carpet; examining the knots in the wood of the floor or counting the
bricks in the opposite houses; with rapturous intervals of excitement
during the filling of the water-cart, through its leathern pipe, from
the dripping iron post at the pavement edge; or the still more
admirable proceedings of the turncock, when he turned and turned till
a fountain sprang up in the middle of the street. But the carpet, and
what patterns I could find in bed-covers, dresses, or wall papers to
be examined, were my chief resources, and my attention to the
particulars in these was soon so accurate, that when at three and a
half I was taken to have my portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had
not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him why there were
holes in his carpet."

[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING
From the portrait by Field Talfourd]

XXVIII

THE MARRIAGE OF THE BROWNINGS

When Wordsworth heard of the marriage of Robert Browning to Elizabeth
Barrett, he is reported to have said, "So Robert Browning and Miss
Barrett have gone off together. I hope they understand each
other--nobody else would." When Wordsworth said this he was an old man
and like most old men unable to appreciate the new. Compared with the
simplicity of much of Wordsworth's poetry a poem like _A Death in the
Desert_ might seem unintelligible; but surely the same objection
cannot be urged against the poetry of Mrs. Browning.

The marriage of Robert Browning to Miss Barrett is the one dramatic
event in his quiet life. To one who has read his passionate and at
times fiery, unconventional poetry, the runaway, unconventional
marriage is not unaccountable, but altogether consistent. The manner
of it was thus:

In her youth Miss Barrett became an invalid through an injury to her
spine, an accident occurring while she was fixing the saddle of her
riding horse. As she grew older she was confined to her room. To move
from a bed to a sofa seemed a perilous adventure requiring a family
discussion. Her father was a strange unaccountable man, selfish and
obstinate, and passionately jealous of the affection of his children.
In the meantime Miss Barrett had written poetry that attracted the
attention of a kindred spirit. Robert Browning in 1845 wrote to her
saying that he had once nearly met her and that his sensations then
were those of one who had come to the outside of a chapel of marvelous
illumination and found the door barred against him. A littl