And his reward came while he was still there to appreciate and rejoice, not after death as is so often the guerdon of him who sees what is hidden from his fellows. He set up a standard of thought and feeling, and slowly but steadily he saw the public coming up to that standard, and marching onward more hopefully, more bravely, more confidently. His life story is simply told. He was born in Camberwell, and most of his education was obtained at the London University. His father was a bank clerk, who hated the routine of office work, and had a perfect passion for books. He read in season and out of season, he was a familiar figure at all the old book-stalls, he knew many languages, and had a mind literally stored with treasures of culture and learning. Robert soon showed he had inherited the same love of books, and when he was fourteen coaxed his mother till, after some difficulty, she got him copies of the poems written by Keats and Shelley. "Those two poets came to me as two nightingales," he has told us, and from henceforward his mind was practically made up. He, too, would be a poet, and as if to begin a suitable course of training, he set himself to read and master the whole of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. His father put no hindrances in his way, on the contrary he promised him every assistance, and an aunt came forward with offers of money, so firmly did she believe in the talents of her nephew. It was at her expense that his first book, "Pauline," was published anonymously, and though a very small public appreciated the work, here and there a friendly critic was found brave enough to say that the author, whoever he was, though he must not look for popularity or expect to make a sensation, was certainly a poet. "Paracelsus" followed, the story of a man who desired knowledge above all else, and who in the search for knowledge forgot to seek for love, hope, fear, and faith, those nobler qualities that give to life its true note and character; but at the time this shared the same fate as "Pauline," and was little appreciated. Then he tried his hand at dramatic writing, producing first "Stafford" and afterwards "The Blot in the Scutcheon," and though Dickens wrote enthusiastically concerning the latter, "This play has thrown me into a perfect passion of sorrow.... It is full of genius, natural and great thoughts, profound yet simple, and beautiful in its vigour," Browning contented himself with saying, "A pitfull of good-natured people applauded it." Then, with the buoyant hopefulness which was part of him, he added, "Failure will not discourage me from another effort: experience is yet to come, and earnest endeavour may yet remove many disadvantages."