ent
masterpiece, "The Ring and the Book."

The elder Browning's impassioned love of books was instanced by the
curious fact that he could go in the dark to his library, and out of many
hundreds of volumes select some particular one to which conversational
reference had incidentally been made regarding some point which he wished
to verify. He haunted all the old book-stalls in London, and knew their
contents better than did their owners.

Books are so intimately associated with the very springs of both character
and achievement that no adequate idea of the formative influences of the
life and poetry of Robert Browning could be gained without familiarity
with this most determining and conspicuous influence of his boyhood. The
book with which a man has lived becomes an essential factor in his growth.
"None of us yet know," said Ruskin, "for none of us have yet been taught
in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought,
proof against all adversity, bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble
histories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful
thoughts,... houses built without hands for our souls to live in." These
houses for the soul, built in thought, will be transposed into outer form
and semblance.

There is a nebulous but none the less pernicious tradition that great
literature is formidable, and presents itself as a task rather than as a
privilege to the reader. Devotion to the best books has been regarded as
something of a test of mental endurance, for which the recompense, if not
the antidote, must be sought in periods of indulgence in the frivolous and
the sensational. Never was there a more fatal misconception. It is the
inconsequential, the crude, the obtuse, that are dull in literature, as in
life; and stupidity in various languages might well be entitled to rank
among the Seven Deadly Sins of Dante. Even in the greatest literature
there is much that the child may easily learn to appreciate and to love.

"Great the Master
And sweet the Magic"

that opens the golden door of literary stimulus. Books are to the mind as
is food to the body. Emerson declares that the poet is the only teller of
news, and Mrs. Browning pronounced poets as

"The only truth-tellers now left to God."

Familiarity with noble thought and beautiful expression influences the
subconscious nature to an incalculable degree, and leads "the spirit
finely touched" on "to all fine issues."

Brownin