to the Dark Tower Came_. One memorable evening at London in 1855
there were gathered together in an upper room Mr. and Mrs. Browning,
Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson, Dante and William Rossetti. Tennyson had just
published _Maud_ and Browning the two volumes called _Men and Women_.
Each poet was invited to read from his new work. Tennyson, with one
leg curled under him on the sofa, chanted _Maud_, the tears running
down his cheeks; and then Browning read in a conversational manner
his characteristic poem, _Fra Lippo Lippi_. Rossetti made a
pen-and-ink sketch of the Laureate while he was intoning. On one of
the journeys made by the Brownings from London to Paris they were
accompanied by Thomas Carlyle, who wrote a vivid and charming
account of the transit. The poet was the practical member of the
party: the "brave Browning" struggled with the baggage, and the
customs, and the train arrangements; while the Scot philosopher
smoked infinite tobacco.

The best account of the domestic life of the Brownings at Casa Guidi
in Florence was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and published in his
_Italian Note-Books_. On a June evening, Mr. and Mrs. Browning,
William Cullen Bryant, and Nathaniel Hawthorne ate strawberries and
talked spiritualism. Hawthorne and Browning stood on the little
balcony overlooking the street, and heard the priests chanting in
the church of San Felice, the chant heard only in June, which
Browning was to hear again on the night of the June day when he
found the old yellow book. Both chant and terrace were to be
immortalised in Browning's epic. Hawthorne said that Browning had an
elfin wife and an elf child. "I wonder whether he will ever grow up,
whether it is desirable that he should." Like all visitors at Casa
Guidi, the American was impressed by the extraordinary sweetness,
gentleness, and charity of Elizabeth Browning, and by the energy,