Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/65

Rh personal history. She does not refrain from jesting about her own invalided condition, and, in the communication just cited from, says: "How you would smile sarcasms and epigrams out of the 'hood' if you could see from it what I have been doing, or rather suffering, lately! Having my picture taken by a lady miniature-painter, who wandered here to put an old view of mine to proof. For it wasn't 'the ruling passion strong in death,' 'though by your smiling you may seem to say so,' but a sacrifice to papa."

A month later, and she, still a prisoned sprite, writes:—

The fortnight within which the invalid was to risk a remove came and went, and still her letters bear the post-mark of hated Torquay. On the 4th August she writes:—"I am gasping still for permission to move too; but papa has gone suddenly into Herefordshire, and I am almost sure not to hear for a week. Something, however, must soon be determined; and in the meantime, being tied hand and foot, and gagged, I am wonderfully patient." Ten days later and still the Barretts did not risk removal. On the 14th Elizabeth wrote a characteristic letter to Horne, wherein was much playful badinage, and the remark, in reference to her childish epic—"Ah! when I was ten years old, I