Today’s Poem: A Man’s Requirements

On her birthday, the surprising wit of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Richardson’s New London Fashionable Gentleman’s Valentine Writer, or, The Lover’s Own Book, circa 1850 (Wikimedia Commons)

Among many other things we think when we think of the Victorians, we think that there are Victorians who are funny, and Victorians who are not funny. Edward Lear is funny. The Rossettis are not funny. Lewis Carroll: funny. Tennyson: …