[12 August 1846]. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett to Browning, Robert.

              Wednesday evening.

‘Did I ever receive such a letter’? Never-except from you- It is a question easily answered.

As to other question[s], about the communion of contrarieties, I agree with you, thought for thought, in all your thinking about it-only adding one more reason to the reasons you point out … There is another reason at the bottom of all, I think-I cannot but think-: & it is, just, that, when women are chosen for wives, they are not chosen for companions-that when they are selected to be loved, it is quite apart from life-“man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart”. A German professor selects a woman who can merely stew prunes-not because stewing prunes & reading Proclus make a delightful harmony, but because he wants his prunes stewed for him & chooses to read Proclus by himself. A fulness of sympathy, a sharing of life, one with another, .. is scarcely ever looked for except in a narrow conventional