Browning's poetry, and lead up to the dominant idea of Christianity, the idea of a Divine Personality; the idea that the soul, to use an expression from his earliest poem, 'Pauline,' must "rest beneath some better essence than itself in weakness." The notes to the poems will be found, I trust, to cover all points and features of the text which require explanation and elucidation. I have not, at any rate, wittingly passed by any real difficulties. Whether my explanations and interpretations will in all cases be acceptable, remains to be seen. CASCADILLA COTTAGE, ITHACA, N.Y. September, 1886. HIRAM CORSON. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In this edition, several errors of the first have been corrected. For the notes on 66 'fifty-part canon," p. 156, and "a certain precious little tablet," p. 232, I am indebted to Mr. Browning. H. C. NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION. In this edition have been added, 'A Death in the Desert,' with argument, notes, and commentary, a fac-simile of a letter from the poet, and a portrait copied from a photograph (the last taken of him) which he gave me when visiting him in Venice, a month before his death. It may be of interest, and of some value, to many students of Browning's poetry, to know a reply he made, in regard to the expression in My Last Duchess,' "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." We were walking up and down the great hall of the Palazzo Rezzonico, when, in the course of what I was telling him about the study of his works in the United States, I alluded to the divided opinion as to the meaning of the above expression in 'My Last Duchess,' some understanding that the commands were to put the Duchess to death, and others, as I have explained the expression on p. 87 of this volume (last paragraph). He made no reply, for a moment, and then said, meditatively, "Yes, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death." And then, after a pause, he added, with a characteristic dash of expression, and as if the thought had just started in his mind, "Or he might have had her shut up in a convent." This was to me very significant. When he wrote the expression, "I gave commands," etc., he may not have thought definitely what the commands were, more than that they put a stop to the smiles of the sweet Duchess, which provoked the contemptible jealousy of the Duke. This was all his art purpose required, and his mind did not go beyond it. I thought how many vain discussions `take place in Browning Clubs, about little points which are outside of the range of the artistic motive of a composition, and how many minds are occupied with anything and everything under the sun, except the one thing needful (the artistic or spiritual motive), the result being " as if one should be ignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets, except the scent itself." |