CHAPTER II.

ENLARGING HORIZONS. _SORDELLO_.

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust,
Die eine will sich von der andern trennen;
Die eine hält in derber Liebeslust
Sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organen;
Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich vom Dust
Zu den Gefilden hoher Ahnen.

--_Faust_.


_Paracelsus_, though only a series of quasi-dramatic scenes, suggested
considerable undeveloped capacity for drama. From a career in which the
most sensational event was a dismissal from a professorship, and the
absorbing passion the thirst for knowledge, he had elicited a tragedy of
the scientific intellect. But it was equally obvious that the writer's
talent was not purely dramatic; and that his most splendid and original
endowments required some other medium than drama for their full
unfolding. The author of _Paracelsus_ was primarily concerned with
character, and with action as the mirror of character; agreeing in both
points substantially with the author of _Hamlet_. But while Browning's
energetic temperament habitually impelled him to represent character in
action, his imaginative strength did not lie in the region of action at
all, but in the region of thought; the kinds of expression of which he
had boundless command were rather those which analyse character than