tters, might hardly have repaid an etcher's intensity
of selective vision. Among the groups of spirits who presented
themselves to Dante there were some wise enough not to expect that their
names should be remembered on earth; such shades may stand in a
background. It is, however, strange that Browning who created so many
living men and women should in his letters have struck out no swift
indelible piece of portraiture; even here his is the inferior touch. And
yet throughout the whole correspondence we cannot but be aware that his
is the more massive and the more complex nature; his intellect has
hardier thews; his passion has an energy which corresponds with its
mass; his will sustains his passion and projects it forward. And towards
Miss Barrett his strength is seen as gentleness, his energy as an
inexhaustible patience of hope.

When Browning and his wife reached Paris, Mrs Browning was worn out by
the excitement and fatigue. By a happy accident Mrs Jameson and her
niece were at hand, and when the first surprise, with kisses to both
fugitives, was over, she persuaded them to rest for a week where they
were, promising, if they consented, to be their companion and aider
until they arrived at Pisa. Their "imprudence," in her eyes, was "the
height of prudence"; "wild poets or not" they were "wise people." The
week at Paris was given up to quietude; once they visited the Louvre,
but the hours passed for the most part indoors; it all seemed strange
and visionary--"Whether in the body or out of the body," wrote Mrs
Browning, "I cannot tell scarcely." From Paris and Orleans they
proceeded southwards in weather, which, notwithstanding some rains, was
delightful. From Avignon they went on pilgrimage to Petrarch's Vaucluse;
Browning bore his wife to a rock in mid stream and seated her there,
while Flush scurried after in alarm for his mistress. In the passage
from Marseilles to Genoa, Mrs Browning was able to sit on deck; the
change of air, although gained at the expense of some weariness, had
done her a world of good.

Early in October the journeying closed at Pisa. Rooms were taken for six
months in the great Collegio Ferdinando, close to the Duomo and the
Leaning Tower, rooms not quite the warmest in aspect. Mrs Jameson
pronounced the invalid not improved but transformed. The repose of the
city, asleep, as Dickens described it, in the sun and the secluded
life--a perpetual _tete-a-tete_, but one so happy--suited both the
w