for a
celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire enclosed in a
shell of pearl. . . . Nor is she more remarkable for genius and
learning than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth
of feeling, and purity of spirit. It is a privilege to know such
beings singly and separately; but to see their powers quickened and
their happiness rounded by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause
for peculiar and lasting gratitude."

The boy Browning was very beautiful in his childhood, and occupied a
large place in the lives of his parents, who felt great pride in showing
him to their visitors. It is a pleasant story told of the street beggars
who walked through the Via Maggio in those days, under the windows of
Casa Guidi, that they always spoke of Mrs. Browning, simply and
touchingly, as "the mother of the beautiful child." But her love for
this one beautiful darling taught her the whole possibility of
motherhood. It made her heart go out in deepest sympathy to all mothers,
as "to the friends unknown, and a land unvisited over the sea," to whom
she writes:--

"Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Ah, children! I never lost one,--
Yet my arm's round my own little son,
And love knows the secret of grief."

In the Italian poem "Mother and Poet," she has expressed a mother's
feelings as truthfully and vividly as any writer who has ever touched
that great theme. She can describe, too, in language that almost
blisters the page on which it is written, that other class of mothers
which it is bitter to feel that the earth does contain,--the monsters
who would sell their daughters for gold. In that most powerful story of
Marian in "Aurora Leigh," she writes thus:--

"The child turned round
And looked up piteous in the mother's face
(Be sure that mother's death-bed will not want
Another devil to damn, than such a look).
'Oh, mother!' then with desperate glance to heaven,
'God free me from my mother,' she shrieked out,
'These mothers are too dreadful.' And with force
As passionate as fear, she tore her hands,
Like lilies from the rocks, from hers and his,
And sprang down, bounded headlong down the steep,
Away from both, away if possible,
As far as God--away. They yelled at her
As famished hounds at a hare,
She heard them yell,
And felt her name hiss after her from th