freedom, for both. Meredith has said the same, more
axiomatically than Browning ever said it:

"He learnt how much we gain who make no claims"

--but Browning's whole existence announced that axiom, and triumphantly
proved it true. Almost the historic happy marriage of the world! Such
was _his_ marriage, and such it must have been, for never was man
declared beforehand more infallible for the greatest of decisions. He
understood: understood love, marriage, and (hardest of all perhaps!)
conduct--what it may do, and not do, for happiness. That is to say, he
understood how far conduct helps toward comprehension and how far
hinders it--when it is that we should judge by words and deeds, and when
by "what we know," apart from words and deeds. The whole secret, for
Browning, lay in loving greatly.

Thus, for example, it is notable that, except _The Laboratory_ and
_Fifine at the Fair_, none of his poems of men and women turns upon
jealousy. For him, that was no part of love; there could be no place in
love for it. And even Elvire's demurs (in _Fifine_), even the departure
from her husband, are not the words, the deed, of jealousy, but of
insight into Juan's better self. He will never be all that he can be
(she sees) until he knows that it is her he loves, and her alone and
always; if this is the way he must learn it, she will go, that he may be
deep and true as well as brilliant.

For Browning, _how_ love comes is not important. It may be by the
high-road or the bypath; so long as it is truly recognised, bravely
answered, all is well. Living, it will be our highest bliss; dying, our
dearest memory.

"What is he buzzing in my ears?
'Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?'
Ah, reverend sir, not I!"

And why not? Because in the days gone by, a girl and this now dying man
"used to meet." What he viewed in the world then, he now sees again--the
"suburb lane" of their rendezvous; and he begins to make a map, as it
were, with the bottles on the bedside table.

"At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, Sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune."

Nevertheless the clergyman must look, while he traces out the
details. . . . She left the attic, "there, by the rim of the bottle
labelled 'Ether,'"

"And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas!
We