the walls, the quaint old silver, and bits of curiously cut glass, all
spoke of other and different days, and thence we would roam the world
of literature and art. Keenly sensitive to all the good and beautiful in
these, she had her favourites among the masters, for whom she was ready
to do battle; and when her argument, instinct with fancy and vivid
imagination, failed, she swept away all opposing opinion with the swift
rush of her enthusiasm; so that, though I felt she was beaten, I was
left without words to reply. Shakespeare and Tennyson and Burns she
loved, but not Shelley, nor Byron, nor even Wordsworth. Browning she
knew not, and therefore could not rank him with her noblest three; but
when I read to her 'A Death in the Desert,' and, came to the noble words
at the end of the tale--

'For all was as I say, and now the man
Lies as he once lay, breast to breast with God,'

the light shone in her eyes, and she said, 'Oh, that is good and great;
I shall get much out of him; I had always feared he was impossible.'
And 'Paracelsus,' too, stirred her; but when I recited the thrilling
fragment, 'Prospice,' on to that closing rapturous cry--

'Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!'--

the red colour faded from her cheek, her breath came in a sob, and she
rose quickly and passed out without a word. Ever after, Browning was
among her gods. But when we talked of music, she, adoring Wagner,
soared upon the wings of the mighty Tannhauser, far above, into regions
unknown, leaving me to walk soberly with Beethoven and Mendelssohn.