Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/64

48 Horne, Miss Mitford, and others, she was busy assisting the first-named correspondent in sketching out and writing a lyrical drama.

Psyche Apocalypté, the name finally adopted, by the two poets as the title of their joint drama, was to be modelled on "Greek instead of modern tragedy." The correspondence which the suggestions and dual labour on this drama gave rise to was most voluminous, and although the work was never completed, there was quite enough of it put together to justify Horne publishing the fair-sized pamphlet on it he eventually did.

Miss Barrett's original conception of the work is shadowed forth in these words:—

Horne accepted this psychological problem as the basis for the drama, taking good care, however, in his own practical way, to make it more comprehensible, and humanising it by a fairly readable plot and the introduction of numerous supernumerary personages, human and otherwise. Much of it was already written when Miss Barrett's removal from Torquay and journey to London caused a lengthy interregnum in the work, and subsequent events intervened to prevent its continuation and completion.

In her charming literary correspondence with Horne Miss Barrett furnishes many interesting little pieccs of