his brother Dante Gabriel in the course of this summer.  Coventry Patmore gave him the manuscript of his unpublished poems of 1853 to read.  And Ruskin was now added to the number of his personal acquaintances.  “We went to Denmark Hill yesterday, by agreement,” wrote Mrs Browning in September, “to see the Turners—­which, by the way, are divine.  I like Mr Ruskin much, and so does Robert.  Very gentle, yet earnest—­refined and truthful.”  At Lord Stanhope’s they were introduced to the latest toy of fashionable occultism, the crystal ball, in which the seer beheld Oremus, the spirit of the sun; the supernatural was qualified for the faithful with luncheon and lobster salad; “I love the marvellous,” Mrs Browning frankly declares.  And of terrestrial wonders, with heaven lying about them, and also India muslin and Brussels lace, two were seen in the babies of Monckton Milnes and Alfred Tennyson.  Pen, because he was “troppo grande,” declined to kiss the first of these new-christened wonders, but Pen’s father, who went alone to the baptism of Hallam Tennyson, distinguished himself by nursing for some ten minutes and with accomplished dexterity, the future Governor-General of Australia.

Yet with all these distractions, perhaps in part because of them, the visit to England was not one of Browning’s happiest times.  The autumn weather confined Mrs Browning to her rooms.  He was anxious, vexed, and worn.[51] It was a happiness when Welbeck Street was left behind, and they were on the way by Paris to their resting-place at Casa Guidi.  From a balcony overlooking one of the Paris boulevards they witnessed, in a blaze of autumnal sunshine, which glorified much military and civic pomp, the reception of the new Emperor.  Mrs Browning’s handkerchief waved frantically while she prayed that God might bless the people in this the chosen representative of a democracy.  What were Browning’s thoughts on that memorable Saturday is not recorded, but we may be sure that they were less enthusiastic.  Yet he enjoyed the stir and animation of Paris, and after the palpitating life of the boulevards found Florence dull and dead—­no change, no variety.  The journey by the Mont Cenis route had not been without its trying incidents.  At Genoa, during several days he was deeply depressed by the illness of his wife, who lay on the sofa and seemed to waste away.  But Casa Guidi was reached at last, where it was more like summer than November; the pleasant nest had its own peculiar welcome for wanderers; again they enjoyed the sunsets over the Arno, and Mrs Browning was able to report herself free from cough and feeling very well and very happy:  “You can’t think how we have caught up our ancient traditions just where we left them, and relapsed into our former soundless, stirless, hermit life.  Robert has not passed an evening from home since we came—­just as if we had never known Paris."[52]