Part 9 (1/2)

Horne--a poet of genius, and a dramatist of remarkable poas one of the truest friends she ever had, and, so far as her literary life is concerned, ca the friends she saw much of in the early forties was a distant ”cousin,”

John Kenyon--a jovial, genial, gracious, and altogether delightful man, who acted the part of Providence to many troubled souls, and, in particular, was ”a fairy Godfather” to Elizabeth Barrett and to ”the other poet,” as he used to call Browning It was to Mr Kenyon--”Kenyon, with the face of a Bendectine ood fellows,” as a friend has recorded of hi--that Miss Barrett owed her first introduction to the poetry of her future husband

Browning's poetry had for her an iht she discerned the special quality of the poetic wealth of the ”Bells and Po which she then and always cared most for the penultimate volume, the ”Dramatic Romances and Lyrics” Two years before she met the author she had written, in ”Lady Geraldine's Courtshi+p”--

”Or froranate' which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined huly on either side, been a collaborateur with ”the author of 'Paracelsus'” She gave Horne e,” and he has hiularly happy and appropriate, were for the , then unknown to each other” One thing and another drew them nearer and nearer Noas a poem, now a novel expression, now a rare sympathy

An intermittent correspondence ensued, and both poets becarees with us,” as Balzac says

A few months later, in 1846, they came to know one another personally

The story of their first , which has received a wide acceptance, is apocryphal The ht about by Kenyon This co's father, and so it was natural that he took apoet, perhaps all the more so that the reluctant tide of popularity which had proht had since experienced a steady ebb

And so the fates brought these two together The younger was already far the stronger, but he had an unbounded admiration for Miss Barrett To her, he was even then the chief living poet She perceived his ultireatness; as early as 1845 had ”a full faith in hi admitted to a friend, the love between the of the eyes, ratified equally in a co union: passion for the art to which both had devoted their lives

To those who love love for love's sake, who _se passionnent pour la passion_, as Prosper Merimee says, there could scarce be a more sacred spot in London than that fiftieth house in unattractive Wimpole Street, where these two poets first met each other; and where, in the darkened room, ”Love quivered, an invisible flame” Elizabeth Barrett was indeed, in her oords, ”as sweet as Spring, as Ocean deep” She, too, was always, as she wrote of Harriet Martineau, in a hopeless anguish of body and serene triue Sand says, of one of her fictitious personages, she was an ”artist to the backbone; that is, one who feels life with frightful intensity” To this too keen intensity of feelingfor repose, that deep craving for rest fro from within, which made her affires as ”The Lord of peace Hiiveth His Beloved Sleep,” which, as she says in one of her numerous letters to Miss Mitford, ”strike upon the disquieted earth with such a _foreignness_ of heavenly music”

Nor was he whom she loved as a man, as well as revered as a poet, unworthy of her His was the robustest poetic intellect of the century; his the serenest outlook; his, al the perilous ways of speculative thought A fair life, irradiate with fairer ideals, conserved his native integrity froruity between practice and precept so commonly exemplified Comely in all respects, with his black-broavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and winsome sestures--an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a modulation of the lips, an assertive or deprecatory wave of the hand, conveying sosweetness, he was, even without that light of the future upon his forehead which she was so swift to discern, a man to captivate any woman of kindred nature and syes, he possessed a rare quality of physical netism By virtue of this he could either attract irresistibly or strongly repel

I have several ti was like an electric shock Truly enough, it did seeenially doh his voice transh every nerve of what, for want of a better phrase, I must perforce call his intensely alive hand I remember once how a lady, afflicted with nerves, in the dubious enjoyment of her first experience of a ”literary afternoon,” rose hurriedly and, in reply to her hostess'

inquiry as to her er beside the elderly gentle to Mrs So-and-so, as his near presence made her quiver all over, ”like a mild attack of pins-and-needles,” as she phrased it She was chagrined to learn that she had been discomposed not by 'a too exuberant financier,' as she had sur, the ”subtlest assertor of the Soul in song”

With the sa's poetic greatness, Elizabeth Barrett discerned his personal worth He was essentially manly in all respects: so manly, that many frail souls of either sex philandered about his over-robustness Frolooreatwas houlish cries of any kind whatsoever Once in a way the lion would look round and by a raised breath le; as when the poet wrote to a correspondent, who had drawn his attention to certain abusive personalities in some review or newspaper: ”Dear Sir--I a an experience of the inability of the huoose to do other than cackle when benevolent and hiss when oose criticisainst addles behind it”

Herself one whose happiest experiences were in drea hu, nor less keenly attracted by his strenuous and fearless outlook, his poetic practicality, and even by his bluntness of insight in certainto her that she could, in Mr Lowell's words, say of herself and of him--

”We, who believe life's bases rest Beyond the probe of chemic test”

She rejoiced, despite her own love for reain from the same fine poet)

” wasted not their breath in scheht be in some bubble-sphere, As if he must be other than he see Time's slow proof to petulant dreams;”

that, in a word, while 'he could believe the promise of to-morrow,' he was at the sa of to-day'

Both, from their youth onward, had travelled 'on trails divine of uniined laws' It was sufficient for her that he kept his eyes fixed on the goal beyond the way he followed: it did not matter that he was blind to the die Calvarys by the wayside, so often visible to her

Their firstwas speedily followed by a second--by a third--and then? When we know not, but ere long, each found that happiness was in the bestowal of the other

The secret was for some time kept absolutely private From the first Mr

Barrett had been jealous of his beloved daughter's new friend He did not care much for the man, he with all the prejudices and baneful conservatis planter, the other with ardent democratic sentiments and a detestation of all forms of iniquity Nor did he understand the poet He could read his daughter's flowing verse with pleasure, but there was to his ear a mere jumble of sound and sense in much of the work of the author of ”The Toensis” Of a selfishly genial but also of a violent and often sullen nature, he resented more and more any friendshi+p which threatened to loosen the chain of affection and association binding his daughter to himself

Both the lovers believed that an ie would, from every point of view, be best It was not advisable that it should be long delayed, if to happen at all, for the health of Miss Barrett was so poor that another winter in London ht, probably would, mean irretrievable harm

Some time before this she had become acquainted with Mrs Jaard, which quickly developed to an affectionate estee Mrs Jalooic of Italy, and concluded by inviting Miss Barrett to accompany her in her own irateful, but, pointing to her invalid sofa, and gently e her enfeebled health and other difficult circuenerous offer

In the ”Memoirs of Mrs Jameson” that lady's niece, Mrs Macpherson, relates how on the eve of her and her aunt's departure, a little note of farewell arrived fro the writer's inability to coood-bye, as she was 'forced to be satisfied with the sofa and silence'”

It is easy to understand, therefore, hat amazement Mrs Jameson, shortly after her arrival in Paris, received a letter fro to the effect that he _and his wife_ had just come from London, on their way to Italy ”My aunt's surprise was so and entirely unexpected was the news” And duly married indeed the two poets had been!