human
of Chiappino. Browning seems to have thrown off this bitter parody of his own idealisms in a mood like that in which Ibsen conceived the poor blundering idealist of the _Wild Duck_. Chiappino is Browning's Werle; the reverse side of a type which he had drawn with so much indulgence in the Luigi of _Pippa Passes_. Plainly, it was a passing mood; as plainly, a mood which, from the high and luminous vantage-ground of 1846, he could look back upon with regret, almost with scorn. His intercourse with Elizabeth Barrett was far advanced before she was at length reluctantly allowed to see it.
gpt
For _The Soul's_ _Tragedy_, he wrote (Feb. 11)--
human
This word his correspondent, needless to add, did not say; on the contrary, she found it even more impressive than its successor _Luria_. This was, however, no tribute to its stage qualities; for in hardly one of his plays is the stage more openly ignored. The dramatic form, though still preserved, sets strongly towards monologue; the entire second act foreshadows unmistakably the great portrait studies of _Men and Women_; it might be called _Ogniben_ with about as good right as they are called _Lippo Lippi_ or _Blougram_; the personality of the supple ecclesiastic floods and takes possession of the entire scene; we see the situation and the persons through the brilliant ironic mirror of his mind. The Chiappino of the second act is Ogniben's Chiappino, as Gigadibs is Blougram's Gigadibs. His
gpt
is one in which there is no room for terror or pity, only for contempt. All real stress of circumstance is excluded. Both sides fight with blunted weapons; the revolt is like one of those Florentine risings which the Brownings later witnessed with amusement from the windows of Casa Guidi, which were liable to postponement because of rain. The prefect who is
human
does not die, and the rebellious city is genially bantered into submission. The
gpt
of Chiappino is, in fact, not the stuff of which tragedy is made. Even in his instant acceptance of Luitolfo's bloodstained cloak when the pursuers are, as he thinks, at the door, he seems to have been casually switched off the proper lines of his character into a piece of heroism which properly belongs to the man he would like to be thought, but has not the strength to be. On the whole, Browning's scorn must be considered to have injured his art. Tragedy, in the deepest sense, lay beyond his sphere; and this
human
until a second edition of the _Bells_--an
gpt
which Moxon, he says, seems to think possible; and then inserting it before _Luria_: it will then be