some stranger whom she
thought I should like to meet. Very many of such of these fragmentary
scribblings, as were written before the Brownings left Florence, contain
some word or reference to her beloved "Ba," for such was the pet name
used between them, with what meaning or origin I know not.

Dear Isa's death was to me an especially sad one, because I thought,
and think, that she need not have died. She lived alone with a couple
of old servants, and though she was rich in troops of friends, and
there were one or two near her during the day or two of her illness,
they did not seem to have managed matters wisely. Our Isa was
extremely obstinate about calling in medical advice. It could not be
done at a moment's notice, for a message had to be sent and a doctor
to come from Florence. And this was not done till the second day of
her illness. And I had good reason for thinking that, had she been
properly attended to on the first day, her life might have been saved.
She would not let her friends send for the doctor, and the friends
were unable to make her do so. Unhappily, I was absent for a few days
at Siena, and returned to be met by the intelligence that she was
dead. It seemed the more sad in that I knew that if I had been there
I could have made her call a doctor before it was too late. Browning
could also have done so; but it was after the death of Mrs. Browning
and his departure from Florence.

How great her sorrow was for the death of her friend, Browning knew,
doubtless, but nobody else, I think, in the world save myself.

I have now before me one of her little scraps of letters, in which she
encloses one from Mrs. Browning which is of the highest interest. The
history and genesis of it is as follows. Shortly after the publication
of the well-known and exquisite little poem on the god Pan in the
_Cornhill Magazine_, my brother Anthony wrote me a letter venturing to
criticise it, in which he says: "The lines are very beautiful, and the
working out of the idea is delicious. But I am inclined to think that
she is illustrating an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought
by an allegory. The idea of the god destroying the reed in making the
instrument has, I imagine, given her occasion to declare that in the
sublimation of the poet the man is lost for the ordinary purposes of
man's life. It has been thus instead of being the reverse; and I can
hardly believe that she herself believes in the doctrine which her
fan