I have no reason to be proud of my achievements. My good father
sacrificed a fortune to his convictions. He could not bear with slavery,
and left India and accepted a humble bank-office in London.
He secured for me all the ease and comfort that a literary man needs
to do good work. It would have been shameful if I had not done my best
to realise his expectations of me."*

--
* `India' is a slip on the part either of Browning or of Mrs. Corson.
The poet's father was never in India. He was quite a youth
when he went to his mother's sugar-plantation at St. Kitts,
in the West Indies.
--

The home of Mr. Browning was, as already stated, in Camberwell,
a suburb then of less easy access than now, and where there were green trees,
and groves, and enticing rural perspectives into "real" country,
yet withal not without some suggestion of the metropolitan air.

"The old trees
Which grew by our youth's home -- the waving mass
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew --
The morning swallows with their songs like words --
All these seem clear. . . .
. . . most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years."
(`Pauline'.)

Another great writer of our time was born in the same parish:
and those who would know Herne Hill and the neighbourhood