It was of such things that Elizabeth Barrett wrote in one of her best moments of insight--that his genius was the least important thing about him.
During all these later years, Browning's life had been a quiet and regular one.

He always spent the winter in Italy and the summer in London, and carried his old love of precision to the extent of never failing day after day throughout the year to leave the house at the same time.

He had by this time become far more of a public figure than he had ever been previously, both in England and Italy.

In 1881, Dr.
Furnivall and Miss E.H.Hickey founded the famous "Browning Society." He became President of the new "Shakespeare Society" and of the "Wordsworth Society." In 1886, on the death of Lord Houghton, he accepted the post of Foreign Correspondent to the Royal Academy.

When he moved to De Vere Gardens in 1887, it began to be evident that he was slowly breaking up.