==
Venice: June 4 (probably '50).

`. . . I have been between Heaven and Earth since our arrival at Venice.
The Heaven of it is ineffable -- never had I touched the skirts

of so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture,
the silver trails of water up between all that gorgeous colour and carving,

the enchanting silence, the music, the gondolas -- I mix it all up together
and maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it,

not a second Venice in the world.
`Do you know when I came first I felt as if I never could go away.

But now comes the earth-side.
`Robert, after sharing the ecstasy, grows uncomfortable and nervous,

unable to eat or sleep, and poor Wilson still worse, in a miserable condition
of sickness and headache. Alas for these mortal Venices,

so exquisite and so bilious. Therefore I am constrained away from my joys
by sympathy, and am forced to be glad that we are going away on Friday.

For myself, it did not affect me at all. Take the mild, soft,
relaxing climate -- even the scirocco does not touch me.

And the baby grows gloriously fatter in spite of everything. . . .
As for Venice, you can't get even a "Times", much less an "Athenaeum".

We comfort ourselves by taking a box at the opera (a whole box
on the grand tier, mind) for two shillings and eightpence, English. Also,

every evening at half-past eight, Robert and I are sitting under the moon
in the great piazza of St. Mark, taking excellent coffee

and reading the French papers.'
==

If it were possible to draw more largely on Mrs. Browning's correspondence
for this year, it would certainly supply the record of her intimacy,

and that of her husband, with Margaret Fuller Ossoli. A warm attachment
sprang up between them during that lady's residence in Florence.

Its last evenings were all spent at their house; and, soon after
she had bidden them farewell, she availed herself of a two days' delay

in the departure of the ship to return from Leghorn and be with them
one evening more. She had what seemed a prophetic dread

of the voyage to America, though she attached no superstitious importance
to the prediction once made to her husband that he would be drowned;

and learned when it was too late to change her plans that her presence there
was, after all, unnecessary. Mr. Browning was deeply affected

by the news of her death by shipwreck, which took place on July 16, 1850;
and wrote an account of his acquaintance with her, for publication

by her friends. This also, unfortunately, was lost.
Her son was of the same age as his, little more than a year old;

but she left a token of the friendship which might some day have united them,
in a small Bible inscribed to the baby Robert, `In memory of Angelo Ossoli.'

The intended journey to England was delayed for Mr. Browning
by the painful associations connected with his mother's death;

but in the summer of 1851 he found courage to go there:
and then, as on each succeeding visit paid to London with his wife,

he commemorated his marriage in a manner all his own. He went to the church
in which it had been solemnized, and kissed the paving-stones

in front of the door. It needed all this love to comfort Mrs. Browning
in the estrangement from her father which was henceforth to be accepted

as final. He had held no communication with her since her marriage,
and she knew that it was not forgiven; but she had cherished a hope

that he would so far relent towards her as to kiss her child,
even if he would not see her. Her prayer to this effect remained,

however, unanswered.
In the autumn they proceeded to Paris; whence Mrs. Browning wrote,

October 22 and November 12.
==

138, Avenue des Champs Elysees.
`. . . It was a long time before we could settle ourselves

in a private apartment. . . . At last we came off to these Champs Elysees,
to a very pleasant apartment, the window looking over a large terrace

(almost large enough to serve the purpose of a garden) to the great drive
and promenade of the Parisians when they come out of the streets

to sun and shade and show themselves off among the trees.
A pretty little dining-room, a writing and dressing-room for Robert beside it,

a drawing-room beyond that, with two excellent bedrooms,
and third bedroom for a "femme de menage", kitchen, &c. . . .

So this answers all requirements, and the sun suns us loyally as in duty bound
considering the southern aspect, and we are glad to find ourselves

settled for six months. We have had lovely weather, and have seen a fire
only yesterday for the first time since we left England. . . .

We have seen nothing in Paris, except the shell of it. Yet, two evenings ago
we hazarded going to a reception at Lady Elgin's, in the Faubourg St. Germain,

and saw some French, but nobody of distinction.
`It is a good house, I believe, and she has an earnest face

which must mean something. We were invited to go every Monday
between eight and twelve. We go on Friday to Madame Mohl's,

where we are to have some of the "celebrites". . . .
Carlyle, for instance, I liked infinitely more in his personality

than I expected to like him, and I saw a great deal of him,
for he travelled with us to Paris, and spent several evenings with us,

we three together. He is one of the most interesting men I could imagine,
even deeply interesting to me; and you come to understand perfectly

when you know him, that his bitterness is only melancholy,
and his scorn, sensibility. Highly picturesque, too, he is in conversation;

the talk of writing men is very seldom so good.
`And, do you know, I was much taken, in London, with a young authoress,

Geraldine Jewsbury. You have read her books. . . . She herself
is quiet and simple, and drew my heart out of me a good deal.

I felt inclined to love her in our half-hour's intercourse. . . .'
==

==
138, Avenue des Champs Elysees: (Nov. 12).

`. . . Robert's father and sister have been paying us a visit
during the last three weeks. They are very affectionate to me,

and I love them for his sake and their own, and am very sorry
at the thought of losing them, as we are on the point of doing.

We hope, however, to establish them in Paris, if we can stay,
and if no other obstacle should arise before the spring,

when they must leave Hatcham. Little Wiedemann `draws',
as you may suppose. . . . he is adored by his grandfather,

and then, Robert! They are an affectionate family, and not easy
when removed one from another. . . .'

==
On their journey from London to Paris, Mr. and Mrs. Browning had been

joined by Carlyle; and it afterwards struck Mr. Browning as strange that,
in the `Life' of Carlyle, their companionship on this occasion

should be spoken of as the result of a chance meeting. Carlyle not only
went to Paris with the Brownings, but had begged permission to do so;

and Mrs. Browning had hesitated to grant this because she was afraid
her little boy would be tiresome to him. Her fear, however, proved mistaken.

The child's prattle amused the philosopher, and led him on one occasion
to say: `Why, sir, you have as many aspirations as Napoleon!'

At Paris he would have been miserable without Mr. Browning's help,
in his ignorance of the language, and impatience of the discomforts

which this created for him. He couldn't ask for anything, he complained,
but they brought him the opposite.

On one occasion Mr. Carlyle made a singular remark. He was walking
with Mr. Browning, either in Paris or the neighbouring country,

when they passed an image of the Crucifixion; and glancing towards
the figure of Christ, he said, with his deliberate Scotch utterance,

`Ah, poor fellow, YOUR part is played out!'
Two especially interesting letters are dated from the same address,

February 15 and April 7, 1852.
==

`. . . Beranger lives close to us, and Robert has seen him
in his white hat, wandering along the asphalte. I had a notion,

somehow, that he was very old, but he is only elderly --
not much above sixty (which is the prime of life, nowadays)

and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes poetical and political,
and if Robert and I had a little less modesty we are assured