Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/281

255 THE HOMELINESS OF BROWNING 255 have a humming comm.unity of hastily banded and organized theories. His skill at this kind of swift buttressing was superb — and to fail to perceive that it is improvisation is not only to overestimate their solidity rather dangerously but to miss, as well, more lamentably, the high sport of watching rapid cunning and resource in full cry. He could twist anything into a stanza ; somewhere in his exact and abound- ing memory he could always pounce upon some alloy of epithet or incident which made the perfect amalgam. Examples are everywhere : Dramatis Personce is full of them ; for one of the daintier instances turn to Love in a Gondolay where a casual pot-pourri of petals is so safely compressed and so craftily tinted that it looks like a dense group in bronze. Much of the " cragginess " of his later work is only the result of his desire for plenty of rifts to load with ore. Sometimes, of course, he did tackle stubborn trees of thought out of a sheer lad's love of climbing. But most often he is only using them as Christmas-trees to hang with little lamps and gems and precious toys. Not to realize that is to sell your Christmas-tree for firewood, to spend your time painfully struggling up a maypole instead of catching its ribands and joining the dance. It is the last word to be said to-day — a warning and a salute. Approach Browning solemnly, with a frown of perplexity, and he will frown back at you fiercely. But come to him heartily, as convivially as he came to verse, and you find him speaking in your own vernacular, dealing more directly with your humble troubles, hopes, and appetites — good leg-of-mutton poet that he is — than any other singer of our age. He has been held captive too long by those dark banditti, the Browningites. Let us hail him now as the poet for plain people, for honest, friendly souls like you and me. The wise