Chapter 2

Robert Browning's Father--His Position in Life--Comparison between
him and his Son--Tenderness towards his Son--Outline of his Habits and
Character--His Death--Significant Newspaper Paragraph--Letter of
Mr. Locker-Lampson--Robert Browning's Mother--Her Character and
Antecedents--Their Influence upon her Son--Nervous Delicacy imparted to
both her Children--Its special Evidences in her Son.

It was almost a matter of course that Robert Browning's father should be
disinclined for bank work. We are told, and can easily imagine, that he
was not so good an official as the grandfather; we know that he did not
rise so high, nor draw so large a salary. But he made the best of
his position for his family's sake, and it was at that time both more
important and more lucrative than such appointments have since become.
Its emoluments could be increased by many honourable means not covered
by the regular salary. The working-day was short, and every additional
hour's service well paid. To be enrolled on the night-watch was also
very remunerative; there were enormous perquisites in pens, paper, and
sealing-wax.* Mr. Browning availed himself of these opportunities of
adding to his income, and was thus enabled, with the help of his private
means, to gratify his scholarly and artistic tastes, and give his
children the benefit of a very liberal education--the one distinct ideal
of success in life which such a nature as his could form. Constituted as
he was, he probably suffered very little through the paternal unkindness
which had forced him into an uncongenial career. Its only palpable
result was to make him a more anxiously indulgent parent when his own
time came.

* I have been told that, far from becoming careless in the
use of these things from his practically unbounded command
of them, he developed for them an almost superstitious
reverence. He could never endure to see a scrap of writing-
paper wasted.

Many circumstances conspired to secure to the coming poet a happier
childhood and youth than his father had had. His path was to be smoothed
not only by natural affection and conscientious care, but by literary
and artistic sympathy. The second Mr. Browning differed, in certain
respects, as much from the third as from the first. There were,
nevertheless, strong points in which, if he did not resemble, he at
least distinctly foreshadowed him; and the genius of the one would lack
some possible explanation if we did not recognize in great measure its
organized material in the other. Much, indeed, that was genius in the
son existed as talent in the father. The moral nature of the younger
man diverged from that of the older, though retaining strong points of
similarity; but the mental equipments of the two