Christmas-Eve and Easter Day; Men and Women in a Balcony; Dramatis Personae; Balaustion's Adventure (1896) (Paperback)

Text extracted from opening pages of book: CHRISTMA EV; AND EASTER DAY MEN ANmWOMEN; IN: A BALCONY DRAMATIS PERSOI f . BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: PRINCE HOHENSTIEL SCHWANGAU: FIFINEAT THE FAIR BY ROBERT BROWNING WITH THE AUTHORS LATEST CORRECTIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MTFFLIN AND COMPANY 1896 CONTENTS CHRISTMAS - EvE AND EASTER-DAY. PAGB CHRISTMAS-EVE 1 EASTER-DAY 31 MEN AND WOMEN. TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS . . 57 HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 58 ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 61 AN EPISTLE, CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERI ENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN .... 64= JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION 71 PICTOR IGNOTUS 72 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 74 ANDREA DEL SARTO 83 THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH 89 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 91 CLEON 115 EUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI 123 ONE WORD MORE 324 IN A BALCONY 131 DBAMATIS PERSONS. JAMES EEE'S WIFE: I. JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW . . 153 II. BY THE FIRESIDE 154 III. IN THE DOORWAY 155 IV. ALONG THE BEACH 156 V. ON THE CLIFF 157 VL BEADING A. BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF ... 158 VII. AMONG THE BOCKS ., 101 VIIL BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOK. 161 IX. ON DECK * 163- vi CONTENTS GOLD HAIK: A STORY OF PORNIC 105 THE WORST OF IT 170 Dis ALITER VISUM; OK, LE BYRON DE Nos JOCKS . . 173 Too LATE 178 ABT VOGLER, AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION . ., 1S2 RABBI BEN EZRA 1ST> A DEATH IN THE DESERT liU CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND 207 CONFESSIONS 214 MAY AND DEATH 21o DEAF AND DUMB: A GROUP BY WOOLNEU . . . . 21 ( J PROSPICE 2U\ EURYDICB TO ORPHEUS: A PICTURE BY LEIQHTON . . 217 YOUTH AND ART . 217 A FACE 210 A LIKENESS 220 MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM ..*.... 222APPARENT FAILURE 257 EPILOGUE 259 BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE, INCLUDING A TRANSCRIPT FROM EU RIPIDES 203 PRINCE HOHBNSTIEL-SCHWANQAU, SAVIOU OF SOCIETY, ); ) 1 FlFINE AT THE FAIR & U CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY FLOEBNCB, 1850. CHRISTMAS-EVE. i. Our of the little chapel I burst Into the fresh night-air again. Five minutes f ull, I waited first In the doorway, to escape the rain That drove in gusts down the common's centre At the edge of which the chapel stands, Before I plucked up heart to enter. Heaven knows how many sorts of hands Beached past me, groping for the latch Of the inner door that hung on catch More obstinate the more they fumbled, Till, giving way at last with a scold Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled One sheep more to the rest in fold, And left me irresolute, standing sentry In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry, Six feet long by three feet wide, Partitioned off from the vast inside I blocked up half of it at least. No remedy; the rain kept driving. They eyed me much as some wild beast, That congregation, still arriving, Some of them by the main road, white A long way past me into the night, Skirting the common, then diverging; Not a few suddenly emerging From the common's self through the paling-gaps, - They house in the gravel-pits perhaps, Where the road stops short with its safeguard border Of lamps, as tired of such disorder; But the most turned in yet more abruptly From a certain squalid knot of alleys, Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly, CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY Which now the little chapel rallies And leads into day again, its priestliness Lending itself to hide their beastliness' So cleverly ( thanks in part to the mason), And putting socheery a whitewashed face on Those neophytes too much in lack of it, That, where you cross the common as I did, And meet the party thus presided, Mount Zion with Love-lane at the back of it, They front you as little disconcerted As, bound for the hills, her fate averted, And her wicked people made to mind him, Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him* u. Well, from the road, the lanes or the common, In came the flock: the fat weary woman, Panting and bewildered, down-clapping Her umbrella with a mighty report, Grounded it by me, wry and flappin