"At no moment from first to last of my acquaintance with your works, or friendship with yourself, have I had any other feeling, expressed or kept silent, than this which an opportunity allows me to utter--that I am and ever shall be, my dear Tennyson, admiringly and affectionately yours,
What I have said of Browning's impulsiveness is borne out not only by the universal testimony of those who knew him well, but particularly by a letter of Mrs. Browning to Mrs. Jameson. The manuscript of this letter was bought in London by an American, and went down with the _Titanic_ in 1912. An extract from it appeared in a bookseller's catalogue--"You must learn Robert--he is made of moods--chequered like a chess-board; and the colour goes for too much--till you learn to treat it as a game."
No man--little or great--was ever more free from pose. His appearance, in clothes and in hair, was studiously normal. No one in his later years would ever have guessed that he was a poet, either in seeing him on the street, or in meeting him at dinner. He was interested in multitudinous things, but never spoke of poetry--either in general or in his own particular--if he could avoid doing so. The fact that strangers who were presented to him and talked with him did not guess that he was _the_ Mr. Browning, gave rise to numberless humorous situations.
Perhaps the best thing that can be said of his personal character is the truthful statement that he stood in the finest manner two searching tests of manhood--long neglect and sudden popularity, The long years of oblivion, during which he was producing much of his best work, made him neither angry nor sour, though he must have suffered deeply. On the other hand, when his fame reached prodigious proportions, he was neither conceited nor affected. He thoroughly believed in himself, and in his work; and he cared more about it than he did for its reception.
The crushing grief that came to him in the death of his wife he bore with that Christian resignation of which we hear more often than perhaps we see in experience. For Browning was a Christian, not only in faith but in conduct; it was the mainspring of his art and of his life. There are so many writers whose lives show so painful a contrast with the ideal tone of their written work, that it is refreshing and inspiring to be so certain of Browning; to know that the author of the poems which thrill us was as great in character as he was in genius.