in disorder about his head, his
cheeks were flushed, his hands were trembling, the nerves in his face
were twitching. Then he arose, and solemnly cursed Robert Browning. And
then he took all his volumes, and, disposing them carefully in the
fireplace, set light to them. 'I wish,' he said, 'that I could put the
poet there too.'" One other anecdote of the kind was often, with evident
humorous appreciation, recounted by the poet. On his introduction to the
Chinese Ambassador, as a "brother-poet," he asked that dignitary what
kind of poetic expression he particularly affected. The great man
deliberated, and then replied that his poetry might be defined as
"enigmatic." Browning at once admitted his fraternal kinship.

That he was himself aware of the shortcomings of "Sordello" as a work of
art is not disputable. In 1863, Mrs. Orr says, he considered the
advisability of "rewriting it in a more transparent manner, but
concluded that the labour would be disproportionate to the result, and
contented himself with summarising the contents of each 'book' in a
continuous heading, which represents the main thread of the story."

The essential manliness of Browning is evident in the famous dedication
to the French critic Milsand, who was among his early admirers. "My own
faults of expression were many; but with care for a man or book such
would be surmounted, and without it what avails the faultlessness of
either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and
since."

Whatever be the fate of "Sordello," one thing pertinent to it shall
survive: the memorable sentence in the dedicatory preface--"My stress
lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth
study."

The poem has disastrous faults, but is a magnificent failure. "Vast as
night," to borrow a simile from Victor Hugo, but, like night,
innumerously starred.

CHAPTER VI.

"Pippa Passes," "The Ring and the Book," "The Inn Album," these are
Browning's three great dramatic poems, as distinct from his poetic
plays. All are dramas in the exact sense, though the three I have named
are dramas for mental and not for positive presentation. Each reader
must embody for himself the images projected on his brain by the
electric quality of the poet's genius: within the ken of his imagination
he may perceive scenes not less moving, incidents not less thrilling,
complexities of motive and action not less intricately involved, than
upon the c