with Blackwood for the serial
publication of "Roba di Roma."

For two or three summers Browning with his father, his sister, and his
son, passed the summers at St. Marie, near Pornic, from where in the
August of 1863 he wrote to Leighton that he was living on fruit and milk,
and that each day he completed some work, read a little with Pen, and
somewhat more by himself. St. Marie was a "wild little place" in Brittany,
on the very edge of the sea, a hamlet of hardly more than a dozen houses,
of which the Brownings had the privilege of occupying that of the mayor,
whose chief attraction, apparently, was that, though bare, it was clean.
The poet liked it all, and it was there that he wrote "In the Doorway" in
"James Lee's Wife," with the sea, the field, and the fig-tree visible from
his window.

In the late summer the Brownings are all again at St. Marie in Brittany,
and the poet writes to Isa Blagden that he supposes what she "calls fame
within these four years" has come somewhat from his going about and
showing himself alive, "but," he adds, "I was in London from the time that
I published 'Paracelsus' till I ended the writing of plays with
'Luria,'--and I used to go out then, and see far more of merely literary
people, critics, etc., than I do now,--but what came of it?" If in the
lines following there is a hint of sadness, who can blame him?

During this summer he revised "Sordello" for re-publication, not, however,
as he had once contemplated, making in it any significant changes. In the
dedication to his friend Milsand, he incorporated so clear an exposition
of his idea in the poem that this dedication will always be read with
special interest. In London again the next winter, Browning wrote to Isa
Blagden that he "felt comfort in doing the best he could with the object
of his life,--poetry. I hope to do much more yet," he continued; "and that
the flower of it will be put into _Her_ hand somehow."

The London spring found the poet much engaged, taking his son to studios,
and to the Royal Academy, to concerts, and for long walks, and in a letter
to Kate Field not heretofore published is indicated something of the
general trend of the days:

LONDON, 19, WARWICK CRESCENT,

UPPER WESTBOURNE TERRACE, May 5th, 1864.

DEAR KATE FIELD, (so let me call you, please, in regard to old times
when I might have done it, and did not,) I know well enough that there
is great stupidity in this way of mine, this