Nor was my wife thinking of such when she used to speak of the poetess as she had known her at that time.

I am talking, as my wife used to talk, of pure native intellectual power.

And I consider it to have been no small indication of the capacity of my wife's intelligence, that she so clearly and appreciatingly recognised and measured the distance between her friend's intellect and her own.

But this appreciation on the one side was in nowise incompatible with a large and generous amount of admiration on the other.

And many a talk in long subsequent years left with me the impression of the high estimation which the gifted poetess had formed of the value of her highly, but not so exceptionally, gifted admirer.
Of course this old friendship paved the way for a new one when the Brownings came to live in Florence.