periods in each favorite resort where there was anything either in art
or nature to please his fine critical taste. He studied both painting
and music, and has always been a fine amateur in each. He wrote poetry
from childhood, but published nothing until he was about twenty-three
years old, when "Paracelsus," a dramatic poem, appeared. The genius of
the writer was recognized at once, as well as those faults which have
clung to him persistently through life. Two years after, a tragedy
entitled "Strafford" was produced, and a little later, "Sordello." We
are interested in these, for the purposes of this article, only as they
made him known to Elizabeth Barrett, a young invalid in England, who at
once felt the power of the high genius which had appeared in the
literary world. She had written some poems herself, but was almost
unknown, and, indeed, expected to live but a very short time. Returning
to England at this time, Browning, through some knowledge of her poems,
made her acquaintance, and a mutual attachment followed, which proved
very strong and lasting. This love between two poets of such high rank
is unique in the annals of literature. At first she is afraid of her own
love, and bids him

"Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forebore . . .
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream, include thee as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine
And sees within my eyes the tears of two."

The whole outlook of life soon changed to the gentle invalid, as she
tells him later.

"The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I who thought to sink
Was caught up into love and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, sweet with thee anear.
The name of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this . . . this