THE RING AND THE BOOR 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION 
 
 FRANCIS B1CKFORD HORNBROOKE.D.D. 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4219.H81 
 
 The ring and the book, 
 
 3 1924 013 443 241 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013443241 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 AN INTERPRETATION 
 
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THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 BY ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS BICKFORD 
 HORNBROOKE, D.D. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
To 
 ANN FRANCES BURR 
 
 FOR MANY YEARS THE FAITHFUL AND LOYAL FRIEND OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR AND HIS WIFE 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Fkancis Bickpord Hornbrooke was born in 
 Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), May 7, 
 : 1849. He was just thirty-seven years younger 
 than Robert Browning, and was always pleased 
 that his birthday fell on the same day as that of 
 the great poet he loved and studied so many 
 years. 
 
 He was of mixed ancestry, being of Dutch and 
 English extraction on his father's side and, on 
 his mother's, of German and Scotch-Irish. The 
 name is Dutch, and tradition says that the family 
 came from the little town of Broeck near Amster- 
 dam. He was the only child of Thomas Bick- 
 ford and Jane (Lopeman) Hornbrooke, and was 
 named indirectly for Sir Francis Burdett, the 
 great English radical and a distant kinsman of 
 the Hornbrooke family. He was most patriotic- 
 ally and intensely American, though he was only 
 of the first generation in this country, his father 
 having been born in Bristol, England. His far- 
 off ancestor went from Holland to England in 
 1688 with William of Orange. William the 
 Silent was one of his great heroes and he recalled 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 with pride and pleasure that his ancestors un- 
 doubtedly fought on the dykes of Holland for 
 the great Father of his Country. 
 
 Dr. Hornbrooke's father died when his son 
 was in his infancy. The boy was educated in 
 the public schools of Wheeling and took his col- 
 lege course in the Ohio University at Athens, 
 Ohio, graduating in 1870. Getting a college 
 education was no easy matter for the fatherless 
 boy, who early showed a love of reading and 
 study that amounted to a passion. To get the 
 means for his college course he did all sorts of 
 work in vacations and odd times, shrinking 
 from nothing however hard and disagreeable if 
 it would further his cherished ambition. He 
 early decided to go into the ministry and was 
 graduated at Union Theological Seminary, New 
 York, and later at Harvard Divinity School. 
 
 He was married in 1874 to Orinda Althea 
 Dudley, a direct descendant of Thomas Dudley, 
 the second colonial governor of Massachusetts. 
 They had two sons who with the wife survive 
 him. 
 
 He had three parishes. The first was that of 
 the Union Congregational (Trinitarian) Church 
 in East Hampton, Connecticut. While there he 
 decided that his theological views were more in 
 sympathy with the Unitarian than with the Or- 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 thodox faith, and left to take the pastorate of the 
 First Parish (Unitarian) Church in Weston, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 It was during his country pastorates that he 
 made that close study of the works of Frederick 
 W. Robertson, Cardinal Newman, and of the early 
 Fathers of the Church for which he was after- 
 wards noted. Dr. C. C. Everett of Harvard 
 University urged him to write a book on church 
 history, but the time of leisure for such a work 
 never came and his knowledge of the subject went 
 into his sermons and various papers. He devoted 
 himself with such conscientious fidelity to the 
 especial interests of his parishes, never for a 
 moment neglecting any duty as a pastor for even 
 his beloved literary studies, that only untiring 
 industry allowed him time for anything else. 
 
 After three years of service in Weston he ac- 
 cepted a call to the Channing Church in the 
 neighboring city of Newton, for which he labored 
 for twenty-one years, refusing calls to some of 
 the largest churches in the Unitarian body. 
 
 During his pastorate, and greatly by his efforts, 
 the present beautiful church edifice was erected. 
 
 During the last fifteen years of his life he was 
 a constant lecturer on literary subjects, giving 
 courses of lectures on Tolstoi, Tennyson, Shake- 
 speare, Browning, and many others. These he 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 made so interesting that one busy business man 
 said to another, "What is the use in the little 
 time we have of trying to read books? Dr. 
 Hornbrooke gives us the cream of literature 
 with no bother to ourselves." He was a learned 
 and exact biblical student, an eloquent and win- 
 ning preacher, and an ardent and loving student 
 of the best literature. His Greek Testament and 
 his Browning were constant companions. 
 
 He greatly enjoyed his membership in the 
 Boston Browning Society, and served it most 
 loyally. He was its fourth president. If an 
 essayist fell out he could always be depended 
 upon to fill the vacancy. If the discussion of the 
 paper flagged he would brighten it with witty 
 and entertaining remarks. 
 
