to which the speaker belongs.
We cannot hope (nor do we wish) to impersonate Mrs. Browning, but a
knowledge of Mrs. Browning and her relation to her poet lover, gained
through a study of her _Letters and Sonnets_, will lead us more quickly
to a comprehension of the speaker and situation in the _Tale_.

Obsessed by the spirit of the character and fully realizing the
situation, our next step is, _in imagination_, to set the stage. This is
an important point in presenting a monologue. The impersonator must have
a clear idea of his position on his imaginary stage relative to his
imaginary interlocutor. But he must remember that _imaginary_
stage-setting admits of only delicately suggestive use. This is true of
the handling of a monologue at every point. It must be suggestive. The
actor carries to completion the action which the monologuist suggests.
The art of interpreting a monologue depends upon the discrimination of
the impersonator in drawing his line between suggestion and
actualization in gesture. The business of the monologuist is to make an
appeal to the imagination of the audience so vivid that the imagination
of the audience can actualize the suggestion. And the illusion is
complete. What are the relative positions of the girl and her lover in
the _Tale_? There is nothing in the lines to make our choice arbitrary.
It is only important that we determine a relation and keep it
consistently throughout the reading. Here is a possible "setting." They
are in the poet's study; he is working at his desk; she is sitting in a
great chair before the fire, a book in her hand, which she does not
read; she is gazing into the flames. She begins dreamily, more to
herself than to him--"What a pretty tale you told me." At what point
does her tone lose its reflective quality and become more personal?
Where does she turn to him? How do we know that he leaves his chair and
comes over to sit on the arm of her chair? What calls him to her? What
two qualities of feeling run through her mood and determine the color of
her tone and the character of her movements. If your study of Mrs.
Browning has been intelligent, this interplay of the whimsical and
serious in her nature cannot have escaped you, and it will illumine now
your impersonation of this girl. It is the secret of the peculiar charm
of this creation. The story she tells is an old and well-known one. It
is the manner of the telling through which we come in touch with an
exquisite w