Chapter 20

Constancy to Habit--Optimism--Belief in Providence--Political
Opinions--His Friendships--Reverence for Genius--Attitude towards
his Public--Attitude towards his Work--Habits of Work--His
Reading--Conversational Powers--Impulsiveness and Reserve--Nervous
Peculiarities--His Benevolence--His Attitude towards Women.

When Mr. Browning wrote to Miss Haworth, in the July of 1861, he had
said: 'I shall still grow, I hope; but my root is taken, and remains.'
He was then alluding to a special offshoot of feeling and association,
on the permanence of which it is not now necessary to dwell; but it
is certain that he continued growing up to a late age, and that the
development was only limited by those general roots, those fixed
conditions of his being, which had predetermined its form. This
progressive intellectual vitality is amply represented in his works; it
also reveals itself in his letters in so far as I have been allowed to
publish them. I only refer to it to give emphasis to a contrasted or
corresponding characteristic: his aversion to every thought of change. I
have spoken of his constancy to all degrees of friendship and love. What
he loved once he loved always, from the dearest man or woman to whom his
allegiance had been given, to the humblest piece of furniture which had
served him. It was equally true that what he had done once he was wont,
for that very reason, to continue doing. The devotion to habits of
feeling extended to habits of life; and although the lower constancy
generally served the purposes of the higher, it also sometimes clashed
with them. It conspired with his ready kindness of heart to make him
subject to circumstances which at first appealed to him through that
kindness, but lay really beyond its scope. This statement, it is true,
can only fully apply to the latter part of his life. His powers of
reaction must originally have been stronger, as well as freer from the
paralysis of conflicting motive and interest. The marked shrinking from
effort in any untried direction, which was often another name for his
stability, could scarcely have coexisted with the fresher and more
curious interest in men and things; we know indeed from recorded facts
that it was a feeling of later growth; and it visibly increased with the
periodical nervous exhaustion of his advancing years. I am convinced,
nevertheless, that, when the restiveness of boyhood had passed away,
Mr. Browning's strength was always more passive than active; that he
habitually made the best of external conditions rather than tried to
change them. He was a 'fighter' only by the brain. And on this point,
though on this only, his work is misleading.

The acquiescent tendency arose in some degree from two equally prominent