craving blessings, after the good old custom of Gretna Green. But Edward
Moulton Barrett did not forgive--still, who cares!

Yet we do care, too, for we regret that this man, so strong and manly in
many ways, could not be reconciled to this exalted love. Old men who nurse
wrath are pitiable sights. Why could not Mr. Barrett have followed the
example of John Kenyon?

Kenyon commands both our sympathy and admiration. When the news came to
him that Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were gone, it is said that
he sobbed like a youth to whom has come a great, strange sorrow. For
months he was not known to smile, yet after a year he visited the happy
home in Florence. When John Kenyon died he left by his will fifty thousand
dollars "to my beloved and loving friends, Robert Browning and Elizabeth
Barrett, his wife."

The old-time novelists always left their couples at the church-door. It
was not safe to follow further--they wished to make a pleasant story. It
seems meet to take our leave of the bride and groom at the church: life
often ends there. However, it sometimes is the place where life really
begins. It was so with Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning--they had
merely existed before; now, they began to live.

Much, very much has been written concerning this ideal mating, and of the
life of Mr. and Mrs. Browning in Italy. But why should I write of the
things of which George William Curtis, Kate Field, Anthony Trollope and
James T. Fields have written? No, we will leave the happy pair at the
altar, in Marylebone Parish Church, and while the organ peals the
wedding-march we will tiptoe softly out.