e saw in Art the most potent factor for high service, and she held that
it existed for Love's sake, for the sake of human co-operation with the
purposes of God.

CHAPTER VIII

1855-1861

"Inward evermore
To outward,--so in life, and so in art
Which still is life."

"... I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."

LONDON LIFE--AN INTERLUDE IN PARIS--"AURORA LEIGH"--FLORENTINE DAYS--"MEN
AND WOMEN"--THE HAWTHORNES--"THE OLD YELLOW BOOK"--A SUMMER IN
NORMANDY--THE ETERNAL CITY--THE STORYS AND OTHER FRIENDS--LILIES OF
FLORENCE--"IT IS BEAUTIFUL!"

The Florentine winter is by no means an uninterrupted dream of sunshine
and roses; the tramontana sweeps down from the encircling Apennines, with
its peculiarly piercing cold that penetrates the entire system with the
unerring precision of the Roentgen ray; torrents of icy rains fall; and
the purple hills, on whose crest St. Domenico met St. Benedict, are
shrouded in clouds and mist. All the loveliness of Florence seems to be
utterly effaced, till one questions if it existed except as a mirage; but
when the storm ceases, and the sun shines again, there is an instantaneous
transformation. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the spell of
enchantment resumes its sway over the Flower Town, and all is forgiven and
forgotten.

The winter of 1855 was bitterly cold, and by January the Brownings fairly
barricaded themselves in two rooms which could best be heated, and in
these fires were kept up by day as well as night. In April, however, the
divine days came again, and the green hillslope from the Palazzo Pitti to
the Boboli Gardens was gay with flowers. Mr. Browning gave four hours
every day to dictating his poems to a friend who was transcribing them for
him. Mrs. Browning had completed some seven thousand lines of "Aurora
Leigh," but not one of these had yet been copied for publication. Various
hindrances beset them, but finally in June they left for England, their
most important impedimenta being sixteen thousand lines of poetry, almost
equally divided between them, comprising his manuscript for "Men and
Women," and hers for "Aurora Leigh," complete, save for the last three
books. The change was by no means unalloyed joy. To give up, even
temporarily, their "dream-life of Florence," leaving the old tapestries
and pre-Giotto picture