The Project Gutenberg EBook of Browning's Heroines, by Ethel Colburn Mayne

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Title: Browning's Heroines

Author: Ethel Colburn Mayne

Illustrator: Maxwell Armfield

Release Date: April 28, 2007 [EBook #21247]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[FRONTISPIECE: Pippa]

BROWNING'S
HEROINES

BY ETHEL COLBURN MAYNE
WITH FRONTISPIECE & DECORATIONS
BY MAXWELL ARMFIELD

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1913

PREFACE

When this book was projected, some one asked, "What is there to say
about Browning's heroines beyond what he said himself?"--and the
question, though it could not stay me, did chill momentarily my primal
ardour. Soon, however, the restorative answer presented itself. "If
there were nothing to say about Browning's heroines beyond what he said
himself, it would be a bad mark against him." For to _suggest_--to open
magic casements--surely is the office of our artists in every sort:
thus, for them to say all that there is to say about anything is to show
the casement stuck fast, as it were, and themselves battering somewhat
desperately to open it. Saying the things "about" is the other people's
function. It is as if we suddenly saw a princess come out upon her
castle-walls, and hymned that fair emergence, which to herself is
nothing.

+ + + + +

Browning, I think, is "coming back," as stars come back. There has been
the period of obscuration. Seventeen years ago, when the _Yellow Book_
and the _National Observer_ were contending for _les jeunes_, Browning
was, in the more "precious" coterie, king of modern poets. I can
remember the editor of that golden Quarterly reading, declaiming,
quoting, almost breathing, Browning! It was from Henry Harland that this
reader learnt to read _The Ring and the Book_: "Leave out the lawyers
and the Tertium Quid, and all after Guido until the Envoi." It was Henry
Harland who would answer, if one asked him what he was thinking of:

"And thinking too--oh,