Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/10

vi an act of the same mind, produced by the same law, only differing in the application to the individual Letters and poems may be used indifferently as the basement of our opinion upon the writer's character; the finished expression of a sentiment in the poems giving light and significance to the rudiments of the same in the letters, and these, again, in their incipiency and unripeness, authenticating the exalted mood and re-attaching it to the personality of the writer."

Notwithstanding these pregnant words, as, also, Mr. Browning's uttered opinion that "it is advisable to lose no opportunity of strengthening and completing the chain of biographical testimony," the testimony to the goodness and greatness of our poetess, which the publication of her literary correspondence would afford, is still withheld. Those letters of Mrs. Browning which have been published, it should be observed, do not express any repugnance to afford biographical information, but rather the reverse.

The mystery which has hitherto shrouded Mrs. Browning's personal career, has caused quite a mythology to spring up around her name, and this fictitious lore the publications of those assuming to speak with authority has only increased. Miss Mitford, who saw Mrs. Browning frequently, knew her relatives intimately, and claimed to have received two letters a week from her, is utterly wrong in her