Love is a pain at times.  To ease the hurt the lover would hurt the beloved.  He badgers her, pinches her, provokes her.  One step more and he may kill her.

Edward Barrett’s daughter, she of the raven curls and gentle ways, was reaching a point where her father’s love was not her life.  A good way to drive love away is to be jealous.  He had seen it coming years before; he brooded over it; the calamity was upon him.  Her fame was growing:  some one called her the Shakespeare of women.  First, her books had been published at her father’s expense; next, editors were willing to run their own risks, and now messengers with bank-notes waited at the door and begged to exchange the bank-notes for manuscript.  John Kenyon said, “I told you so,” but Edward Barrett scowled.  He accused her foolishly; he attempted to dictate to her—­she must use this ink or that.  Why?  Because he said so.  He quarreled with her to ease the love-hurt that was smarting in his heart.

Poor, little, pale-faced poet!  Earthly success has nothing left for thee!  Thy thoughts, too great for speech, fall on dull ears.  Even thy father, for whom thou first took up pen, doth not understand thee! and a mother’s love thou hast never known.  And fame without love—­how barren!  Heaven is thy home.  Let slip thy thin, white hands on the thread of life and glide gently out at ebb of tide—­out into the unknown.  It can not but be better than this—­God understands!  Compose thy troubled spirit, give up thy vain hopes.  See! thy youth is past, little woman; look closely! there are gray hairs in thy locks, thy face is marked with lines of care, and have I not seen signs of winter in thy veins?  Earth holds naught for thee.  Come, take thy pen and write, just a last good-by, a tender farewell, such as thou alone canst say.  Then fold thy thin hands, and make peace with all by passing out and away, out and away—­God understands!

* * * * *

Elizabeth Barrett was thirty-seven, and Miss Mitford, up to London from the country for a couple of days, wrote home that she had lost her winsome beauty.

John Kenyon had turned well into sixty, but he carried his years in a jaunty way.  He wore a moss-rose bud in the lapel of his well-fitting coat.  His linen was immaculate, and the only change people saw in him was that he wore spectacles in place of a monocle.

The physicians allowed Mr. Kenyon to visit the darkened room whenever he chose, for he never stayed so very long, neither was he ever the bearer of bad news.

Did the greatest poetess of the age (temporarily slightly indisposed) know one Browning—­Robert Browning, a writer of verse?  Why, no; she had never met him, but of course she knew of him, and had read everything he had written.  He had sent her one of his books once.  He was surely a man of brilliant parts—­so strong and farseeing!  He lives in Italy, with the monks, they say.  What a pity the English people do not better appreciate him!