Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/128

112 he brought himself to the door. Never did I imagine that it was other than one of the passing embarrassments so unhappily frequent with him. Once before he had asked me to give shelter to things belonging to him, which, when the storm had blown over, he had taken back again. I did not suppose that in this storm he was to sink—poor, noble soul!

"And be sure that the pecuniary embarrassment was not what sank him. It was a wind still more east; it was the despair of the ambition by which he lived, and without which he could not live. In the self-assertion which he had struggled to hold up through life he went down into death. He could not bear the neglect, the disdain, the slur cast upon him by the age, and so he perished. . . . His love of reputation, you know, was a disease with him; and, for my part, I believe that he died of it. That is my belief.

"In the last week he sent me his portrait of you (Miss Mitford) among the other things. When he proposed sending it, he desired me to keep it for him; but when it came, a note also came to say that he 'could not make up his mind to part with it; he would lend it to me for a while'; a proof, among the rest, that his act was not premeditated—a moment of madness, or a few moments of madness: who knows? I could not read the inquest, nor any of the details in the newspapers." Beyond the shock the news of this tragedy gave Miss Barrett she suffered no other ill-effects from it. Poor Haydon's effects were handed over to his legal representatives, and the poetess released from all further trouble about them. She was not, however, successful in getting away on her projected journey during