his Lady. We do not know whether the other two loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he loves himself more than he loves any one else. But the man who would go through hell to win a woman really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfishness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain course of action by thoughts of its possible results to his reputation. Ibsen has given us the standard example of what the first and second lover in this poem might sink to in a real moral crisis. In A Doll's House, the husband curses his wife because she has committed forgery, and his good name will suffer. She replied that she committed the crime to save his life her motive was Love: and she had hoped that when the truth came out the miracle would happen: her husband would step forward and take the blame all on himself. "What fools you women are," said he, angrily: "you know nothing of business. I would work my fingers to the bone for you: I would give up my life for you: but you can't expect a man to sacrifice his honor for a woman.” one of the greatest in literature. women have done it." ee

Her retort is

"Millions of

WHICH?

1889

So, the three Court-ladies began
Their trial of who judged best

In esteeming the love of a man:

Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager;

An Abbé crossed legs to decide on the wager.

First the Duchesse: "Mine for me

Who were it but God's for Him,

And the King's for-who but he?

Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim

His cup with perfection: a lady's true lover,

He holds-save his God and his king-none above her."

"I require"-outspoke the Marquise

"Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds:

Play the paladin must he, to please

My whim, and—to prove my knight's service exceeds Your saint's and your loyalist's praying and kneelingShow wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing."

Then the Comtesse: "My choice be a wretch,

Mere losel in body and soul,

Thrice accurst! What care I, so he stretch

Arms to me his sole saviour, love's ultimate goal, Out of earth and men's noise-names of 'infidel,' 'traitor,' Cast up at him? Crown me, crown's adjudicator !"

And the Abbé uncrossed his legs,

Took snuff, a reflective pinch,
Broke silence: "The question begs

Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch?
The love which to one and one only has reference
Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference."

VII

BROWNING'S OPTIMISM

MONG all modern thinkers and writers,

A Browning is the foremost optimist. He has AM

left not the slightest doubt on this point; his belief is stated over and over again, running like a vein of gold through all his poems from Pauline to Asolando. The shattered man in Pauline cries at the very last,

I believe in God and Truth and Love.

This staunch affirmation, "I believe!" is the common chord in Browning's music. His optimism is in striking contrast to the attitude of his contemporaries, for the general tone of nineteenth century literature is pessimistic. Amidst the wails and lamentations of the poets, the clear, triumphant voice of Browning is refreshing even to those who are not convinced.

Browning suffered for his optimism. It is generally thought that the optimist must be shallow and superficial; whilst pessimism is associated with pro

found and sincere thinking. Browning felt this criticism, and replied to it with a scriptural insult in his poem At the Mermaid. I can not possibly be a great poet, he said sneeringly, because I have never said I longed for death; I have enjoyed life and loved it, and have never assumed a peevish attitude. In another poem he declared that pessimists were liars, because they really loved life while pretending it was all suffering.

i

It is only fair to Browning to remember that his optimism has a philosophical basis, and is the logical result of a firmly-held view of the universe. Many unthinking persons declare that Browning, with his jaunty good spirits, gets on their nerves; he dodges or leaps over the real obstacles in life, and thinks he has solved difficulties when he has only forgotten them. They miss in Browning the note of sorrow, of internal struggle, of despair; and insist that he has never accurately portrayed the real bitterness of the heart's sufferings. These critics have never read attentively Browning's first poem.

The poem Pauline shows that Browning had his Sturm und Drang, in common with all thoughtful young men. Keats' immortal preface to Endymion would be equally applicable to this youthful work. "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the ma

ture imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages." The astonishing thing is, that Browning emerged from the slough of despond at just the time when most young men are entering it. He not only climbed out, but set his face resolutely toward the Celestial City.

The poem Pauline shows that young Browning passed through skepticism, atheism, pessimism, cynicism, and that particularly dark state when the mind reacts on itself; when enthusiasms, high hopes, and true faith seem childish; when wit and mockery take the place of zeal, this diabolical substitution seeming for the moment to be an intellectual advance. But although he suffered from all these diseases of the soul, he quickly became convalescent and Paracelsus proves that his cure was complete.

Browning's optimism is not based on any discount of the sufferings of life, nor any attempt to overlook such gross realities as sin and pain. No pessimist has realised these facts more keenly than he. The Pope, who is the poet's mouthpiece, calls the world