He did not, like the new humanitarian, think the world good because he had found so many things in it that were bad.
As has been previously suggested, there was something very queer and dangerous that underlay all the good humour of Browning.

If one of these idle prejudices were broken by better knowledge, he was all the better pleased.

But if some of the prejudices that were really rooted in him were trodden on, even by accident, such as his aversion to loose artistic cliques, or his aversion to undignified publicity, his rage was something wholly transfiguring and alarming, something far removed from the shrill disapproval of Carlyle and Ruskin.

It can only be said that he became a savage, and not always a very agreeable or presentable savage.

The indecent fury which danced upon the bones of Edward Fitzgerald was a thing which ought not to have astonished any one who had known much of Browning's character or even of his work.
Some unfortunate persons on another occasion had obtained some of Mrs.
Browning's letters shortly after her death, and proposed to write a _Life_ founded upon them.