Letter to Elizabeth Barrett

Dear Miss Barrett, I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett - and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write - whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me. In this addressing myself to you - your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart - and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing - really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' - then he went to announce me - then he returned... you were too unwell - and now it is years ago - and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels - as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt... and the door was shut! But shall I not see you one day? Robert Browning