[Footnote 32: Browning's eyes were in a remarkable degree unequal in
their power of vision; one was unusually long-sighted; the other, with
which he could read the most microscopic print, unusually
short-sighted.]

[Footnote 33: See a very interesting passage on Browning's "odd liking
for 'vermin'" in _Letters of R.B. and E.B.B._. i. 370, 371: "I always
liked all those wild creatures God '_sets up for themselves_.'" "It
seemed awful to watch that bee--he seemed so _instantly_ from the
teaching of God."]

[Footnote 34: Of the first part of _Saul_ Mr Kenyon said finely that "it
reminded him of Homer's shield of Achilles thrown into lyrical whirl and
life" _(Letters R.B. and E.B.B_. i. 326).]




Chapter V

Love and Marriage


In 1841, John Kenyon, formerly a school-fellow of Browning's father, now
an elderly lover of literature and of literary society, childless,
wealthy, generous-hearted, proposed to Browning that he should call upon
Elizabeth Barrett, Kenyon's cousin once removed, who was already
distinguished as a writer of ardent and original verse. Browning
consented, but the poetess "through some blind dislike of seeing
strangers"--as she afterwards told a correspondent--declined, alleging,