Though we both saw Mrs. Browning last in that year, my impressions are very distinct that her hair was of a dark-chestnut. It did not curl naturally; but, by one of those artifices of the toilet which all of her sex and some of mine understand, it was worn, as it has usually been painted, in side ringlets. Hawthorne’s constitutional propensity to take sombre views of things may account for the liberty he seems to have taken with Mrs. Browning’s hair.
John Bigelow: The Critic, September 23, 1882.
Mrs. Browning’s conversation.
Mrs. Browning’s conversation was most interesting. It was not characterized by sallies of wit or brilliant repartee, nor was it of that nature which is most welcome in society. It was frequently intermingled, with trenchant, quaint remarks, leavened with a quaint, graceful humor of her own; but it was eminently calculated for a tête-à-tête. Mrs. Browning never made an insignificant remark. All that she said was always worth hearing; a greater compliment could not be paid her. She was a most conscientious listener, giving you her mind and heart, as well as her magnetic eyes. Though the latter spoke an eager language of their own, she conversed slowly, with a conciseness and point which, added to a matchless earnestness that was the predominant trait of her conversation as it was of her character, made her a most delightful companion. Persons were never her theme, unless public characters were under discussion, or friends who were to be praised, which kind office she frequently took upon herself. One never dreamed of frivolities in Mrs. Browning’s presence, and gossip felt itself out of place. Yourself, not herself, was always a pleasant subject to her, calling out all her best sympathies in joy and yet more in sorrow. Books and humanity, great deeds, and, above all, politics, which include all the grand questions of the day, were foremost in her thoughts, and, therefore, oftenest on her lips. I speak not of religion, for with her everything was religion.
—— ——: ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning,’ Atlantic Monthly.
Appearance in her late days.
[Miss Mitford’s] description of twenty-five years ago[6] is true, every word, of a photograph now lying on our table, copied from Macaire’s original, made at Havre in 1856, and which Robert Browning esteems a faithful likeness of his wife. The three-quarter length shows the comparative stature of the figure, which is here so delicate and diminutive that we can easily imagine how the story come to be told (although not true) that her husband drew this same portrait in ‘The Flight of the Duchess’ when he sketched
——“The smallest lady alive.”