Following, is an excerpt from an early letter ~ Robert Browning to Elizabeth 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...
"...this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew ~ Oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, and shut up and put away."
