One marked event in the life of Elizabeth Barrett occurred when Hugh Stuart Boyd arrived at Hope End.  He was a fine, sensitive, soul—­a poet by nature and a Greek scholar of repute.  He came on Mr. Barrett’s invitation to take Mr. Barrett’s place as tutor.  The young girl was confined to her bed through the advice of physicians; Boyd was blind.

Here at once was a bond of sympathy.  No doubt this break in the monotony of her life gave fresh courage to the fair young woman.  The gentle, sightless poet relaxed the severe hours of study.  Instead of grim digging in musty tomes they talked:  he sat by her bedside holding the thin hands (for the blind see by the sense of touch), and they talked for hours—­or were silent, which served as well.  Then she would read to the blind man and he would recite to her, for he had the blind Homer’s memory.  She grew better, and the doctors said that if she had taken her medicine regularly, and not insisted on getting up and walking about as guide for the blind man, she might have gotten entirely well.

In that fine poem, “Wine of Cyprus,” addressed to Boyd, we see how she acknowledges his goodness.  There is no wine equal to the wine of friendship; and love is only friendship—­plus something else.  There is nothing so hygienic as friendship.

Hell is a separation, and Heaven is only a going home to our friends.

Mr. Barrett’s fortune was invested in sugar-plantations in Jamaica.  Through the emancipation of the blacks his fortune took to itself wings.  He had to give up his splendid country home—­to break the old ties.  It was decided that the family should move to London.  Elizabeth had again taken to her bed.  The mattress on which she lay was borne down the steps by four men; one man might have carried her alone, for she weighed only eighty-five pounds, so they say.

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Crabb Robinson, who knew everything and everybody, being very much such a man as John Kenyon, has left on record the fact that Mr. Kenyon had a face like a Benedictine monk, a wit that never lagged, a generous heart, and a tongue that ran like an Alpine cascade.

A razor with which you can not shave may have better metal in it than one with a perfect edge.  One has been sharpened and the other not.  And I am very sure that the men who write best do not necessarily know the most; Fate has put an edge on them—­that’s all.  A good kick may start a stone rolling, when otherwise it rests on the mountain-side for a generation.

Kenyon was one type of the men who rest on the mountain-side.  He dabbled in poetry, wrote book-reviews, collected rare editions, attended first nights, spoke mysteriously of “stuff” he was working on; and sometimes confidentially told his lady friends of his intention to bring it out when he had gotten it into shape, asking their advice as to bindings, etc.  Men of this type rarely bring out their stuff, for the reason that they never get it into shape.  When they refer to the novel they have on the stocks, they refer to a novel they intend to write.  It is yet in the ink-bottle.  And there it remains—­all for the want of one good kick—­but perhaps it’s just as well.