--

* Two or three brothers.
--

In the early summer of 1884, and again in 1886, Miss Browning had
a serious illness; and though she recovered, in each case completely,

and in the first rapidly, it was considered desirable
that she should not travel so far as usual from home.

She and her brother therefore accepted for the August and September of 1884
the urgentinvitation of an American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore,

to stay with her at a villa which she rented for some seasons at St. Moritz.
Mr. Browning was delighted with the Engadine, where the circumstances

of his abode, and the thoughtful kindness of his hostess,
allowed him to enjoy the benefits of comparative civilization

together with almost perfect repose. The weather that year
was brilliant until the end of September, if not beyond it;

and his letters tell the old pleasant story of long daily walks
and a general sense of invigoration. One of these,

written to Mr. and Mrs. Skirrow, also contains some pungent remarks
on contemporary events, with an affectionate allusion

to one of the chief actors in them.
==

`Anyhow, I have the sincerest hope that Wolseley may get done as soon,
and kill as few people, as possible, -- keeping himself safe and sound --

brave dear fellow -- for the benefit of us all.'
==

He also speaks with great sympathy of the death of Mr. Charles Sartoris,
which had just taken place at St.-Moritz.

In 1886, Miss Browning was not allowed to leave England;
and she and Mr. Browning established themselves for the autumn

at the Hand Hotel at Llangollen, where their old friends,
Sir Theodore and Lady Martin, would be within easy reach.

Mr. Browning missed the exhilarating effects of the Alpine air;
but he enjoyed the peaceful beauty of the Welsh valley,

and the quiet and comfort of the old-fashioned English inn.
A new source of interest also presented itself to him in some aspects

of the life of the English country gentleman. He was struck
by the improvements effected by its actual owner* on a neighbouring estate,

and by the provisions contained in them for the comfort of both
the men and the animals under his care; and he afterwards made,

in reference to them, what was for a professing Liberal,
a very striking remark: `Talk of abolishing that class of men!

They are the salt of the earth!' Every Sunday afternoon
he and his sister drank tea -- weather permitting -- on the lawn

with their friends at Brintysilio; and he alludes gracefully to these meetings
in a letter written in the early summer of 1888, when Lady Martin

had urged him to return to Wales.
--

* I believe a Captain Best.
--

The poet left another and more patheticremembrance of himself
in the neighbourhood of Llangollen: his weekly presence

at the afternoon Sunday service in the parish church of Llantysilio.
Churchgoing was, as I have said, no part of his regular life.

It was no part of his life in London. But I do not think he ever failed in it
at the Universities or in the country. The assembling for prayer

meant for him something deeper in both the religious and the human sense,
where ancient learning and piety breathed through the consecrated edifice,

or where only the figurative `two or three' were `gathered together'
within it. A memorialtablet now marks the spot at which on this occasion

the sweet grave face and the venerable head were so often seen.
It has been placed by the direction of Lady Martin on the adjoining wall.

It was in the September of this year that Mr. Browning heard
of the death of M. Joseph Milsand. This name represented for him

one of the few close friendships which were to remain until the end,
unclouded in fact and in remembrance; and although some weight may be given

to those circumstances of their lives which precluded all possibility
of friction and risk of disenchantment, I believe their rooted sympathy,

and Mr. Browning's unfailing powers of appreciation would,
in all possible cases, have maintained the bond intact.

The event was at the last sudden, but happily not quite unexpected.
Many other friends had passed by this time out of the poet's life --

those of a younger, as well as his own and an older generation.
Miss Haworth died in 1883. Charles Dickens, with whom he had remained

on the most cordial terms, had walked between him and his son
at Thackeray's funeral, to receive from him, only seven years later,

the same pious office. Lady Augusta Stanley, the daughter of his old friend,
Lady Elgin, was dead, and her husband, the Dean of Westminster.

So also were `Barry Cornwall' and John Forster, Alfred Domett,
and Thomas Carlyle, Mr. Cholmondeley and Lord Houghton; others still,

both men and women, whose love for him might entitle them to a place
in his Biography, but whom I could at most only mention by name.

For none of these can his feeling have been more constant
or more disinterested than that which bound him to Carlyle.

He visited him at Chelsea in the last weary days of his long life,
as often as their distance from each other and his own engagements allowed.

Even the man's posthumous self-disclosures scarcely availed to destroy
the affectionatereverence which he had always felt for him.

He never ceased to defend him against the charge of unkindness to his wife,
or to believe that in the matter of their domestic unhappiness

she was the more responsible of the two.* Yet Carlyle had never rendered him
that service, easy as it appears, which one man of letters

most justly values from another: that of proclaiming the admiration
which he privately expresses for his works. The fact was incomprehensible

to Mr. Browning -- it was so foreign to his own nature;
and he commented on it with a touch, though merely a touch, of bitterness,

when repeating to a friend some almost extravagant eulogium
which in earlier days he had received from him tete-a-tete.

`If only,' he said, `those words had been ever repeated in public,
what good they might have done me!'

--
* He always thought her a hard and unlovable woman, and I believe

little liking was lost between them. He told a comical story of how
he had once, unintentionally but rather stupidly, annoyed her.

She had asked him, as he was standing by her tea-table,
to put the kettle back on the fire. He took it out of her hands,

but, preoccupied by the conversation he was carrying on, deposited it
on the hearthrug. It was some time before he could be made to see

that this was wrong; and he believed Mrs. Carlyle never ceased to think
that he had a mischievousmotive for doing it.

--
In the spring of 1886, he accepted the post of Foreign Correspondent

to the Royal Academy, rendered vacant by the death of Lord Houghton.
He had long been on very friendly terms with the leading Academicians,

and a constant guest at the Banquet; and his fitness for the office
admitted of no doubt. But his nomination by the President,

and the manner in which it was ratified by the Council and general body,
gave him sincere pleasure.

Early in 1887, the `Parleyings' appeared. Their author is still
the same Robert Browning, though here and there visibly touched by

the hand of time. Passages of sweet or majestic music, or of exquisite fancy,
alternate with its long stretches of argumentative thought;

and the light of imagination still plays, however fitfully,
over statements of opinion to which constantrepetition has given a suggestion

of commonplace. But the revision of the work caused him unusual trouble.
The subjects he had chosen strained his powers of exposition;

and I think he often tried to remedy by mere verbal correction,
what was a defect in the logicalarrangement of his ideas.

They would slide into each other where a visible dividing line was required.
The last stage of his life was now at hand; and the vivid return of fancy

to his boyhood's literary loves was in pathetic, perhaps not quite accidental,
coincidence with the fact. It will be well to pause

at this beginning of his decline, and recall so far as possible
the image of the man who lived, and worked, and loved, and was loved among us,

during that brief old age, and the lengthened period of level strength
which had preceded it. The record already given of his life and work

supplies the outline of the picture; but a few more personal details
are required for its completion.

Chapter 20
Constancy to Habit -- Optimism -- Belief in Providence --

Political Opinions -- His Friendships -- Reverence for Genius --