goes out 'mid hooting and laughter. Only two men follow her: one,
because he loves her; the other, for purely professional reasons.
To-day, he would of course be a society reporter. "I beg your pardon,
Madam, but would you kindly grant me an interview? I represent the
_New York Flash_, and we shall be glad to present your side of this
story in our next Sunday issue." With equal professional zeal, Peter
Ronsard is keenly interested in discovering the motives that
underlay the lady's action. He simply must know, and in defense of
his importunity, he presents his credentials. He is a poet, and
therefore the strange scene that has just been enacted comes within
his special domain.

I followed after,
And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?
If she wished not the rash deed's recallment?
"For I"--so I spoke--"am a poet:
Human nature,--behoves that I know it!"

In _Transcendentalism_, a poem which is commonly misunderstood,
Browning informs us that the true poet must deal, not with abstract
thought, but with concrete things. A young poet informs an elder
colleague that he has just launched a huge philosophical poem,
called _Transcendentalism: a Poem in Twelve Books_. His wiser critic
tells him that he is on the wrong track altogether; what he has
written is prose, not poetry. Poetry is not a discussion of abstract
ideas, but the creation of individual things. Transcendentalism is
not a fit subject for poetry, because it deals with metaphysical
thought, instead of discussing men and women. To illustrate his point,
he makes a comparison between botany and roses. Which is the more
interesting, to read a heavy treatise on botany, or to behold roses?