ABSTRACT
What a magnificent series is Men and Women! Of course you have it half by heart ere this. The comparative stagnation, even among those I see, and complete torpor elsewhere, which greet this my Elixir of Life, are awful signs of the times to me-‘and I must hold my peace!’— for it isn’t fair to Browning (besides, indeed, being too much trouble) to bicker and flicker about it. I fancy we shall agree pretty well on favourites, though one’s mind has no right to be quite made up so soon on such a subject. For my own part, I don’t reckon I’ve read them at all yet, as I only got them the day before leaving town, and couldn’t possibly read them then,—the best proof to you how hard at work I was for once-so heard them read by William;1 since then read them on the journey again, and some a third time at intervals; but they’ll bear lots of squeezing yet. My prime favourites hitherto (without the book by me) are ‘Childe Roland’, ‘Bishop Blougram’, ‘Karshish’, ‘The Contemporary’, ‘Lippo Lippi’, ‘Cleon’, and ‘Popularity’; about the other lyrical ones I can’t quite speak yet, and their names don’t stick in my head; but I’m afraid ‘The Heretic’s Tragedy’ rather gave me the gripes at first, though I’ve tried since to think it didn’t on finding The Athenæum similarly affected. [No. 89!
