A HANDBOOK TO THE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING

This book was written at the request of members of the Browning Society and was intended to be a primer of the works of Browning. Mrs. Orr describes the nature of Brownings genius—If we were called upon to describe Mr. Brownings poetic genius in one phrase we should say it consisted of an almost unlimited power of imagination exerted upon real things; but we should have to explain that with Mr. Browning the real includes everything which a human being can think or feel and that he is realistic only in the sense of being never visionary; he never deals with those vague and incoherent fancies so attractive to some minds which we speak of as coming only from the poets brain. He imagines vividly because he observes keenly and also feels strongly; and this vividness of his nature puts him in equal sympathy with the real and the ideal—with the seen and the unseen. The one is as living to him as the other.