ning would
gratify his passion for music by evolving from the throbbing keys of the
organ some faint Toccata of Galuppi's, while his wife smiled and listened,
and the tide of Florentine life flowed by in the streets outside. Casa
Guidi is almost opposite the Palazzo Pitti, so that Mrs. Browning had easy
access to her beloved Madonnas in the Pitti gallery, which to her husband,
also, was so unfailing a resource.

One of Mrs. Browning's American admirers, and one of the reviewers of her
poems, George Stillman Hillard, visited Florence that winter, and passed
more than one evening in Casa Guidi with the Brownings. Of Mrs. Browning
he wrote:

"Mrs. Browning is in many respects the correlative of her husband....
I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent
veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire
enclosed in a shell of pearl.... Nor is she more remarkable for genius
and learning than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth
of feeling, and purity of spirit.... A union so complete as theirs--in
which the mind has nothing to crave, nor the heart to sigh for--is
cordial to behold and cheering to remember."

Of all Italy Mr. Hillard perhaps best loved Florence, finding there an
indescribable charm, "a blending of present beauty and traditional
interest; but then Florence is alive," he added, "and not enslaved." It
was probably Hillard who suggested to William Wetmore Story that he
should meet Browning. At all events this meeting took place, initiating
the friendship that endured "forty years, without a break," and that was
one of the choicest social companionships.

The spring of 1849 brought new joy to Casa Guidi, for on March 9 was born
their son, who was christened Robert Wiedemann Barrett, the middle name
(which in his manhood he dropped) being the maiden name of the poet's
mother. The passion of both husband and wife for poetry was now quite
equaled by that for parental duties, which they "caught up," said Mrs.
Browning, "with a kind of rapture." Mr. Browning would walk the terraces
where orange trees and oleanders blossomed, with the infant in his arms,
and in the summer, when they visited Spezzia, and the haunt of Shelley at
Lurici, they wandered five miles into the mountains, the baby with them,
on horseback and donkey-back. The child grew rounder and rosier; and Mrs.
Browning was able to climb hills and help her husband to los