e was ever intentionally obscure, she denied.
"Unfortunately obscure" she admitted that she might be, but "willingly
so,--never."

Of the personal friends of Elizabeth Barrett one of the nearest was Mary
Russell Mitford, who was nineteen years her senior. Miss Mitford describes
her at the time of their meeting as having "such a look of youthfulness
that she had some difficulty in persuading a friend that Miss Barrett was
old enough to be introduced into society." Miss Mitford added that she was
"certainly one of the most interesting persons" she had ever seen; "of a
slight, delicate figure,... large, tender eyes, and a smile like a
sunbeam."

Mr. Kenyon brought Andrew Crosse, a noted electrician of the day, to see
Miss Barrett; and in some reminiscences[4] written by Mrs. Andrew Crosse
there is a chapter on "John Kenyon and his Friends" that offers the best
comprehension, perhaps, of this man who was so charming and beloved a
figure in London society,--a universal favorite. Born in 1784 in Jamaica,
the son of a wealthy land-owner, he was sent to England as a lad, educated
there, and in 1815 he set out for a tour of the continent. In 1817, in
Paris, he met and became intimate with Professor George Ticknor of
Harvard University, the Spanish historian; and through this friendship Mr.
Kenyon came to know many of the distinguished Americans of the day,
including Emerson, Longfellow, and Willis. Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth,
and Landor were among Kenyon's most intimate circle; and there is a record
of one of his dinners at which the guests were Daniel Webster, Professor
and Mrs. Ticknor, Dickens, Montalembert, and Lady Mary Shepherd. In 1823
Kenyon married Miss Curteis, and they lived for some years in Devonshire
Place, with frequent interludes of travel on the continent. Mrs. Kenyon
died in 1835, but when the Barretts came up to London Kenyon had resumed
his delightful hospitalities, of which he made fairly a fine art.
Professor Ticknor has left an allusion to another dinner at Kenyon's where
he met Miss Barrett. In the autumn of 1839 Miss Barrett, accompanied by
her brother Edward, went to Torquay, for the warmer climate, and Mr.
Kenyon also had gone there for the winter. Around him were gathered a
group of notable friends, with whom Miss Barrett, his cousin (with one
remove), was constantly associated,--Landor, Andrew Crosse, Theodosia
Garrow (afterwards the wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope), and Bezzi, an
accomplished