of the longer poems, elderly and corpulent devotees listen only with
the spiritual ear, the physical sense being obscured by an abstraction
not to be distinguished by an ordinary observer from slumber. The
reader, however, is bound to assume that all are listening, and if some
sleep and others consider their worldly concerns or speculate upon the
affairs of their neighbors, it interrupts not at all the steady flow of
the reading.

Once this is finished, there is an end also of inattention, for the
discussion begins. The central and vital principle of all these clubs
is that a poem by Robert Browning is a sort of prize enigma, of which
the solution is to be reached rather by wild and daring guessing than
by any commonplace process of reasoning. Although to an ordinary and
uninspired intellect it may appear perfectly obvious that a lyric means
simply and clearly what it says, the true Browningite is better
informed. He is deeply aware that if the poet seems to say one thing,
this is proof indisputable that another is intended. To take a work in
straightforward fashion would at once rob the Browning Club of all
excuse for existence, and while parlor chairs are easy, the air warm
and perfumed, and it is the fashion for idle minds to concern
themselves with that rococo humbug Philistines call culture, societies
of this sort must continue.

Once it is agreed that a poem means something not apparent, it is easy
to make it mean anything and everything, especially if the discussion,
as is usually the case, be interspersed with discursions of which the
chief use is to give some clever person or other a chance to say smart
things. When all else fails, moreover, the club can always fall back
upon allegory. Commentators on the poets have always found much field
for ingenious quibbling and sounding speculation in the line of