But in 1812 it was
a good residential locality, and not far away were fresh woods and
pastures.... The good health of Browning's father may be inferred
from the fact that he lived to be eighty-four, "without a day's
illness;" he was a practical, successful business man, an official
in the Bank of England. His love of literature and the arts is
proved by the fact that he practised them constantly for the pure
joy of the working; he wrote reams and reams of verse, without
publishing a line. He had extraordinary facility in composition,
being able to write poetry even faster than his son. Rossetti said
that he had "a real genius for drawing." He owned a large and
valuable library, filled with curiosities of literature. Robert was
brought up among books, even in earliest youth turning over many a
quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. His latest biographers
have shown the powerful and permanent effects on his poetry of this
early reading.
Browning's father--while not a rich man--had sufficient income to
give his son every possible advantage in physical and intellectual
training, and to enable him to live without earning a cent; after
Robert grew up, he was absolutely free to devote his entire time and
energy to writing poetry, which, even to the day of his death, did
not yield a livelihood.
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