uisite pathos and true new brave
thought; but in this addressing myself to you--your own self, and for
the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love
these books with all my heart--and I love you too. Do you know I was
once not very far from seeing--really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to
me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to
announce me,--then he returned ... you were too unwell, and now it is
years ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if
I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt,
only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some
slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission,
and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles,
and the sight was never to be?

Well, these Poems were to be, and this true thankful joy and pride
with which I feel myself,

Yours ever faithfully,

ROBERT BROWNING.

Miss Barrett,[1]
50 Wimpole St.
R. Browning.

[Footnote 1: With this and the following letter the addresses on the
envelopes are given; for all subsequent letters the addresses are the
same. The correspondence passed through the post.]

_E.B.B. to R.B._

50 Wimpole Street: Jan. 11, 1845.

I thank you, dear Mr. Browning, from the bottom of my heart. You meant
to give me pleasure by your letter--and even if the object had not
been answered, I ought still to thank you. But it is thoroughly
answered. Such a letter from such a hand! Sympathy is dear--very dear
to me: but the sympathy of a poet, and of such a poet, is the
quintessence of sympathy to me! Will you take back my gratitude for
it?--agreeing, too, that of all the commerce done in the world, from
Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most
princely thing!

For the rest you draw me on with your kindness. It is difficult to get
rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure--_that_
is a fact, and we will not stop for the moral of it. What I was going
to say--after a little natural hesitation--is, that if ever you emerge
without inconvenient effort from your 'passive state,' and will _tell_
me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important
in my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you with
criticism in detail) you will confer a