ns interlock and clash together with some true dramatic
interaction. Their presentation awakens our pity, and wonder for the
blind fates of men. The close leaves us in sorrow, yet in love with
human nature. The pathos of the catastrophe is the most pathetic thing
in Browning. I do not even except the lovely record of Pompilia. The
torture of the human heart, different but equal, of Tresham and Mildred
in the last scene, is exceedingly bitter in its cry--too cruel almost to
hear and know, were it not relieved by the beauty of their tenderness
and forgiveness in the hour of death. They die of their pain, but die
loving, and are glad to die. They have all of them--Mildred, Tresham,
and Mertoun--sinned as it were by error. Death unites them in
righteousness, loveliness and love. A fierce, swift storm sweeps out of
a clear heaven upon them, destroys them, and saves them. It is all over
in three days. They are fortunate; their love deserved that the ruin
should be brief, and the reparation be transferred, in a moment, to the
grave justice of eternity.

The first two acts bear no comparison with the third. The first scene,
with all the servants, only shows how Browning failed in bringing a
number of characters together, and in making them talk with ease and
connectedly. Then, in two acts, the plot unfolds itself. It is a marvel
of bad construction, grossly improbable, and offends that popular common
sense of what is justly due to the characters concerned and to human
nature itself, to which a dramatist is bound to appeal.

Mildred and Mertoun have loved and sinned. Mertoun visits her every
night. Gerard, an old gamekeeper, has watched him climbing to her
window, and he resolves to tell this fatal tale to Tresham, Mildred's
brother, whose strongest feeling is pride in the unblemished honour of
his house. Meantime Mertoun has asked Tresham for Mildred's hand in
marriage, and these lovers, receiving his consent, hope that their sin
will be purged. Then Gerard tells his story. Tresham summons Mildred.
She confesses the lover, and Tresham demands his name. To reveal the
name would have saved the situation, as we guess from Tresham's
character. His love would have had time to conquer his pride. But
Mildred will not tell the name, and when Tresham says: "Then what am I
to say to Mertoun?" she answers, "I will marry him." This, and no
wonder, seems the last and crowning dishonour to Tresham, and he curses,
as if she were a harlot, th