One of the best and most striking things to notice about Robert Browning is the fact that he did this thing considering it as an exception, and that he contrived to leave it really exceptional.

It did not in the least degree break the rounded clearness of his loyalty to social custom.

It did not in the least degree weaken the sanctity of the general rule.

At a supreme crisis of his life he did an unconventional thing, and he lived and died conventional.

It would be hard to say whether he appears the more thoroughly sane in having performed the act, or in not having allowed it to affect him.
Elizabeth Barrett gradually gave way under the obstinate and almost monotonous assertion of Browning that this elopement was the only possible course of action.