Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/132

116 "until the vicissitude comes to appear as natural to me as the post itself. . . . You are not to think that I should not have been delighted to have you in a monodrama, as I heard Mr. Kenyon one morning when he came and talked for an hour, as he can talk, while the audience could only clap her hands or shake her head for the yea and nay. I should have been delighted to be just such an audience to you, but with you I was too much a stranger to propose such a thing, and the necessary silence might have struck you, I thought, as ungrateful and uncomprehending. But now I am not dumb any longer, only hoarse, and whenever I can hear your voice it will be better for me altogether."

In the correspondence which was now carried on between the two ladies, the same subjects which were being discussed with Miss Mitford and Horne, formed the staple themes. Mrs. Jameson, with energetic, humanitarian feelings, more akin to Miss Barrett's towards the seething humanity around us than to the optimistic contentment of Miss Mitford, felt herself stirred by the Report of the Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children. Even as Elizabeth Barrett had been inspired to write her poem "The Cry of the Children," so Anna Jameson was moved to express her feelings on the topic in a prose article published in the columns of the Athenæum. Here was a subject both women could converse upon, and sympathize with; but in the marvellous recovery by mesmerism of a third friend they, apparently, had reason for differing. "I am more and more bewildered by the whole subject," said Miss Barrett. "I wish I could disbelieve it all, except that Harriet Martineau is well."