, I think, without
exaggeration, conceive her. She was a Sibyl delivering a message to the
world, sometimes through stammering lips, and once at least with blinded
eyes, yet always with the true fire and fervour of lofty and unshaken
faith, always with the great raptures of a spiritual nature, the high
ardours of an impassioned soul. As we read her best poems we feel that,
though Apollo's shrine be empty and the bronze tripod overthrown, and the
vale of Delphi desolate, still the Pythia is not dead. In our own age
she has sung for us, and this land gave her new birth. Indeed, Mrs.
Browning is the wisest of the Sibyls, wiser even than that mighty figure
whom Michael Angelo has painted on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at
Rome, poring over the scroll of mystery, and trying to decipher the
secrets of Fate; for she realized that, while knowledge is power,
suffering is part of knowledge.

To her influence, almost as much as to the higher education of women, I
would be inclined to attribute the really remarkable awakening of woman's
song that characterizes the latter half of our century in England. No
country has ever had so many poetesses at once. Indeed, when one
remembers that the Greeks had only nine muses, one is sometimes apt to
fancy that we have too many. And yet the work done by women in the
sphere of poetry is really of a very high standard of excellence. In
England we have always been prone to underrate the value of tradition in
literature. In our eagerness to find a new voice and a fresh mode of
music, we have forgotten how beautiful Echo may be. We look first for
individuality and personality, and these are, indeed, the chief
characteristics of the masterpieces of our literature, either in prose or
verse; but deliberate culture and a study of the best models, if united
to an artistic temperament and a nature susceptible of exquisite
impressions, may produce much that is admirable, much that is worthy of
praise. It would be quite impossible to give a complete catalogue of all
the women who since Mrs. Browning's day have tried lute and lyre. Mrs.
Pfeiffer, Mrs. Hamilton King, Mrs. Augusta Webster, Graham Tomson, Miss
Mary Robinson, Jean Ingelow, Miss May Kendall, Miss Nesbit, Miss May
Probyn, Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Meynell, Miss Chapman, and many others have done
really good work in poetry, either in the grave Dorian mode of thoughtful
and intellectual verse, or in the light and graceful forms of old French
s