f them, and the
outlines of his plan. We are not permitted any of the interest of
suspense. Browning shows us clearly from the first the whole bearing and
consequence of events, as well as the right and wrong of them. He has
written few finer passages than the swift and fiery narrative of the
story, lived through in vision on the night of his purchase of the
original documents. But complete and elaborate as this is, it is merely
introductory, a prologue before the curtain rises on the drama. First we
have three representative specimens of public opinion: _Half-Rome_, _The
Other Half-Rome_, and _Tertium Quid_; each speaker presenting the
complete case from his own point of view. "Half-Rome" takes the side of
Guido. We are allowed to see that the speaker is a jealous husband, and
that his judgment is biased by an instinctive sympathy with the
presumably jealous husband, Guido. "The Other Half-Rome" takes the side
of the wife, "Little Pompilia with the patient eyes," now lying in the
hospital, mortally wounded, and waiting for death. This speaker is a
bachelor, probably a young man, and his judgment is swayed by the beauty
and the piteousness of the dying girl. The speech of "Half-Rome," being
as it is an attempt to make light of the murder, and the utterance of a
somewhat ridiculous personage, is exceedingly humorous and colloquial;
that of the "Other Half-Rome" is serious, earnest, sometimes eloquent.
No contrast could be more complete than that presented by these two
"sample-speeches." The objects remain the same, but we see them through
different ends of the telescope. Either account taken by itself is so
plausible as to seem almost morally conclusive. But in both instances we
have down-right apology and condemnation, partiality bred of prejudice.
_Tertium Quid_ presents us with a reasoned and judicial judgment,
impartiality bred of contempt or indifference; this being--

"What the superior social section thinks,
In person of some man of quality
Who,--breathing musk from lace-work and brocade,
His solitaire amid the flow of frill,
Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back,
And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist--
Harangues in silvery and selectest phrase,
'Neath waxlight in a glorified saloon
Where mirrors multiply the girandole:
Courting the approbation of no mob,
But Eminence This and All-Illustrious That,
Who take snuff softly, range in wel