 His reading of Browning was remarkable for 
 its force and its interpretative quality. It re- 
 minded those who had known him in his early 
 years of the saying among his college friends, 
 that "a great actor was spoiled when Hornbrooke 
 took to the pulpit." Those who heard him read 
 the plea of Caponsacchi, the soliloquy of the 
 Pope, or Guido's last frantic appeal in The Ring 
 and the Book, had an experience they will never 
 forget. His voice was as clear as a bell and for 
 the time he was the one whose words he was 
 rendering. 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 Some of his Browning papers besides those 
 on The Ring and the Book are "The Religion 
 in Browning's Poetry," "The Development in 
 Browning's Poetry," "Saul," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," 
 "Caliban upon Setebos," "Bishop Blougram's 
 Apology," "Paracelsus," and "Browning's Five 
 Prelates." A paper on " Mr. Sludge, the Medium " 
 was published in " The Boston Browning Society 
 Papers." 
 
 Dr. Hornbrooke was considered by competent 
 critics to be one of the foremost Browning students 
 and exponents in the entire world. But though 
 so deeply interested in Browning's thought he 
 did not seek to know his private life, and de- 
 plored the publication of the Barrett-Browning 
 love letters. He would not read them nor allow 
 them to be brought into his house. The writer 
 well remembers when calling with her husband 
 on Miss Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, an in- 
 timate friend of Browning, the indignation with 
 which both these Browning lovers inveighed 
 against the lack of delicacy displayed in the 
 giving to the world what should have been the 
 heart secrets of the great poet and his wife. 
 
 Clerical and literary work did not claim all 
 Dr. Hornbrooke's interest. He was a public- 
 spirited citizen, taking a capable and interested 
 part in public affairs. 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 Dr. Hornbrooke was a man of commanding 
 figure and singularly individual and interesting 
 personality, whom people on the street turned 
 to look after and inquire who he was. 
 
 Failing health caused by intense application 
 to study caused him in 1900 to resign his pastorate 
 from the church he had served long and faithfully. 
 
 When he appeared to be regaining his health 
 he died with tragic suddenness Saturday, De- 
 cember 5, 1903, leaving a community in 
 mourning. 
 
 The day following his death eulogistic re- 
 marks were made on him in every church, both 
 Catholic and Protestant, in the entire city. The 
 rector of the nearest Catholic church told his large 
 congregation "that Newton had lost its greatest 
 citizen and every one of them a good friend." 
 
 All missed him. The appreciation of his gra- 
 cious, kindly nature was touchingly expressed to 
 the writer by an Irishman working on the street. 
 He took off his hat and said, "You don't know 
 me, ma'am, but I know you, and we are all sorry 
 for your trouble. We all loved the Doctor, for he 
 was the friendliest man that ever walked the 
 streets." 
 
 A bust of him is now being made by C. E. 
 Dallin, to be placed in Charming Church, 
 Newton. 
 
FOREWORD xiii 
 
 The manuscript of this book was Dr. Horn- 
 brooke's last work. He finished it only a few 
 days before his death. It is the loss of the reader 
 that it did not have his final revision. 
 
 Orinda A. D. Hornbrooke. 
 
 Newton, Mass., October, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Pack 
 
 I The Ring and the Book 1 
 
 II The Story ... 13 
 
 III The Method and the Spirit 18 
 
 IV Half-Rome and the Other Half-Rome . 26 
 V Tertium Quid 43 
 
 VI Count Guido Franceschini 56 
 
 Vn Cafonsacchi 78 
 
 VHI PoMPILIA 107 
 
 IX Dominus Htacinthus de Archangelis . . 131 
 
 X Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius 142 
 
 XI The Pope 152 
 
 XII Guido 174 
 
 XIH The Book and the Ring 202 
 
 XIV Lessons of The Ring and the Book . . 212 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 The Ring and the Book appeared during the years 
 1869 and 1870. The earlier parts met with 
 slight favor; the later parts were recognized 
 as works of great power, and on its completion 
 many persons, most competent to judge, saw in 
 it the supreme work of a great genius. It is true 
 that some who had been enthusiastic readers of 
 Browning's earlier poems professed their indiffer- 
 ence to this poem. I know of one of these who 
 boasts that he never read The Ring and the 
 Book. 
 
 It is equally true that this work received cor- 
 dial praise from many and different quarters. 
 The Atheneum declared it to be " the most pre- 
 cious and profound religious treasure that Eng- 
 land has produced since Shakespeare." Sidney 
 Colvin called it "a work of pregnant genius." 
 John Morley, one of the ablest critics of England 
 in the nineteenth century, wrote a discriminating 
 
2 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 and appreciative review of it, which he has in- 
 cluded in his published works. In this he says: 
 "When all is said that can be said about the 
 violences which from time to time invade the 
 poem, it remains true that the complete work 
 affects the reader most powerfully with that wide 
 unity of impression which it is the aim of dra- 
 matic art, and perhaps of all art, to produce." 
 Dr. R. W. Church, dean of St. Paul's, who is 
 widely and favorably known as a student and 
 interpreter of Dante, writes in a private letter 
 in 1870: — 
 
 "Then came The Ring and the Book, and that, 
 in the first place satisfied a longing that I had 
 long had, to have the same set of facts told and 
 dealt with, not as they are in the usual novel or 
 play — that is, with one side assumed to be the 
 true one — but as they appeared to all manner 
 of different people, each with his own prejudices 
 and interests and rules of conduct and judgment, 
 so as to have a little picture of the world judg- 
 ing the facts before it; and next, because I found 
 in it such piercing insight into human realities of 
 thought and feeling, into the depths and heights 
 of the soul, such magnanimity, such pervading 
 sense of judgment. Browning has a poet's eye, 
 the most comprehensive, the most searching, the 
 most minute, for the truths of our present existence 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 3 
 
 and of our future hopes, of any of our great names, 
 Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shelley." 
 
 Dr. Connop Thirlwall, bishop of St. David's, 
 and for thirty years the ablest thinker, the greatest 
 scholar, and sanest intellect among the bishops 
 of the Church of England, in one of his letters 
 refers to The Ring and the Book in the highest 
 terms: he admits, what may prove a comfort 
 to many readers, that there are passages in the 
 poem which he did not at once understand, 
 but he attributes this very properly to the com- 
 pactness of expression. 
 
 As a recognition of the value of the poem 
 Balliol College, Oxford, conferred upon Mr. 
 Browning the degree of Master of Arts, a more 
 distinguished honor than that of D.C.L., be- 
 cause it makes the recipient a member of the 
 University. Such an honor had been bestowed 
 last upon Dr. Samuel Johnson. In view of the 
 commendation given to this poem, we have no 
 right to pronounce it unworthy our attention 
 and study or to call it a poem which no one has 
 ever cared to read. When English people some- 
 times say, as they do, "We know nothing about 
 Browning in England," it means only that they 
 and the circle to which they belong know noth- 
 ing about him. They do not speak for all 
 England. 
 
4 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 These opinions, while they sustain me in my 
 own view of the value of The Ring and the Book, 
 have had no part in the formation of that view, 
 and while what I may think about it cannot add 
 to its value, I am sure that the story of my ex- 
 perience with it will have some interest and en- 
 couragement in it for others. 
 
 It was the first poem of Browning that really 
 impressed me or took hold of me. Before the 
 year 1876 I had read few of his poems, and 
 what I had read had not attracted me. In that 
 year, however, I came across a copy of The 
 Ring and the Book in a library which the owner 
 allowed me to use as my own. On my first 
 reading, I found much in the book which seemed 
 obscure, and I frankly confess that the connec- 
 tion of the thought was not always clear to me. 
 In spite of this, it deeply impressed me and in 
 some way made me conscious that it deserved 
 more careful reading. I found in it so much 
 that appealed to me that I was convinced there 
 must be much more. I determined to read it 
 again when I could give my undivided attention 
 to it. Such a season came a few years later 
 when I passed my summer vacation in a beauti- 
 ful and restful part of Maine. Even then, I 
 resolved to read it no longer than my interest 
 lasted. Under these circumstances I began to 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 read the poem, and continued to read it, with 
 unabated enjoyment to the end. I read it, as 
 every one ought to read poems, for pleasure, 
 and I found it. A strange attraction drew me 
 to it day after day. The only other poem which 
 has exerted the same power over me is the 
 Odyssey. 
 
 Since then I have read the poem throughout 
 at least thirty times, and every time with in- 
 creased pleasure. The more I read it, the more 
 I love it, and the less I find in it to censure. Even 
 now I do not pretend to be able fully and satis- 
 factorily to explain every passage in it. If this 
 be urged against the poem, it is just as true of 
 the great poems of Shakespeare and Milton. 
 What student of either of these poets can ex- 
 plain everything they wrote? Sometimes what 
 is most poetic is least capable of strict definition. 
 But much in The Ring and the Book that once 
 seemed perplexing has become clear. Often, 
 too, I have found that the obscurities, of which 
 I thought I had reason to complain, were not 
 so much in the poem as in my own mind. Some 
 difficulties which at first seemed hard to over- 
 come became easy to surmount as I grew more 
 familiar with the style and method of the poet. 
 Fortunately it is not necessary to understand 
 everything in a work of art before we can enjoy 
 
6 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 it. If it were, how many of us could say with 
 any degree of sincerity that we enjoy Goethe's 
 Faust? 
 
