have still less in common with such a state, since one of the qualities
for which he was most conspicuous was the enormous power of anchorage
which his affections possessed. Only length of time and variety of
experience could fully test this power or fully display it; but the
signs of it had not been absent from even his earliest life. He loved
fewer people in youth than in advancing age: nature and circumstance
combined to widen the range, and vary the character of his human
interests; but where once love or friendship had struck a root, only a
moral convulsion could avail to dislodge it. I make no deduction from
this statement when I admit that the last and most emphatic words of the
poem in question,

Only I discern--
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn,

did probably come from the poet's heart, as they also found a deep echo
in that of his wife, who much loved them.

From London they returned to Paris for the winter of 1855-6. The younger
of the Kemble sisters, Mrs. Sartoris, was also there with her family;
and the pleasant meetings of the Campagna renewed themselves for Mr.
Browning, though in a different form. He was also, with his sister,
a constant visitor at Lady Elgin's. Both they and Mrs. Browning were
greatly attached to her, and she warmly reciprocated the feeling. As Mr.
Locker's letter has told us, Mr. Browning was in the habit of reading
poetry to her, and when his sister had to announce his arrival from
Italy or England, she would say: 'Robert is coming to nurse you, and
read to you.' Lady Elgin was by this time almost completely paralyzed.
She had lost the power of speech, and could only acknowledge the little