hire. 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 were travelling 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 linen 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 a natural but a
most unjust feeling that she had been, in some sort, the cause
of this great misery. It was not until the following year that
she could be removed, in an invalid carriage, and by journeys
of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family and her London
home. The house that she occupied at Torquay had been chosen as
one of the most sheltered in the place. It stood at the bottom
of the cliffs, almost close to the sea; and she told me herself
that during that whole winter the sound of the waves rang in
her ears like the moans of one dying. Still she clung to
literature and to Greek; in all probability she would have died
without that wholesome diversion of her thoughts. Her medical
attendant did not always understand this. To prevent the
remonstrances of her friendly physician, Dr. Barry, she caused
a small edition of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel.
He did not know, skilful and kind though he were, that to her,
such books were not an arduous and painful study, but a
consolation and a delight. Returned to London, she began the
life