best examples of Browning’s peculiar method of presenting the truth.  The half-scoffing, half-earnest, and wholly bewildered state of this Oriental scientist’s mind is clearly indicated between the lines of his letter to his old master.  His description of Lazarus, whom he meets by chance, and of the state of mind of one who, having seen the glories of immortality, must live again in the midst of the jumble of trivial and stupendous things which constitute our life, forms one of the most original and suggestive poems in our literature.  “My Last Duchess” is a short but very keen analysis of the soul of a selfish man, who reveals his character unconsciously by his words of praise concerning his dead wife’s picture.  In “The Bishop Orders his Tomb” we have another extraordinarily interesting revelation of the mind of a vain and worldly man, this time a churchman, whose words tell you far more than he dreams about his own character.  “Abt Vogler,” undoubtedly one of Browning’s finest poems, is the study of a musician’s soul.  “Muleykeh” gives us the soul of an Arab, vain and proud of his fast horse, which was never beaten in a race.  A rival steals the horse and rides away upon her back; but, used as she is to her master’s touch, she will not show her best pace to the stranger.  Muleykeh rides up furiously; but instead of striking the thief from his saddle, he boasts about his peerless mare, saying that if a certain spot on her neck were touched with the rein, she could never be overtaken.  Instantly the robber touches the spot, and the mare answers with a burst of speed that makes pursuit hopeless.  Muleykeh has lost his mare; but he has kept his pride in the unbeaten one, and is satisfied.  “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” which refuses analysis, and which must be read entire to be appreciated, is perhaps the most quoted of all Browning’s works, and contains the best expression of his own faith in life, both here and hereafter.  All these wonderful poems are, again, merely a suggestion.  They indicate simply the works to which one reader turns when he feels mentally vigorous enough to pick up Browning.  Another list of soul studies, citing “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” “A Grammarian’s Funeral,” “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Saul,” “Cleon,” “A Death in the Desert,” and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” might, in another’s judgment, be more interesting and suggestive.

[Pippa Passes] Among Browning’s longer poems there are two, at least, that well deserve our study. Pippa Passes, aside from its rare poetical qualities, is a study of unconscious influence.  The idea of the poem was suggested to Browning while listening to a gypsy girl singing in the woods near his home; but he transfers the scene of the action to the little mountain town of Asolo, in Italy.  Pippa is a little silk weaver, who goes out in the morning to enjoy her one holiday of the whole year.  As she thinks of her own happiness she is vaguely wishing that she might share it, and do some good.  Then, with her childish imagination, she begins to weave a little romance in which she shares in the happiness of the four greatest and happiest people in Asolo.  It never occurs to her that perhaps there is more of misery than of happiness in the four great ones of whom she dreams; and so she goes on her way singing,