Apparently the problem of heredity is too involved to stir him to
attempted solution. If to make a gentleman one must begin with his
grandfather, surely to make a poet one must begin with the race, and in
poems even of such bulk as the _Prelude_ one does not find a complete
analysis of the singer's forbears. In only one case do we delve far into
a poet's heredity. He who will, may perchance hear Sordello's story
told, even from his remote ancestry, but to the untutored reader the
only clear point regarding heredity is the fusion in Sordello of the
restless energy and acumen of his father, Taurello, with the refinement
and sensibility of his mother, Retrude. This is a promising combination,
but would it necessarily flower in genius? One doubts it. In _Aurora
Leigh_ one might speculate similarly about the spiritual aestheticism
of Aurora's Italian mother balanced by the intellectual repose of her
English father. Doubtless the Brownings were not working blindly in
giving their poets this heredity, yet in both characters we must assume,
if we are to be scientific, that there is a happy combination of
qualities derived from more remote ancestors.

The immemorial tradition which Swinburne followed in giving his mythical
poet the sun as father and the sea as mother is more illuminating,
[Footnote: See _Thalassius_.] since it typifies the union in the
poet's nature of the earthly and the heavenly. Whenever heredity is
lightly touched upon in poetry it is generally indicated that in the
poet's nature there are combined, for the first time, these two powerful
strains which, in mysterious fusion, constitute the poetic nature. In
the marriage of his father and mother, delight in the senses, absorption
in the turbulence of human passions, is likely to meet complete
otherworldliness and unusual spiritual sensitiveness.