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xxx PHILIP
"ROME, 126 VIA FELICE.
"DEAR MR. THACKERAY,—I hope you received my note and
last poem. I hope still more earnestly that you won't think I am
putting my spite against your chastening hand into a presumptuous
and troublesome fluency.
"But Hans Christian Andersen is here, charming us all, and
not least the children. So I wrote these
verses—not for Cornhill this month, of
course; though I send them now, that they
may lie over at your service (if you are so
pleased) for some other month of the summer.
" We go to Florence on the first of June
—and lo ! here is the twenty-first of May.
"With love to dear Annie and Minny, I
remain, most truly yours,
" ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING."
This poem was "The North and the
South" which appeared in The Cornhill
Magazine in June 1861, the month of
Mrs. Browning's death.
One of the most touching articles which
appeared in its columns were those few
chapters by Miss Bronte, to which my father
wrote an introduction. The beautiful opening
pages of the story of " Emma " appeared
LONG FACE. in the fourth number, together with " The
Last Sketch," as my father called it, when he
wrote his introduction, placing his worthy tribute upon the newly
made grave of his friend.
As my father's health failed, trouble seemed to multiply, but he
always took things cheerily ; witness this little note to Mr. George
Smith :—
"36 ONSLOW SQUARE, September 3,1861.
" Some people think long faces very becoming. Mine will lengthen ;
but it is because your speculation is not so good as it might be, not
for the personal loss to yours always, W. M. T."