l was that of some thirteenth-century
Italian painter. Does he not say of himself:

'Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it--"Italy."'

Now it is a prejudice with me, that if an Englishman is to open his
heart to us, we ought to find _England_ written there. Shakespeare,
who is at home with all people, is never so mighty and so lovable as
when depicting the sweet-natured English ladies who became his
'Imogenes,' 'Perditas,' and 'Helenas,' or dallying with his own
country wild-flowers, or in any way exalting England's life and
loveliness, majesty and power."

"And pray, sir," asked the Professor, "who but a man with an English
heart could have written that home-yearning song:

'Oh to be in England
Now that April's there;
And whoever wakes in England,
Sees, some morning unaware,
That the lowest boughs, and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole, are in tiny leaf;
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough,
In England--now!'"

"There is somewhere a still finer home-thought," said Harry. "I
remember learning it when I was at college;" and as Adriana looked
backward and smiled, and the Professor nodded approval, and Miss Alida
said, "Let us have the lines, Harry," he repeated them without much
self-consciousness, and with a great deal of spirit:

"'Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the westward died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and
grey;
"Here and there did England help me,--how can I help England?"--say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.'"

There was a hearty response to Harry's effort, and then Miss Alida's
favorite minister--who had been silent during the whole discussion,
much to her disappointment--spoke.

"A poet's nature," he said, "needs that high reverence which is to the
spirit what iron is to the blood; it needs, most of all, the
revelation of Christianity, because of its peculiar temptations,
doubts, fears, yearnings, and obstinate questionings. Mr. Browning has
this reverence, and accepts this revelation. He is not half-ashamed,
as are some poets, to mention God and Christ; and he never takes the
name of either in vain. He does not set up a kind of pantheistic
worship. No one has ever told us, as