teach the world
that poetry is a divine thing. "Rather perish every verse I ever wrote,
for one," she said, "than help to drag down an inch that standard of
poetry which, for the sake of humanity as well as literature, should be
kept high."

In "Aurora Leigh" she expresses the same sentiment in the lines:

"I, who love my art,
Would never wish it lower to suit my stature."

Full of affection and interest are Mrs. Browning's letters to her
husband's sister, Sarianna, who, with her father, is now living in
Hatcham, near London. In the spring of 1852, after passing the winter in
Florence, the Brownings set out for England; the plan at first being to go
south to Naples, pause at Rome, and then go northward; but this was
finally abandoned, and they proceeded directly to Venice, where Mrs.
Browning was enchanted with life set in a scenic loveliness of "music and
stars."

"I have been between heaven and earth since our arrival in Venice," she
writes. "The heaven of it is ineffable. Never have I touched the skirts of
so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of
water between all that gorgeous color and carving, the enchanting silence,
the moonlight, the music, the gondolas,--I mix it all up together...."

In the divine beauty of Venetian evenings they sat in the white moonlight
in the piazza of San Marco, taking their coffee and the French papers
together. Or they would go to the opera, where for a ridiculously small
sum they had an entire box to themselves. But while Mrs. Browning longed
"to live and die in Venice, and never go away," the climate did not agree
with Mr. Browning, and they journeyed on toward Paris, stopping one night
at Padua and driving out to Arqua for Petrarca's sake. In Milan Mrs.
Browning climbed the three hundred and fifty steps, to the topmost
pinnacle of the glorious cathedral. At Como they abandoned the diligence
for the boat, sailing through that lovely chain of lakes to Fluelen, and
thence to Lucerne, the scenery everywhere impressing Mrs. Browning as
being so sublime that she "felt as if standing in the presence of God."
From Lucerne they made a _detour_ through Germany, pausing at Strasburg,
and arriving in Paris in July. This journey initiated an absence of almost
a year and a half from Italy. They had let their apartment, so they were
quite free to wander, and they were even considering the possibility of
remaining permanently in Pari