But the curse that lay on the Barrett household was the curse of considering ill-health the natural condition of a human being.

The truth was that Edward Barrett was living emotionally and aesthetically, like some detestable decadent poet, upon his daughter's decline.

He did not know this, but it was so.

Scenes, explanations, prayers, fury, and forgiveness had become bread and meat for which he hungered; and when the cloud was upon his spirit, he would lash out at all things and every one with the insatiable cruelty of the sentimentalist.
It is wonderful that Elizabeth Barrett was not made thoroughly morbid and impotent by this intolerable violence and more intolerable tenderness.

In her estimate of her own health she did, of course, suffer.