He had a singular interest, such as may also be seen in the author of _The Ring and the Book_, in investigating and elucidating complex criminal cases.[5] He was a lover of athletic sports and never knew ill-health.

For the accumulation of riches he had no talent and no desire, but he had a simple wealth of affection which he bestowed generously on his children and his friends.

"My father," wrote Browning, "is tender-hearted to a fault....

To all women and children he is chivalrous." "He had," writes Mr W.J.Stillman, who knew Browning's father in Paris in his elder years, "the perpetual juvenility of a blessed child.

If to live in the world as if not of it indicates a saintly nature, then Robert Browning the elder was a saint; a serene, untroubled soul, conscious of no moral or theological problem to disturb his serenity, and as gentle as a gentle woman; a man in whom, it seemed to me, no moral conflict could ever have arisen to cloud his frank acceptance of life, as he found it come to him....