of their mental greatness, but also of their imperfect art, their
heterogeneous matter; at last the good is sifted from that whence
worth has departed.--From GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY'S _Studies in
Letters and Life_.

When it is urged that for a poet the intellectual energies are too
strong in Browning, that for poetry the play of intellectual interests
and activities is too great in his work, and that Browning often and
at times ruthlessly sacrifices the requirements and effects of art
for the expression of thought, that "though he refreshes the heart he
tires the brain," we should admit this with regard to a good deal of
the work of the third period. We should allow that this is the side
to which he leans generally, but still hold that, though to many his
intellectual quality and energy may well seem excessive, yet in great
part of his work, and that of course, his best, the passion of the
poet and his kind of imagination are just as fresh and powerful as
the intellectual force and subtlety are keen and abundant.--JAMES
FROTHINGHAM, _Studies of the Mind and Art of Robert Browning_.

Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak,
And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier,
Our words are sobs, our cry or praise a tear:
We are the smitten mortal, we the weak.
We see a spirit on earth's loftiest peak
Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear:
See a great Tree of Life that never sere
Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak;
Such ending is not death: such living shows
What wide illumination brightness sheds
From one big heart,--to conquer man's old foes: