his splendid physique--a paternal inheritance, for his father died at
the age of eighty-four, without having ever endured a day's illness--and
the exceptionally fortunate circumstances which were his throughout
life, had something to do with that superb faith of his which finds
concentrated expression in the lines in Pippa's song--"God's in His
Heaven, All's right with the world!"

It is difficult for a happy man with an imperturbable digestion to be a
pessimist. He is always inclined to give Nature the benefit of the
doubt. His favourite term for this mental complaisance is "catholicity
of faith," or, it may be, "a divine hope." The less fortunate brethren
bewail the laws of Nature, and doubt a future readjustment, because of
stomachs chronically out of order. An eminent author with a weak
digestion wrote to me recently animadverting on what he calls Browning's
insanity of optimism: it required no personal acquaintanceship to
discern the dyspeptic well-spring of this utterance. All this may be
admitted lightly without carrying the physiological argument to
extremes. A man may have a liberal hope for himself and for humanity,
although his dinner be habitually a martyrdom. After all, we are only
dictated to by our bodies: we have not perforce to obey them. A bitter
wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered, would be
found embodied in the gastric juice. He was not altogether a fool, this
man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram; yet was he
wide of the mark.

As a very young child Browning was keenly susceptible to music. One
afternoon his mother was playing in the twilight to herself. She was
startled to hear a sound behind her. Glancing round, she beheld a little
white figure distinct against an oak bookcase, and could just discern
two large wistful eyes looking earnestly at her. The next moment the