s lyrics, of which his
wife had seen very few. "We neither of us show our work to the other till
it is finished," she said. She recognized that an artist must work in
solitude until the actual result is achieved.

[Illustration: CASA GUIDI

"_I heard last night a little child go singing_
_'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church._"

Casa Guidi Windows.]

It seems that Mr. Chorley in London had fallen into depressed spirits that
summer, indulging in the melancholy meditations that none of his friends
loved him, beyond seeing in him a "creature to be eaten," and that, having
furnished them with a banquet, their attentions to him were over (a most
regrettable state of mind, one may observe, _en passant_, and one of those
spiritual pitfalls which not only Mr. Chorley in particular, but all of us
in general would do particularly well to avoid). The letter that Mrs.
Browning wrote to him wonderfully reveals her all-comprehending sympathy
and her spiritual buoyancy and intellectual poise. "You are very wrong,"
she says to him, "and I am very right to upbraid you. I take the pen from
Robert--he would take it if I did not. We scramble a little for the pen
which is to tell you this, and be dull in the reiteration, rather than not
to instruct you properly.... I quite understand how a whole life may seem
rumpled and creased--torn for the moment; only you will live it smooth
again, dear Mr. Chorley, take courage. You have time and strength and good
aims; and human beings have been happy with much less.... I think we
belied ourselves to you in England. If you knew how, at that time, Robert
was vexed and worn! why, he was not the same, even to me!... But then and
now believe that he loved and loves you. Set him down as a friend, as
somebody to rest on, after all; and don't fancy that because we are away
here in the wilderness (which blossoms as the rose, to one of us, at
least) we may not be full of affectionate thoughts and feelings toward you
in your different sort of life in London." The lovely spirit goes on to
remind Mr. Chorley that they have a spare bedroom "which opens of itself
at the thought of you," and that if he can trust himself so far from home,
she begs him to try it for their sakes. "Come and look in our faces, and
learn us more by heart, and see whether we are not two friends?"

Surely, that life was rich, whatever else it might be denied, that had
Elizabeth Browning for a friend. Her genius for friendshi