"You _do_, what I always wanted, hoped to do, and only seem likely now to do for the first time.

You speak out, _you_,--I only make men and women speak--give you truth broken into prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is in me, _but I am going to try_." Thus the first contact with the "Lyric Love" of after days set vibrating the chords of all that was lyric and personal in Browning's nature.

His brilliant virtuosity in the personation of other minds threatened to check all simple utterance of his own.

The "First Poem" of Robert Browning had yet to be written, but now, as soon as he had broken from his "dancing ring of men and women,"-- the Dramatic Lyrics and Romances and one or two outstanding dramas,--he meant to write it.

Miss Barrett herself hardly understood until much later the effect that her personality, the very soul that spoke in her poetry, had upon her correspondent.