To say that he had no streak of envy in his nature would be true, but unfair; for there is no justification for attributing any of these great men's opinions to envy.

But Browning was really unique, in that he had a certain spontaneous and unthinking tendency to the admiration of others.

He admired another poet as he admired a fading sunset or a chance spring leaf.

He no more thought whether he could be as good as that man in that department than whether he could be redder than the sunset or greener than the leaf of spring.

He was naturally magnanimous in the literal sense of that sublime word; his mind was so great that it rejoiced in the triumphs of strangers.