ok--learn
The truth whatever it be? Pad, pad! At last, I turn--
'Tis the regular pad of the wolves in pursuit of the life in
the sledge!
An army they are: close-packed they press like the thrust of a wedge:
They increase as they hunt: for I see, through the pine-trunks
ranged each side,
Slip forth new fiend and fiend, make wider and still more wide
The four-footed steady advance. The foremost--none may pass:
They are elders and lead the line, eye and eye--green-glowing brass!
But a long way distant still. Droug, save us! He does his best:
Yet they gain on us, gain, till they reach,--one reaches....
How utter the rest?"

The setting of the story, the vast motionless Russian landscape, the
village life, the men and women, has a singular expressiveness; and the
revelation of the woman's character, the exposure of her culpable
weakness, seen in the very excuses by which she endeavours to justify
herself, is brought about with singularly masterly art. There are
moments of essential drama, not least significantly in the last lines,
above all in those two pregnant words: "_How otherwise_? asked he."

_Ned Bratts_ takes almost the same position among Browning's humorous
poems that _Ivan Ivanovitch_ does among his narratives. It is a whole
comedy in itself. Surroundings and atmosphere are called up with perfect
art and the subtlest sympathy. What opening could be a better
preparation for the heated and grotesque utterances of Ned Bratts than
the wonderful description of the hot day? It serves to put us into
precisely the right mood for seeing and feeling the comic tragedy that
follows. Dickens himself never painted a more riotously realistic scene,
nor delineated a better ruffian than the murderous rascal precariously
converted by Bunyan and his book.

In the midst of these realistic tragedies and comedies, _Pheidippides_,
with its clear Greek outline and charm and heroical grace, stands finely
contrasted. The measure is of Browning's invention, and is finely
appropriate to the character of the poem.

"So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute
Is still 'Rejoice!'--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.
So is Pheidippides happy for ever,--the noble strong man
Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God
loved so well
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell