e sensitiveness and the infinite sacredness of this
grief, why she should have been so grieved at Miss Mitford's tender
allusion to an accident that was, by its very nature, public, and which
must have been reported in the newspapers of the day. Mrs. Browning was
always singularly free from any morbid states, from any tendency to the
_idee fixe_, to which a semi-invalid condition is peculiarly and
pardonably liable; but she said, in an affectionate letter to Miss
Mitford:

"I have lived heart to heart (for instance) with my husband these five
years: I have never yet spoken out, in a whisper even, what is in me;
never yet could find heart or breath; never yet could bear to hear a
word of reference from his lips."

It is said there are no secrets in heaven, and in that respect, at least,
the twentieth century is not unlike the celestial state; and it is almost
as hard a task for the imagination to comprehend the reserve in all
personal matters that characterized the mid-nineteenth century as it
would be to enter into absolute comprehension of the medieval mind; but
Mrs. Browning's own pathetic deprecation of her feelings regarding this is
its own passport to the sympathy of the reader. To Miss Mitford's reply,
full of sympathetic comprehension and regret, Mrs. Browning replied that
she understood, "and I thank you," she added, "and love you, which is
better. Now, let us talk of reasonable things." For Mrs. Browning had that
rare gift and grace of instantly closing the chapter, and turning the
page, and ceasing from all allusion to any subject of regret, after the
inevitable reference of the moment had been made. She had the mental
energy and the moral buoyancy to drop the matter, and this characteristic
reveals how normal she was, and how far from any morbidness.

Milsand, with a delicacy that Robert Browning never forgot, came to him to
ask his counsel regarding the inclusion of this tragic accident that had
left such traces on his wife's genius and character (traces that are
revealed in immortal expression in her poem, "De Profundis," written some
years later), and Browning was profoundly touched by his consideration.
Grasping both Milsand's hands, he exclaimed, "Only a Frenchman could have
done this!" A friendship initiated under circumstances so unusual, and
with such reverent intuition of Mrs. Browning's feelings, could not but
hold its place apart to them both.

The Brownings found Paris almost