This mystery of the unconscious man, far deeper than any mystery of
the conscious one, existing as it does in all men, existed peculiarly
in Browning, because he was a very ordinary and spontaneous man. The
same thing exists to some extent in all history and all affairs.
Anything that is deliberate, twisted, created as a trap and a
mystery, must be discovered at last; everything that is done naturally
remains mysterious. It may be difficult to discover the principles of
the Rosicrucians, but it is much easier to discover the principles of
the Rosicrucians than the principles of the United States: nor has any
secret society kept its aims so quiet as humanity. The way to be
inexplicable is to be chaotic, and on the surface this was the quality
of Browning's life; there is the same difference between judging of
his poetry and judging of his life, that there is between making a map
of a labyrinth and making a map of a mist. The discussion of what some
particular allusion in _Sordello_ means has gone on so far, and may go
on still, but it has it in its nature to end. The life of Robert
Browning, who combines the greatest brain with the most simple
temperament known in our annals, would go on for ever if we did not
decide to summarise it in a very brief and simple narrative.

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell on May 7th 1812. His father and
grandfather had been clerks in the Bank of England, and his whole
family would appear to have belonged to the solid and educated middle
class--the class which is interested in letters, but not ambitious in
them, the class to which poetry is a luxury, but not a necessity.

This actual quality and character of the Browning family shows some
tendency to be obscured by matters more remote. It is the custom of
all biographers to seek for the earliest traces of a family in distant
ages and even in distant lands; and Browning, as it happens, has given