seek a different "excuse" for her from that
which he makes--though indeed there scarce is one at which he does not
catch.

"And I to have tempted you"--

. . . that is, tempted her to snap her gold ring and break her promise:

"I to have tempted you! I, who tired
Your soul, no doubt, till it sank! Unwise,
I loved and was lowly, loved and aspired,
Loved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad,
And you meant to have hated and despised--
Whereas, you deceived me nor inquired!"

This is the too-much of magnanimity. Browning tends to exaggerate the
beauty of that virtue, as already we have seen in Pompilia; and
assuredly this husband has, like her, the defect of his quality. Tender,
generous, high-hearted he is, but without the "sinew of the soul," as
some old writer called _anger_. All these wonderful and subtle reasons
for the tragic issue, all this apprehensive forecasting of the blow that
awaits the woman "at the end of life," and the magnanimity which even
then she shall find dreadfully awaiting her . . . all this is noble
enough to read of, but imagine its atmosphere in daily life! The truth
is that such natures are but wasted if they do not suffer--almost they
might be called responsible for others' misdoings. We read the ringing
stanzas of _The Worst of It_, and feel that no one should be doomed to
suffer such forgiveness. What chance had _her_ soul? At every turn it
found itself forestalled, and shall so find itself, he tells her, to all
eternity.

"I knew you once; but in Paradise,
If we meet, I will pass nor turn my face."

No: this with me is not a favourite poem. The wife, beautiful and
passionate, was never given a chance, in this world, to be "placed" at
all in virtue; and she felt, no doubt, with a woman's intuition, that
even in the last of all encounters she should still be baffled. Already
that faultless husband is planning to be crushingly right on the Day of
Judgment. And he _is_ so crushingly right! He is not a prig, he is not a
Pharisee; he is only perfectly magnanimous--perfectly right. . . . And
sometimes, she must have thought vaguely, with a pucker on the glorious
brow,--sometimes, to love lovably, we must yield a little of our virtue,
we must be willing to be perfectly wrong.

+ + + + +

But his suffering is genuine. She has twisted all his world out of
shape. He believes no more in truth or beauty or l