beration, is not the
least noble of that line of chivalrous lovers which reaches from Gismond
to Caponsacchi. With great delicacy the steps are marked in this inward
and spiritual "flight" of Colombe. Valence's "way of love" is to make
her realise the glory and privileges of the rulership which places her
beyond his reach, at the very moment when she is about to resign it in
despair. She discovers the needs of the woman and the possibilities of
power at the same time, and thus is brought, by Valence's means, to a
mood in which Prince Berthold's offer of his hand and crown together
weighs formidably, for a moment, against Valence's offer of his love
alone, until she discovers that Berthold is the very personation, in
love and in statecraft alike, of the fictions from which she had
escaped. Then, swiftly recovering herself, she sets foot finally on the
firm ground where she had first sought her "true resource."

[Footnote 20: This fine speech of Valence to the greater glory of his
rival (Act iv.) is almost too subtle for the stage. Browning with good
reason directed its omission unless "a very good Valence" could be
found.]

Berthold, like Blougram, Ogniben, and many another of Browning's mundane
personages, is a subtler piece of psychology than men of the type of
Valence, in whom his own idealism flows freely forth. He comes before us
with a weary nonchalance admirably contrasted with the fiery intensity
of Valence. He means to be emperor one day, and his whole life is a
process of which that is to be the product; but he finds the process
unaffectedly boring. Without relaxing a whit in the mechanical pursuit
of his end, he views life with much mental detachment, and shows a cool
and not unsympathetic observation of men who pursue other ideals, as
well as an abundance of critical irony towards those who apparently
share his own. An adept in courtly arts, and owing all his successes to
courtly favour, he meets the assiduities of other courtiers with open
contempt. His ends are those of Laertes or Fortinbras, and he is quite
capable of the methods of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; but he regards
ends and methods alike with the sated distaste of Hamlet. By birth and
principle a man of action, he has, even more than most of Browning's men
of action, the curious introspectiveness of the philosophic onlooker. He
"watches his mind," and if he does not escape illusions, recognises and
exposes them with ironical candour. Few of Br