Browning was in fact by his principles and his ideals a man of the world, but in his life far otherwise.

That worldly ease which is to most of us a temptation was to him an ideal.

He was as it were a citizen of the New Jerusalem who desired with perfect sanity and simplicity to be a citizen of Mayfair.

There was in him a quality which can only be most delicately described; for it was a virtue which bears a strange resemblance to one of the meanest of vices.

Those curious people who think the truth a thing that can be said violently and with ease, might naturally call Browning a snob.