in the works of an author, the reviews are obliged to notice him,
such notice as it is -- but what poor work, even when doing its best!

I mean poor in the failure to give a general notion of the whole works;
not a particular one of such and such points therein.

As I begun, so I shall end, -- taking my own course,
pleasing myself or aiming at doing so, and thereby, I hope, pleasing God.

`As I never did otherwise, I never had any fear as to what I did
going ultimately to the bad, -- hence in collected editions

I always reprinted everything, smallest and greatest. Do you ever see,
by the way, the numbers of the selection which Moxons publish?

They are exclusively poems omitted in that other selection by Forster;
it seems little use sending them to you, but when they are completed,

if they give me a few copies, you shall have one if you like.
Just before I left London, Macmillan was anxious to print a third selection,

for his Golden Treasury, which should of course be different from either --
but THREE seem too absurd. There -- enough of me --

`I certainly will do my utmost to make the most of my poor self before I die;
for one reason, that I may help old Pen the better; I was much struck

by the kind ways, and interest shown in me by the Oxford undergraduates, --
those introduced to me by Jowett. -- I am sure they would be the more helpful

to my son. So, good luck to my great venture, the murder-poem,
which I do hope will strike you and all good lovers of mine. . . .'

==
We cannot wonder at the touch of bitterness with which Mr. Browning dwells

on the long neglect which he had sustained; but it is at first sight
difficult to reconcile this high positiveestimate of the value of his poetry

with the relativedepreciation of his own poeticgenius which constantly marks
his attitude towards that of his wife. The facts are, however,

quite compatible. He regarded Mrs. Browning's genius as greater,
because more spontaneous, than his own: owing less to life

and its opportunities; but he judged his own work as the more important,
because of the larger knowledge of life which had entered into its production.

He was wrong in the first terms of his comparison: for he underrated
the creative, hence spontaneous element in his own nature,

while claiming primarily the position of an observant thinker;
and he overrated the amount of creativeness implied by the poetry of his wife.

He failed to see that, given her intellectual endowments, and the lyric gift,
the characteristics of her genius were due to circumstances as much as

those of his own. Actual life is not the only source of poetic inspiration,
though it may perhaps be the best. Mrs. Browning as a poet

became what she was, not in spite of her long seclusion, but by help of it.
A touchingparagraph, bearing upon this subject, is dated October '65.

==
`. . . Another thing. I have just been making a selection of Ba's poems

which is wanted -- how I have done it, I can hardly say --
it is one dear delight to know that the work of her goes on

more effectually than ever -- her books are more and more read --
certainly, sold. A new edition of Aurora Leigh is completely exhausted

within this year. . . .'
==

Of the thing next dearest to his memory, his Florentine home,
he had written in the January of this year:

==
`. . . Yes, Florence will never be MY Florence again.

To build over or beside Poggio seems barbarous and inexcusable.
The Fiesole side don't matter. Are they going to pull the old walls down,

or any part of them, I want to know? Why can't they keep the old city
as a nucleus and build round and round it, as many rings of houses

as they please, -- framing the picture as deeply as they please?
Is Casa Guidi to be turned into any Public Office? I should think that

its natural destination. If I am at liberty to flee away one day,
it will not be to Florence, I dare say. As old Philipson said to me once

of Jerusalem -- "No, I don't want to go there, -- I can see it in my head."
. . . Well, goodbye, dearest Isa. I have been for a few minutes -- nay,

a good many, -- so really with you in Florence that it would be no wonder
if you heard my steps up the lane to your house. . . .'

==
Part of a letter written in the September of '65 from Ste.-Marie

may be interesting as referring to the legend of Pornic
included in `Dramatis Personae'.

==
`. . . I suppose my "poem" which you say brings me and Pornic

together in your mind, is the one about the poor girl -- if so,
"fancy" (as I hear you say) they have pulled down the church

since I arrived last month -- there are only the shell-like,
roofless walls left, for a few weeks more; it was very old --

built on a natural base of rock -- small enough, to be sure --
so they build a smart new one behind it, and down goes this;

just as if they could not have pitched down their brick and stucco
farther away, and left the old place for the fishermen -- so here --

the church is even more picturesque -- and certain old Norman ornaments,
capitals of pillars and the like, which we left erect in the doorway,

are at this moment in a heap of rubbish by the road-side.
The people here are good, stupid and dirty, without a touch

of the sense of picturesqueness in their clodpolls. . . .'
==

The little record continues through 1866.
==

Feb. 19, '66.
`. . . I go out a great deal; but have enjoyed nothing so much

as a dinner last week with Tennyson, who, with his wife and one son,
is staying in town for a few weeks, -- and she is just what she was

and always will be -- very sweet and dear: he seems to me better than ever.
I met him at a large party on Saturday -- also Carlyle, whom I never met

at a "drum" before. . . . Pen is drawing our owl -- a bird that is
the light of our house, for his tameness and engaging ways. . . .'

==
==

May 19, '66.
`. . . My father has been unwell, -- he is better and will go

into the country the moment the east winds allow, -- for in Paris,
-- as here, -- there is a razor wrapped up in the flannel of sunshine.

I hope to hear presently from my sister, and will tell you if a letter comes:
he is eighty-five, almost, -- you see! otherwise his wonderful constitution

would keep me from inordinate apprehension. His mind is absolutely
as I always remember it, -- and the other day when I wanted some information

about a point of mediaeval history, he wrote a regular bookful
of notes and extracts thereabout. . . .'

==
==

June 20, '66.
`My dearest Isa, I was telegraphed for to Paris last week,

and arrived time enough to pass twenty-four hours more with my father:
he died on the 14th -- quite exhausted by internal haemorrhage,

which would have overcome a man of thirty. He retained all his faculties
to the last -- was utterly indifferent to death, -- asking with surprise

what it was we were affected about since he was perfectly happy?
-- and kept his own strange sweetness of soul to the end --

nearly his last words to me, as I was fanning him, were "I am so afraid
that I fatigue you, dear!" this, while his sufferings were great;

for the strength of his constitution seemed impossible to be subdued.
He wanted three weeks exactly to complete his eighty-fifth year.

So passed away this good, unworldly, kind-hearted, religious man,
whose powers natural and acquired would so easily have made him a notable man,

had he known what vanity or ambition or the love of money
or social influence meant. As it is, he was known by half-a-dozen friends.

He was worthy of being Ba's father -- out of the whole world, only he,
so far as my experience goes. She loved him, -- and HE said, very recently,

while gazing at her portrait, that only that picture had put into his head
that there might be such a thing as the worship of the images of saints.

My sister will come and live with me henceforth. You see what she loses.
All her life has been spent in caring for my mother, and seventeen years

after that, my father. You may be sure she does not rave and rend hair
like people who have plenty to atone for in the past; but she loses very much.

I returned to London last night. . . .'
==

During his hurried journey to Paris, Mr. Browning was mentally