To one who has habitually given as well as received much not the least of the pangs of separation arises from the incapacity to render any further direct service.  It fortified Browning’s heart to know that much could be done, and in ways which his wife would have approved and desired, for her child.  And as he himself had been also her care, it was his business now to see that his life fulfilled itself aright.  Yet he breaks out in July:  “No more ‘house-keeping’ for me, even with my family.  I shall grow still, I hope—­but my root is taken, and remains.”  From the outward paraphernalia of death Browning, as Mrs Orr notices, shrank with aversion; it was partly the instinct by which a man seeks to preserve what is most sacred and most strong in his own feelings from the poor materialisms and the poor sentimentalisms of the grave; partly a belief that any advance of the heart towards what has been lost may be rather hindered than helped by the external circumstance surrounding the forsaken body.  Browning took measures that his wife’s grave should be duly cared for, given more than common distinction; but Florence became a place from which even for his own sake and the sake of her whose spirit lived within him he must henceforth keep aloof.

The first immediate claim upon Browning was that of duty to his father.  On August 1st he left Florence for Paris, accompanied by Isa Blagden, who still watched over him and the boy.  Two months were spent with his sister and the old man, still hale and strong of heart, at a place “singularly unspoiled, fresh and picturesque, and lovely to heart’s content”—­so Browning describes it—­St Enogat, near St Malo.  The solitary sea, the sands, the rocks, the green country gave him at least a breathing-space.  Then he proceeded to London, not without an outbreak of his characteristic energy in over-coming the difficulties—­which involved two hours of “weary battling”—­of securing a horse-box for Pen’s pony.  At Amiens Tennyson, with his wife and children, was on the platform.  Browning pulled his hat over his face and was unrecognised.[85] In “grim London,” as he had called it, though with a quick remorse at recollection of the kindness awaiting him, he had the comfort of daily intercourse with Miss Arabel Barrett.

It was decided that an English education, but not that of a public school, would be best for the boy; the critical time for taking “the English stamp” must not be lost; his father’s instruction, aided by that of a tutor, would suffice to prepare him for the University, and he would have the advantage of the motherly care of his mother’s favourite sister.  Browning distrusted, he says to Story, “ambiguous natures and nationalities.”  Thus he bound himself to England and to London, while at times he sighed for the beauty of Italian hills and skies.  He shrank from society, although before long old friends, and especially Procter, infirm and deaf, were not neglected.  He found, or made, business