Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/181

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And, here, a truth but little recognized:—

But enough! A few lines here and there from Aurora Leigh cannot portray what the poem is. It is a veritable "autobiography"; a true record of the inner life—that truest life—of a great and good woman, and no one can expect to find so correct a portraiture of Mrs. Browning in any book as they will in this poem; they must read it as the true memoir of which our volume and any others which may be written about her, are only the corollary.

Aurora Leigh was finished in England, whither the Brownings came on a visit during the summer of 1856. They were the guests of John Kenyon, at least during a portion of their stay, the last pages of the poem having been completed at his town house. Whilst in