To return from this digression, the several monologues
of which the poem consists, with the exception of those
of the Canon Caponsacchi, Pompilia, and the Pope, are each curious
and subtle and varied exponents of the workings, without the guidance
of instinct at the heart, of the prepossessed, prejudiced intellect,
and of the sources of its swerving into error. What is said
of the "feel after the vanished truth" in the monologue entitled
`Half Rome' -- the speaker being a jealous husband -- will serve
to characterize, in a general way, "the feel after truth"
exhibited in the other monologues: "honest enough, as the way is:
all the same, harboring in the CENTRE OF ITS SENSE a hidden germ
of failure, shy but sure, should neutralize that honesty and leave
that feel for truth at fault, as the way is too. Some prepossession,
such as starts amiss, by but a hair's-breadth at the shoulder-blade,
the arm o' the feeler, dip he ne'er so brave; and so leads waveringly,
lets fall wide o' the mark his finger meant to find, and fix truth
at the bottom, that deceptive speck."

The poet could hardly have employed a more effective metaphor
in which to embody the idea of mental swerving. The several monologues
all going over the same ground, are artistically justified
in their exhibiting, each of them, a quite distinct form
of this swerving. For the ultimate purpose of the poet,
it needed to be strongly emphasized. The student of the poem
is amazed, long before he gets over all these monologues,
at the Protean capabilities of the poet's own intellect.
It takes all conceivable attitudes toward the case, and each seems
to be a perfectly easy one.