Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/20

xvi character upon their minds, its effect is electrifying. He is silent: he disdains as much to answer the impotent and selfish compassion of Vulcan, as to murmur beneath the brutal cruelty of Strength. It was not thus that he pitied in his days of joy: it was not thus that he acted in his days of power: and his spirit is above them, and recks not of them; and when their pity and their scoffs pollute his ears no more, he pours out his impassioned sorrows to the air, and winds, and waters, and earth, and sun, whom he had never visited with benefits, and "taxed not with unkindness." The striking nature of these, our first ideas of Prometheus, is not enfeebled by any subsequent ones. We see him daring and unflinching beneath the torturing and dishonoring hand, yet keenly alive to the torture and dishonor; for himself fearless and rash, yet for others considerate and wary; himself unpitied, yet to others