how it appeared to the authoress herself.

The first of them deserves a word of special notice, because it is
likewise the first in these volumes addressed to Miss Mary Russell
Mitford, whose name holds a high and honourable place in the roll
of Miss Barrett's friends. Her own account of the beginning of the
friendship should be quoted in any record of Mrs. Browning's life.

'My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen
years ago.[43] She was certainly one of the most interesting persons
that I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same;
so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my
enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls
falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes,
richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such
a look of youthfulness that I had some difficulty in persuading a
friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the
translatress of the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus, the authoress of the
"Essay on Mind," was old enough to be introduced into company,
in technical language, was 'out.' Through the kindness of another
invaluable friend,[44] to whom I owe many obligations, but none so
great as this, I saw much of her during my stay in town. We met so
constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of
age,[45] intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into
the country we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being
just what letters ought to be--her own talk put upon paper.'[46]

[Footnote 43: This was written about the end of 1851.]

[Footnote 44: Probably John Kenyon, whom Miss Mitford elsewhere calls
'the pleasantest man in London;' he, on his side, said of Miss Mitford
that 'she was better and stronger than any of her books.']

[Footnote 45: Nineteen years, Miss Mitford having been born in 1787.]

[Footnote 46: _Recollections of a Literary Life_, by Mary Russell
Mitford, p. 155 (1859).]

Miss Barrett's letters show how warmly she returned this feeling of
friendship, which lasted until Miss Mitford's death in 1855. Of the
earlier letters many must have disappeared: for it is evident from
Miss Mitford's just quoted words, and also from many references in
her published correspondence, that they were in constant communication
during these years of Miss Barrett's life in London. After her
marriage, however, the extant letters are far more f