r rest from what is too exciting from within, which made
her affirm the exquisite appeal to her of such Biblical passages as "The
Lord of peace Himself give you peace," and "He giveth His Beloved
Sleep," which, as she says in one of her numerous letters to Miss
Mitford, "strike upon the disquieted earth with such a _foreignness_
of heavenly music."

Nor was he whom she loved as a man, as well as revered as a poet,
unworthy of her. His was the robustest poetic intellect of the century;
his the serenest outlook; his, almost the sole unfaltering footsteps
along the perilous ways of speculative thought. A fair life, irradiate
with fairer ideals, conserved his native integrity from that incongruity
between practice and precept so commonly exemplified. Comely in all
respects, with his black-brown wavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and
winsome smile, alert luminous eyes, quick, spontaneous, expressive
gestures--an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a
modulation of the lips, an assertive or deprecatory wave of the hand,
conveying so much--and a voice at that time of a singular penetrating
sweetness, he was, even without that light of the future upon his
forehead which she was so swift to discern, a man to captivate any woman
of kindred nature and sympathies. Over and above these advantages, he
possessed a rare quality of physical magnetism. By virtue of this he
could either attract irresistibly or strongly repel.

I have several times heard people state that a hand-shake from Browning
was like an electric shock. Truly enough, it did seem as though his
sterling nature rang in his genially dominant voice, and, again, as
though his voice transmitted instantaneous waves of an electric current
through every nerve of what, for want of a better phrase, I must
perforce call his intensely alive hand. I remember once how a lady,
afflicted with nerves, in the dubious enjoyment of her first experience
of a "literary afternoon," rose hurriedly and, in reply to her hostess'
inquiry as to her motive, explained that she could not sit any longer
beside the elderly gentleman who was talking to Mrs. So-and-so, as his
near presence made her quiver all over, "like a mild attack of
pins-and-needles," as she phrased it. She was chagrined to learn that
she had been discomposed not by 'a too exuberant financier,' as she had
surmised, but by, as "Waring" called Browning, the "subtlest assertor of
the Soul in song."

With the same qui