"There is nothing to see in me; nor to hear in me .-- I never learned to talk as you do in London; although I can admire that brightness of carved speech in Mr.Kenyon and others.

If my poetry is worth anything to any eye, it is the flower of me.

I have lived most and been most happy in it, and so it has all my colours; the rest of me is nothing but a root, fit for the ground and dark." The substance of Browning's reply was to the effect, "I will call at two on Tuesday." They met on May 20, 1845.

A short time afterwards he had fallen in love with her and made her an offer of marriage.

To a person in the domestic atmosphere of the Barretts, the incident would appear to have been paralysing.