The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed,
The Muse for ever wedded to her lyre,
Nymph to her fawn, and Silence to her rose:
See God's approval on his universe!
Let us do so--aspire to live as these
In harmony with truth, ourselves being true!"

But it is the two women who attract Browning's most powerful handling.
One of them, the Queen, has hardly her like for pity and dread. A
"lavish soul" long starved, but kindling into the ecstasy of girlhood at
the seeming touch of love; then, as her dream is shattered by the
indignant honesty of Norbert, transmuted at once into the daemonic
Gudrun or Brynhild, glaring in speechless white-heat and implacable
frenzy upon the man who has scorned her proffered heart and the hapless
girl he has chosen.[38] Between these powerful, rigid, and simple
natures stands Constance, ardent as they, but with the lithe and
palpitating ardour of a flame. She is concentrated Romance. Her love is
an intense emotion; but some of its fascination lies in its secrecy,--

"Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs,
Long-planned chance meetings, hazards of a look";

she shrinks from a confession which "at the best" will deprive their
love of its spice of danger and make them even as their "five hundred
openly happy friends." She loves adventure, ruse, and stratagem for
their own sake. But she is also romantically generous, and because she
"owes this withered woman everything," is eager to sacrifice her own
hopes of happiness.

[Footnote 38: An anecdote to which Prof. Dowden has lately called