ard 268
IX. On Deck 271

PART V

TROUBLE OF LOVE: THE MAN'S

I. THE WOMAN UNWON 277

II. THE WOMAN WON 304

PART I

[Illustration: GIRLHOOD]

BROWNING'S HEROINES

INTRODUCTORY

Browning's power of embodying in rhythm the full beauty of girlhood is
unequalled by any other English poet. Heine alone is his peer in this;
but even Heine's imagination dwelt more fondly on the abstract pathos
and purity of a maiden than on her individual gaiety and courage. In
older women, also, these latter qualities were the spells for Browning;
and, with him, a girl sets forth early on her brave career. That is the
just adjective. His girls are as brave as the young knights of other
poets; and in this appreciation of a dauntless gesture in women we see
one of the reasons why he may be called the first "feminist" poet since
Shakespeare. To me, indeed, even Shakespeare's maidens have less of the
peculiar iridescence of their state than Browning's have, and I think
this is because, already in the modern poet's day, girlhood was
beginning to be seen as it had never been seen before--that is, as a
"thing-by-itself." People had perceived--dimly enough, but with eyes
which have since grown clearer-sighted--that there is a stage in woman's
development which ought to be her very own to enjoy, as a man enjoys
_his_ adolescence. This dawning sense is explicit in the earlier verses
of one of Browning's most original utterances, _Evelyn Hope_, which is
the call of a man, many years older, to the mysterious soul of a dead
young girl--

"Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had hardly heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir . . ."

Here recognition of the girl's individuality is complete. Not a word in
the stanza hints at Evelyn's possible love for another man. "It was not
her time"; there were quite different joys in life for her. . . . Such a
view is even still something of a novelty, and Browning was the first to
express it thus whole-heartedly. There had been, of course, from all
time the hymning of maiden purity and innocence, but beneath such
celebrations had lurked that predatory instinct which a still more
modern poet has