Browning's Heroines

r more significantly) because the dramatic aspect of the work here loses nearly all of its peculiar beauty. The story, till now so slight yet so consumm

nd the end-where Pippa is alone in her room; second, the Morning and Noon episodes, where the dramas are absolutely unconnected with the passing girl; third, these Evening and Night scenes, where, on the contrary, all is forced into

arliest in declaring this, I think that few of us can have read the poem without being vaguely and discomfortably aware of it. From the moment of the direct introduction of Bluphocks[68:1] (whose very name, with its dull and pointless punning, is an offenc

t evening. Some of the Austrian police are loitering near, and with them is an Englishman, "lusty, blue-eyed, florid-complexioned"-one Bluphocks, who is on the watch in a double capacity. He is

long, long before it fell to ruin makes her cho

lived

rning of

s nigher heav

in his sleepy mood, "so safe from all d

lived thus lon

king shoul

; for Luigi is a Carbonarist, and has been chosen for this "lesser task" by his leaders. His mother is urging him not to go. First she had tried the direct appeal, but this had failed; then argument, but th

ad one loves hi

koo, and forgets all his array of facts; for April and June are coming! The mother seizes at once on this, and joins to it a still more powerful persuasion.

e one long and

"the Titian at Treviso." . . . His mother has almost won, when a "low noise" outside, which Luigi has first mistaken fo

tells what kings were in the mo

sort of king s

begins

rocks his

palace, i

see his pe

e them e

manner of his judging,

still judge, sit

song g

lors, to lef

ous up-but

e king's old

y blue had tu

"scared the breathless city," but coming, "with forked tongue and eyes on flame,"

at threshold

ld king smili

kings when th

ave they, now tha

s the king, and brave men lurk in corners "lest

calls: how could

the turret, reso

d at once. He still may lose his life, for he will try to kill the Emperor; but he will then have been true to his

Monsignor of her final choice, "that holy and beloved priest," is to stay to-night. And now, for the first ti

reaches them: they are playing a "wishing game," originated by one who, watching the swallows fly towards Ven

the far

chards, and h

om on her a

eful to blot out all memories of one who has come to the town to lead the life she leads. She m

arling's neck,

g-hill of

erself again in memories: of her fig-t

t mine, I have

ghed before, laughs now again: "Would I be such a fool!"-and tells her wish. The country-goose wants milk and apples, and another girl could think of nothing better than to wish "the sunset would f

n his knee wi

nd red Bre

stained her

the wine to wri

t table: how

ition connected with these bright beetles-that if one was killed, the sun, "his friend up there," would not shine for two days. They said it in her country "when she was young"; and one of the others scoffs at the phrase, but

d find a way

colou

say they are s

men" are sick of her hair, and does she pretend that she has tasted lampreys and ortolans . .

e! Is not

o, under the win

f it were Pippa, she would be

first," reto

s and comes close .

the young Eng

for the pures

ave the world f

violently in love with." She shall hear all about it; and on the steps of the church Pippa is told by this creature, Zanze, how a foreigner, "with blue eyes and thick rings of raw silk-coloured hair," had gone to the mills at Asolo a month ago and fallen in love with Pippa. Pippa, however, will not keep him in love with her, unless

the tree

rass spring '

ht above me, a

had not lea

the majesty of the heavens . . . and just when all seemed on the verge of growing clear, and out of

God took

side Monsignor's house-a sound of calling, of quick heavy feet, of cries and the flinging down of a man, and then a noise as of dragging a bound

mortal ha

that ex

re not angels

look at him, she p

is dead brother," but also to take possession of that brother's estate. . . . He knows the steward to be a rascal; but he himself, the "holy and beloved priest," is a good deal of a rascal too; he has connived at his brother's death, and had connived at his mode of life. Now the steward is preparing to blackmail the Bishop, as he had blackmailed the Bishop's bro

way with her for Monsignor? Not "the stupid obvious sort of killing . . . of course there is to be no killing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every three years, and he can entice her thither, has begun operations already"-making use of a certain Bluphocks, an Englishman. Monsignor will not formally assent, of course . . . but wi

ending, and Monsignor leaped up and shouted to his guards. . . . The singing by which "little black-eyed pre

d decry, swinging loose from the central steadiness of her nature like many another of us, obsessed like her by some vile happening of the hours. Just as we might find our whole remembrance of a festival thus overlaid by malice and ugliness, she finds it; she can only think "how pert that girl was," and how glad she is not to be li

t be content. . . . Even her lily's asleep, but she will wake it up, and show it the friend she has plucked for it-the flower she gathered as she passed the house on the hill. . . . Alas! even the flower seems infected. She compares it, "this pampered thing," this double hearts-ease of the garden, with the wild

ar dark close

ed sun drop in t

ve had their hour; owls and bats and such-like things rule now . . . and listlessly she begins to undress herself. She is so alone; she has nothing but fancie

I should like

er might appr

ed being, th

ean, so as to

e way . . . move t

il to them so

tance,

rrow, my s

ttima's cloa

ma's cloak's hem. . . . But she cannot endure this dejection: back to her centre of gaiety, trust, and courage Pippa must

ranks the s

can help her

ense or other,

sleep-the lonely little girl who has saved four souls to-day, and does not know, will never know; but will be again, to-morrow perhaps, when that sad talk on the

TNO

tches the great plain of the rivers Brenta and Piave, where Treviso, Vicenza, and Padua may be clearly recognised. The Alps encircle it, and in the distance rise the Euganean Hills. Venice can

wholly in character, say all that the ugly ones have boomed at us so incr

Berdoe an

lk between the st

sland in the Lagoon, imm

to her castle at Asolo when forced to resign her kingdom to the Venetians in 1489.

a skit on the Edinburgh Review, which is

tween Monsignor and th

on, "Browning might just as well have made Sebald her long-lost