the book on whose fly-leaf is written "In
memory of Angelino d'Ossoli." Mrs. Browning had a true regard for the
Marchesa, of whom she spoke as "a very interesting person, thoughtful,
spiritual, in her habitual mode of mind."

In his poetic creed, Browning deprecated nothing more entirely (to use a
mild term where a stronger would not be inappropriate) than that the poet
should reveal his personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic
character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that
Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" to his readers, and he warns them off
from the use of any fancied latch-key to his own inner citadel.

"Which of you did I enable
Once to slip inside my breast,
There to catalogue and label
What I like least, what love best?"

And in another poem the reader will recall how fervently he thanks God
that "even the meanest of His creatures"

"Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her!"

It was the knowledge of this intense and pervading conviction of her
husband's that kept Mrs. Browning so long from showing to him her
exquisitely tender and sacred self-revelation in the "Sonnets from the
Portuguese." Yet it was in that very "One Word More" where Browning thanks
God for the "two soul-sides," that he most simply reveals himself, and
also in "Prospice" and in this "Christmas Eve and Easter Day." This poem,
with its splendor of vision, was published in 1850, with an immediate sale
of two hundred copies, after which for the time the demand ceased. William
Sharp well designates it as a "remarkable Apologia for Christianity," for
it can be almost thought of in connection with Newman's "Apologia pro vita
sua," and as not remote from the train of speculative thought which
Matthew Arnold wrought into his "Literature and Dogma." It is very
impressive to see how the very content of Hegelian Dialectic is the
key-note of Browning's art. "The concrete and material content of a life
of perfected knowledge and volition means one thing, only, love," teaches
Hegelian philosophy. This, too, is the entire message of Browning's
poetry. Man must love God in the imperfect manifestation which is all he
can offer of God. He must relate the imperfect expression to the perfect
aspiration.

"All I aspired to be
And was not--comforts me."

In the unfaltering search for the Divine Ideal is the true reward.

"One great aim, like a guiding