Love and the Brownings: Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

On September 18, 1846, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning exchange their last letters before they move to Italy. An excerpt from the article:

"After reading her poems for the first time, Robert wrote to her: "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett—I do, as I say, love these verses with all my heart."

With that first meeting of hearts and minds, a love affair would blossom between the two. Elizabeth told Mrs. Martin that she was "getting deeper and deeper into correspondence with Robert Browning, poet, and mystic; and we are growing to be the truest of friends." During the 20 months of their courtship, the couple exchanged nearly 600 letters. But what is love without obstacles and hardships? As Frederic Kenyon writes, 'Mr. Browning knew that he was asking to be allowed to take charge of an invalid's life—believed indeed that she was even worse than was really the case, and that she was hopelessly incapacitated from ever standing on her feet—-but was sure enough of his love to regard that as no obstacle.'"