And this because, in the words of the poet himself when speaking of Shelley, I prefer to look for the highest attainment, not simply the high—­and, seeing it, to hold by it.  Yet I am not oblivious of the mass of Browning’s lofty achievement, “to be known enduringly among men,”—­an achievement, even on its secondary level, so high, that around its imperfect proportions, “the most elaborated productions of ordinary art must arrange themselves as inferior illustrations.”

How am I to convey concisely that which it would take a volume to do adequately—­an idea of the richest efflorescence of Browning’s genius in these unfading blooms which we will agree to include in “Men and Women”?  How better—­certainly it would be impossible to be more succinct—­than by the enumeration of the contents of an imagined volume, to be called, say “Transcripts from Life”?

It would be to some extent, but not rigidly, arranged chronologically.  It would begin with that masterpiece of poetic concision, where a whole tragedy is burned in upon the brain in fifty-six lines, “My Last Duchess.”  Then would follow “In a Gondola,” that haunting lyrical drama in petto, where the lover is stabbed to death as his heart is beating against that of his mistress; “Cristina,” with its keen introspection; those delightfully stirring pieces, the “Cavalier-Tunes,” “Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr,” and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”; “The Flower’s Name”; “The Flight of the Duchess”; “The Tomb at St. Praxed’s,” the poem which educed Ruskin’s enthusiastic praise for its marvellous apprehension of the spirit of the Middle Ages; “Pictor Ignotus,” and “The Lost Leader.”  But as there is not space for individual detail, and as many of the more important are spoken of elsewhere in this volume, I must take the reader’s acquaintance with the poems for granted.  So, following those first mentioned, there would come “Home Thoughts from Abroad”; “Home Thoughts from the Sea”; “The Confessional”; “The Heretic’s Tragedy”; “Earth’s Immortalities”; “Meeting at Night:  Parting at Morning”; “Saul”; “Karshish”; “A Death in the Desert”; “Rabbi Ben Ezra”; “A Grammarian’s Funeral”; “Love Among the Ruins”; Song, “Nay but you”; “A Lover’s Quarrel”; “Evelyn Hope”; “A Woman’s Last Word”; “Fra Lippo Lippi”; “By the Fireside”; “Any Wife to Any Husband”; “A Serenade at the Villa”; “My Star”; “A Pretty Woman”; “A Light Woman”; “Love in a Life”; “Life in a Love”; “The Last Ride Together”; “A Toccata of Galuppi’s”; “Master Hugues of Saxe Gotha”; “Abt Vogler”; “Memorabilia”; “Andrea Del Sarto”; “Before”; “After”; “In Three Days”; “In a Year”; “Old Pictures in Florence”; “De Gustibus”; “Women and Roses”; “The Guardian Angel”; “Cleon”; “Two in the Campagna”; “One Way of Love”; “Another Way of Love”; “Misconceptions”; “May and Death”; “James Lee’s Wife”; “Dis Aliter Visum”; “Too Late”; “Confessions”; “Prospice”; “Youth and Art”; “A Face”; “A Likeness”; “Apparent Failure.”  Epilogue to Part I.—­“O Lyric Voice,”