hese queer poetical ways,"--and then his
_not_ getting over them, but proposing to give his life to poetry! Make
a career of it!

[Illustration: MURDER!--All's right with the world.--Pippa passes.]

If there are any kind of men who want sons like themselves, it's our
bankers: they have their banks to hand on, and they long to have nice
banker babies. But it seems they are constantly begetting impossible
infants. Cardinal Newman for instance: his bewildered father too was a
banker. Fate takes a special pleasure in tripping these worthy men up.

Imagine Browning senior reading "Pippa Passes," with pursed lips, at his
desk. What mental pictures of his son's heroine did the old gentleman
form, as he followed her on her now famous walk through that
disreputable neighborhood?

I hope he enjoyed more "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent." For
example, where the man says, while galloping fast down the road:

"I turned in my saddle and made the girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit--"

[Illustration: He made the girths tight]

The banker must have been pleased that Robert could harness a horse in
rhyme anyhow. I dare say he knew as we all do that it was poor enough
poetry, but at least it was practical. It was something he could tell
his friends at the club.

* * * * *

Putting Browning aside with poor Stroom, I next tried Matthew Arnold.

The Arnolds: a great family, afflicted with an unfortunate strain.
Unusually good qualities,--but they feel conscientious about them.

If Matthew Arnold had only been born into some other family! If he had
only been the son of C. S. Calverley or Charles II, for instance.

He had a fine mind, and he and it matured early. Both were Arnold
characteristics. But so was his conscientiously setting himself to
enrich his fine mind "by the persistent study of 'the best that is known
and thought in the world.'" This was deadening. Gentlemen who teach
themselves just how and what to appreciate, take half the vitality out
of their appreciation thereafter. They go out and collect all "the best"
and bring it carefully home, and faithfully pour it down their
throats--and get drunk on it? No! It loses its lift and intoxication,
taken like that.

An aspiring concern with good art is supposed to be meritorious. People
"ought" to go to museums and concerts, and they "ou