ble.

This passive assent sufficed. A printed prospectus was now issued. About
two hundred members were soon secured. A committee was elected, of which
Mr. J. T. Nettleship, already well known as a Browning student, was
one of the most conspicuous members; and by the end of October a small
Society had come into existence, which held its inaugural meeting in
the Botanic Theatre of University College. Mr. Furnivall, its principal
founder, and responsible organizer, was Chairman of the Committee, and
Miss E. H. Hickey, the co-founder, was Honorary Secretary. When, two or
three years afterwards, illness compelled her to resign this position,
it was assumed by Mr. J. Dykes Campbell.

Although nothing could be more unpretending than the action of this
Browning Society, or in the main more genuine than its motive, it did
not begin life without encountering ridicule and mistrust. The formation
of a Ruskin Society in the previous year had already established a
precedent for allowing a still living worker to enjoy the fruits of his
work, or, as some one termed it, for making a man a classic during his
lifetime. But this fact was not yet generally known; and meanwhile a
curious contradiction developed itself in the public mind. The outer
world of Mr. Browning's acquaintance continued to condemn the too great
honour which was being done to him; from those of the inner circle he
constantly received condolences on being made the subject of proceedings
which, according to them, he must somehow regard as an offence.

This was the last view of the case which he was prepared to take. At
the beginning, as at the end, he felt honoured by the intentions of the
Society. He probably, it is true, had occasional misgivings as to its
future. He could not be sure that its action would always be judicious,
still less that it would be always successful. He was prepared for its
being laughed at, and for himself being included in the laughter.
He consented to its establishment for what seemed to him the one
unanswerable reason, that he had, even on the ground of taste, no just
cause for forbidding it. No line, he considered, could be drawn between
the kind of publicity which every writer seeks, which, for good or
evil, he had already obtained, and that which the Browning Society was
conferring on him. His works would still, as before, be read, analyzed,
and discussed 'viva voce' and in print. That these proceedings would
now take place in other loc