Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/191

Rh there being a statue in Florence of colossal size called Apennino. I never saw such a boy as this before," he says, "so slender, so fragile, and spirit-like—not as if he were actually in ill-health, but as if he had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood. His face is very pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother's. He is nine years old, and seems at once less childlike and less manly than would befit that age. I should not like to be the father of such a boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and affection on him as he cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what is to become of him—whether he will ever grow to be a man—whether it is desirable that he should. His parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him robust and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in. He was born in Florence, and prides himself upon being a Florentine, and, indeed, is as un-English a production as if he were a native of another planet."

The romancist proceeds, in his characteristic style:—"Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing-room, and greeted us most kindly—a pale, small person, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate, only substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet tenuity of voice. Really, I do not see how Mr. Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife any more than an earthly child; both are of the elfin race, and will flit away from him some day when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards the human race, although only remotely akin to it. It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheeky how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in the