Browning's affection for him finds utterance in a few strong words which
I shall have occasion to quote. An undated fragment concerning him from
Mrs. Browning to her sister-in-law, points to a later date than the
present, but may as well be inserted here.


'. . . I quite love M. Milsand for being interested in Penini. What a
perfect creature he is, to be sure! He always stands in the top place
among our gods--Give him my cordial regards, always, mind. . . .
He wants, I think--the only want of that noble nature--the sense of
spiritual relation; and also he puts under his feet too much the worth
of impulse and passion, in considering the powers of human nature. For
the rest, I don't know such a man. He has intellectual conscience--or
say--the conscience of the intellect, in a higher degree than I ever
saw in any man of any country--and this is no less Robert's belief than
mine. When we hear the brilliant talkers and noisy thinkers here and
there and everywhere, we go back to Milsand with a real reverence. Also,
I never shall forget his delicacy to me personally, nor his tenderness
of heart about my child. . . .'


The criticism was inevitable from the point of view of Mrs. Browning's
nature and experience; but I think she would have revoked part of it if
she had known M. Milsand in later years. He would never have agreed with
her as to the authority of 'impulse and passion', but I am sure he did
not underrate their importance as factors in human life.

M. Milsand was one of the few readers of Browning with whom I have
talked about him, who had studied his work from the beginning, and had
realized the ambition of his first imaginative flights. He was