Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/182

166 London the Brownings naturally mingled in literary society, and some very interesting glimpses are obtainable of them during this visit, among others none more characteristic than that afforded by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who afterwards became so intimate with them in Italy. He describes his first meeting with them, at breakfast, in the house of Monkton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton. He says:—

"Mr. Milnes introduced me to Mrs. Browning, and assigned her to me to conduct into the breakfast-room. She is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets of dark hair, a pleasant, intelligent, and sensitive face, and a low, agreeable voice. She looks youthful and comely, and is very gentle and lady-like. And so we proceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung round with pictures, and in the middle of it stood a large round table, worthy to have been King Arthur's, and here we seated ourselves without any question of precedence or ceremony. . . . Mrs. Browning and I talked a good deal during breakfast, for she is of that quickly appreciative and responsive order of women with whom I can talk more freely than with any man; and she has, besides, her own originality wherewith to help on conversation, though I should say not of a loquacious tendency. She introduced the subject of Spiritualism, which, she says, interests her very much; indeed, she seems to be a believer. Mr. Browning, she told me, utterly rejects the subject, and will not believe even in the outward manifestations, of which there is such overwhelming evidence. We also talked of Miss Bacon; and I developed something of that lady's theory respecting Shakespeare, greatly to the horror of Mrs. Browning, and that of her next neighbour—a nobleman whose name I did not hear. On the whole,