pictures; compose music; speak four languages; write sublime verse;
address a public assemblage effectively; produce plays; resurrect the lost
art of making books, books such as were made only in the olden time as a
loving, religious service; who lived a clean, wholesome, manly
life--beloved by those who knew him best--shall we not call him Master?




ROBERT BROWNING

So, take and use Thy work,
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim:
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same.
--_Rabbi Ben Ezra_

[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING]


If there ever lived a poet to whom the best minds pour out libations, it
is Robert Browning. We think of him as dwelling on high Olympus; we read
his lines by the light of dim candles; we quote him in sonorous monotone
at twilight when soft-sounding organ-chants come to us mellow and sweet.
Browning's poems form a lover's litany to that elect few who hold that the
true mating of a man and a woman is the marriage of the mind. And thrice
blest was Browning, in that Fate allowed him to live his philosophy--to
work his poetry up into life, and then again to transmute life and love