be--her
own talk put upon paper.

The next year was a painful one to herself and to all who loved her. She
broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, which did not heal. If there had been
consumption in the family that disease would have intervened. There were
no seeds of the fatal English malady in her constitution, and she escaped.
Still, however, the vessel did not heal, and after attending her for above
a twelvemonth at her father's house in Wimpole-street, Dr. Chambers, on
the approach of winter, ordered her to a milder climate. Her eldest
brother, a brother in heart and in talent worthy of such a sister,
together with other devoted relatives, accompanied her to Torquay, and
_there_ occurred the fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, and
gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of devotional
feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked what could be the
shadow that had passed over that young heart, that now that time has
softened the first agony it seems to me right that the world should hear
the story of an accident in which there was much sorrow, but no blame.

Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still attended by her
affectionate companions, had derived much benefit from the mild sea
breezes of Devonshire. One fine summer morning her favorite brother,
together with two other fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a
small sailing-vessel, for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all,
and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen, and undertook
themselves the management of the little craft. Danger was not dreamt of by
any one; after the catastrophe, no one could divine the cause, but in a
few minutes after their embarkation, and in sight of their very windows,
just as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who were
in her perished. Even the bodies were never found. I was told by a party
who was traveling that year in Devonshire and Cornwall, that it was most
affecting to see on the corner houses of every village street, on every
church-door, and almost on every cliff for miles and miles along the
coast, handbills, offering large rewards for linens cast ashore marked
with the initials of the beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the
three were of the dearest and the best; one, I believe, an only son, the
other the son of a widow.

This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was utterly prostrated
by the horror and the grief, and by