Mrs. Browning and the Brontës.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was confined to her room for seven years, but was restored to something like a normal state of health before her marriage. The long period of illness was partly caused by the death of her brother, of whom she was extremely fond, and many times her life was despaired of. She wrote in spite of sickness, however, and produced some excellent verse. All her life she struggled against a naturally weak constitution and she worked under difficulties.
Count Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet, was another whose life from childhood was made melancholy by impaired health. In his case it was largely the result of the energy with which he gave himself up to study, when he was only a child, thus undermining an already delicate constitution. He was the victim of a perpetual melancholy, and he wandered to and fro in Italy, always the prey of ceaseless physical tortures, which prevented him from accepting any permanent position that might have relieved the constant and pressing need of money. He attained distinction as a philologist and was offered a university professorship in Germany by Bunsen, but was unable to accept it because of his infirmity.
The three gifted Brontë sisters were all in wretched health. Emily and Anne died within a year of each other, leaving Charlotte to a lonely life of sorrow and heartache. She worked on, in spite of all, with indomitable energy and courage, and the genius of the woman is all the more remarkable when one realizes that her sufferings were both physical and mental. Her work came from an aching heart as well as from a weak and ill body. One short year of happiness was hers at the end, when she became the wife of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, curate under her father, who had long loved her.