY.

Paris,