e heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy?"

These lines, vibrant with life and joy, could not have been written by
a man of failing vitality or physical weakness.

Robert Browning was born in 1812 at Camberwell, whose slopes overlook
the smoky chimneys of London. In this beautiful suburb he spent his
early years in the companionship of a brother and a sister. A highly
gifted father and a musical mother assisted intelligently in the
development of their children. Browning's education was conducted
mainly under his father's eye. The boy attended neither a large school
nor a college. After he had passed from the hands of tutors, he spent
some time in travel, and was wont to call Italy his university.
Although his training was received in an irregular way, his
scholarship cannot be doubted by the student of his poetry.

He early determined to devote his life to poetry, and his father
wisely refrained from interfering with his son's ambitions.

[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. From the painting by
Field Talfourd, National Portrait Gallery._]

Romantic Marriage with Elizabeth Barrett Barrett,--Her Poetry.--In
1845, after Browning had published some ten volumes of verse, among
which were _Paracelsus_ (1835), _Pippa Passes_ (1841), and _Dramatic
Lyrics_ (1842), he met Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1806-1861),
whose poetic reputation was then greater than his own. The publication
in 1898 of _The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett
Barrett_ disclosed an unusual romance. When he first met her, she was
an invalid in her father's London house, passing a large part of her
time on the couch, scarcely able to see all the members of her own
family at the same time. His magnetic influence helped her to make
more frequent journeys from the sofa to an armchair, then to walk
across the room, and soon to take drives.

Her father, who might have sat for the original of Meredith's
"Egoist," had decided that his daughter should be an invalid and
remain with him for life. When Browning proposed to Miss Barrett that
he should ask her father for her hand, she replied that such a step
would only make matters worse. "He would rather see me dead at his
feet than yield the point," she said. In 1846 Miss Barrett,
accompanied by her faithful maid, drove to a church and was married to
Browning. The bride returned home; but Browning did not see her for a
week because he would not indulge in the deception of asking