of its kind stand re-reading, re-perusal over and over? That is one of
the most definite tests. In the pressure of life can we afford much time
to anything but the very best--nay, to the vast mass even of that which
closely impinges thereupon?

For myself, in the instance of "Fifine," I admit that if re-perusal be
controlled by pleasure I am content (always excepting a few scattered
noble passages) with the Prologue and Epilogue. A little volume of those
Summaries of Browning's--how stimulating a companion it would be in
those hours when the mind would fain breathe a more liberal air!

As for "Jocoseria,"[24] it seems to me the poorest of Browning's works,
and I cannot help thinking that ultimately the only gold grain
discoverable therein will be "Ixion," the beautiful penultimate poem
beginning--

"Never the time and the place
And the loved one altogether;"

and the thrush-like overture, closing--

"What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with nought they embower!
Come then! complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,
Grows love!"

[Footnote 24: In a letter to a friend, along with an early copy of this
book, Browning stated that "the title is taken from the work of Melander
(_Schwartzmann_), reviewed, by a curious coincidence, in the
_Blackwood_ of this month. I referred to it in a note to 'Paracelsus.'
The two Hebrew quotations (put in to give a grave look to what is mere fun
and invention) being translated amount to (1) 'A Collection of Many Lies':
and (2), an old saying, 'From Moses to Moses arose none like Moses'......"]

In 1881 the "Browning Society" was established. It is easy to ridicule
any institution of the kind--much easier than to be considerate of other
people's earnest convictions and aims, or to be helpful to their object.
There is always a ridiculous side to excessive enthusiasm, particularly
obvious to persons incapable of enthusiasm of any kind. With some
mistakes, and not a few more or less grotesque absurdities, the members
of the various English and American Browning Societies are yet to be
congratulated on the good work they have, collectively, accomplished.
Their publications are most interesting and suggestive: ultimately they
wil