awing and winning me. I know better than
any in the world, indeed, what Mr. Kenyon once unconsciously said
before me--that 'Robert Browning is great in everything.' Then, when
you think how this element of an affection so pure and persistent,
cast into my dreary life, must have acted on it--how little by little
I was drawn into the persuasion that something was left, and that
still I could do something to the happiness of another--and he what he
was, for I have deprived myself of the privilege of praising him--then
it seemed worth while to take up with that unusual energy (for me!),
expended in vain last year, the advice of the physicians that I should
go to a warm climate for the winter. Then came the Pisa conflict
of last year. For years I had looked with a sort of indifferent
expectation towards Italy, knowing and feeling that I should escape
there the annual relapse, yet, with that _laisser aller_ manner which
had become a habit to me, unable to form a definite wish about it. But
last year, when all this happened to me, and I was better than
usual in the summer, I _wished_ to make the experiment--to live the
experiment out, and see whether there was hope for me or not hope.
Then came Dr. Chambers, with his encouraging opinion. 'I wanted simply
a warm climate and _air_,' he said; 'I might be well if I pleased.'
Followed what you know--or do not precisely know--the pain of it was
acutely felt by me; for I never had doubted but that papa would catch
at any human chance of restoring my health. I was under the delusion
always that the difficulty of making such trials lay in _me_, and not
in _him_. His manner of acting towards me last summer was one of the
most painful griefs of my life, because it involved a disappointment
in the affections. My dear father is a very peculiar person. He is
naturally stern, and has exaggerated notions of authority, but these
things go with high and noble qualities; and as for feeling, the water
is under the rock, and I had faith. Yes, and have it. I admire such
qualities as he has--fortitude, integrity. I loved him for his courage
in adverse circumstances which were yet felt by him more literally
than I could feel them. Always he has had the greatest power over my
heart, because I am of those weak women who reverence strong men. By a
word he might have bound me to him hand and foot. Never has he spoken
a gentle word to me or looked a kind look which has not made in me
large results of grati