The marriage of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the two gifted poets, remains one of the most splendid love stories in history. The Woman's Voice has adapted the following account from the English magazine "Good Housekeeping."

On the twelfth of September, a hundred years ago, they stood before the altar, and Elizabeth Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning. This was in a quiet church in one of the suburbs of London. After the wedding they set out for Italy, that enchanting land of which Elizabeth had dreamed and which she had longed to visit.

In the history of English literature people have known no two gifted poets like Elizabeth and Robert Browning, who trod upon conven-tion and astonished the world with a life that was never, on any day, anything other than the ideal, happy married life. Rarely do a poet's verses match his private life as they do with Browning, and the proof of it lies in the letters the two lovers exchanged shortly before their marriage: they are an eloquent witness to true love tri-umphant. And though these letters ceased after the marriage, there being no longer any pressing need for them, the echo of the couple's happiness and concord kept appearing in their poems — above all in the "muwashshahat" for which Elizabeth became famous.

Now that a hundred years have

passed since these two poets mar-ried, the world looks upon the suc-cess of this marriage as a natural matter of course; but the truth is that many causes might well have made this marriage a failure, and to a great degree. Elizabeth was about forty, and for the previous five years had been half paralyzed, suffering from weak lungs and shattered nerves following the drowning and death of the brother she loved best; while Robert was about thirty-four, his youth brimming with health and vigor.

As for his fame as a poet, he began to win it only from the time he married Elizabeth; before that his poetry had no wide currency. And no one ranked him above her in poetry — except Elizabeth herself.

Elizabeth's father was a coarse man, hardened of mind and savage of temper. The oddity of his nature led him to forbid his nine children to marry; hence no one suspected Robert's visits to Elizabeth, who was the eldest of her sisters and the furthest of them from any thought of marriage. In the first of his letters to her, on a cold winter's day, Robert wrote:

"I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett — so much that they have become a part of me. Your great, living poetry has flowered and taken root within me. I love these books of yours... and I love you too."

The ardor of youth drove him one day to visit her and broach the matter of marriage; but the nurse

received him and made excuses — Miss Elizabeth's health was poorly and it was impossible for her to receive him. So he retraced his steps and wrote her a letter press-ing his feeling and his intention, and awakening in Elizabeth's heart a hope whose lamp had gone out years before! She wrote a reply by post, saying:

"Is it true that you were sorry to have missed the chance, and not to have seen me at that time?"

And she put off his visit for four months... Perhaps she meant thereby to make sure of her feeling toward him and of his position toward her, and to give herself time enough to reflect. She was appalled at what she saw in the lines of her cheeks and the fading of her eyes: the settled traces of many cares and long sleepless nights. And it was hard for her to encourage this young man to draw near her, when all the beauty and charm she possessed lay in her poetry and nowhere else!

He visited her one May morning, and his weekly visits went on. He would come armed with a fresh bouquet of red roses, to revive a heart that had given up all hope of enjoying a beloved's warm glances and of finding rest in him.

The strangest thing of all was that Elizabeth's health began to improve: Browning's meetings with her accomplished what the doctors had been powerless to accomplish... A year after his first visit, Elizabeth ventured to take a few steps, and her own physician advised her to spend the winter outside England; but her father shut that door with a single word, and his daughter's anxiety over her health won from him not the slightest attention — which led Elizabeth to reflect, and to venture upon a grave step, if she wished to live and put distance between herself and the grave in which she lay — namely, dwelling with her father under one roof.