led him in an easterly direction; and whether in an
unconscious hugging of his chains, or, as was more probable, from the
desire to save time, he would drag his aching heart and reluctant body
through the sordidness or the squalor of this short cut, rather than
seek the pleasanter thoroughfares which were open to him. Even the
prettiness of Warwick Crescent was neutralized for him by the atmosphere
of low or ugly life which encompassed it on almost every side. His
haunting dream was one day to have done with it all; to have fulfilled
his mission with his son, educated him, launched him in a suitable
career, and to go back to sunshine and beauty again. He learned by
degrees to regard London as a home; as the only fitting centre for the
varied energies which were reviving in him; to feel pride and pleasure
in its increasingly picturesque character. He even learned to appreciate
the outlook from his house--that 'second from the bridge' of which so
curious a presentment had entered into one of the poems of the 'Men and
Women'*--in spite of the refuse of humanity which would sometimes yell
at the street corner, or fling stones at his plate-glass. But all this
had to come; and it is only fair to admit that twenty-nine years ago the
beauties of which I have spoken were in great measure to come also. He
could not then in any mood have exclaimed, as he did to a friend two or
three years ago: 'Shall we not have a pretty London if things go on in
this way?' They were driving on the Kensington side of Hyde Park.

* 'How it strikes a Contemporary'.

The paternal duty, which, so much against his inclination, had
established Mr. Browning in England, would in every case have lain very
near to his conscience and to his heart; but it especially urged itself
upon them through the absence of any injunction concerning it on his
wife's part. No farewell words of hers had commended their child to his
father's love and care; and though he may, for the moment, have imputed
this fact to unconsciousness of her approaching death, his deeper
insight soon construed the silence into an expression of trust, more
binding upon him than the most earnest exacted promise could have been.
The growing boy's education occupied a considerable part of his time and
thoughts, for he had determined not to send him to school, but, as far
as possible, himself prepare him for the University. He must also, in
some degree, have supervised his recreations. He had t