 In reading the poem several convictions have 
 forced themselves upon me. 
 
 1. The Ring and the Book is in harmony with 
 Browning's peculiarly dramatic genius. During 
 the first part of his poetic career he devoted 
 himself to the preparation of plays for presenta- 
 tion on the stage. For some years his dramas 
 appeared in rapid succession. In one of his 
 poems, he names himself a "writer of plays." 
 But these never attained any measure of success 
 with the public. Macready did all he could for 
 Strafford but even he .could keep it on the stage 
 for only a few days. Colomhe's Birthday and A 
 Blot in the 'Scutcheon had the same experience; 
 they met with some esteem, but no enthu- 
 siasm. It is sometimes said that Browning did 
 not care for the comparative failure of his plays. 
 I think he did care. I believe he regretted it 
 very much. He knew he had something to say 
 to the world in that way and, no doubt, he de- 
 plored the limitations which prevented him from 
 making an impression upon it. There are evi- 
 dences that he was anxious to succeed and that 
 he did his best. Nor have his plays secured 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 7 
 
 better hearing since his fame as a great poet 
 has become general. From time to time some 
 of the best actors appear in one or another of his 
 plays, and audiences who admire Browning are 
 attracted, but it is usually evident that the actors 
 do not understand or appreciate the characters 
 they assume, and that the hearers do not expe- 
 rience real enjoyment. 
 
 Yet many who do not care to see his plays 
 acted read them again and again with ever- 
 increasing pleasure. It is easy to understand this. 
 Browning had no experience of stage-craft, and 
 he was ignorant of those devices by which plays 
 are made effective in particular parts and as a 
 whole. The stage was something to which he 
 brought his play: he did not live on it. He 
 lacked that practical training of which Shake- 
 speare had so much. But the true cause of his 
 failure as a writer of plays lies deeper than this. 
 It is due to the fact that his characters reflect so 
 much, and do so little. We hear what they say, 
 but we never see what they do. They reveal 
 every subtle train of thought and lay bare every 
 hidden motive; even the most transient emotions 
 find utterance. All this renders them delightful 
 to the reader but, at the same time, unintelligible 
 to the hearer. Plays full of mental analysis can 
 never be popular, but Browning excels all other 
 
8 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 writers of plays in his power to make his char- 
 acters reveal themselves. He enables his readers 
 to see every movement of their souls. If he has 
 not the genius for making persons act in rela- 
 tion to one another, he has the genius for dra- 
 matic monologue, in which a person through 
 what he says shows what he essentially is. It 
 was a wise instinct, therefore, that prompted 
 Browning to abandon the dramatic form for the 
 dramatic spirit. 
 
 In The Ring and the Book he has dropped 
 methods not in harmony with his nature, which 
 he could not effectively use, and has constructed 
 it in a way that gives ample scope to the full play 
 of his characteristic power. When we come to 
 the poem everything has been done and we are 
 asked only to see how the men and women who 
 have taken part in the action make themselves 
 known to us by the way in which they give us 
 their version of the story. 
 
 2. The Ring and the Book is in harmony with 
 the dominant characteristic of our age. No age 
 in the history of the world was ever so much in- 
 terested in studies of the mind : it is pre-eminently 
 psychological. This appears everywhere; in our 
 histories which endeavor through the phenomena 
 of the social and political life of an era to make 
 us aware of the spirit that produces them, and 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 9 
 
 in our works of fiction which aim more to reveal 
 character and the modes of its operation than 
 to provide descriptions of natural scenery or 
 to portray events. Again, this psychological 
 interest shows itself in the numerous studies of 
 mind that are constantly being published, and 
 the constant demand for them. From studies 
 of nature our age has been turning more and 
 more to the study of the mind by which alone 
 nature can be apprehended or comprehended. 
 
 Now it is the test of a great work of genius 
 that while it is above the thought of the time 
 in which it was written, it also responds to that 
 thought. The Iliad and the Odyssey reflect the 
 prevailing conditions of thought and feeling in 
 the times when they appeared. Dante's Divine 
 Comedy bears witness to the politics and religious 
 thought of its age. Milton's Paradise Lost is 
 an indication of the powerful influence of the 
 Puritan spirit. It is to be expected that a great 
 poem belonging to the last third of the nine- 
 teenth century should show in its method and 
 spirit the dominance of the psychological in- 
 terest, and The Ring and the Book fulfils that 
 expectation. From beginning to end it is an in- 
 sight into, and a revelation of the heights and 
 depths of human nature. The poet himself 
 seems conscious of this when he says, speaking 
 
10 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 of the poem, "It lives," "if precious be the soul 
 of man to man." 
 
 3. The Ring and the Book shows also the influ- 
 ence of the spirit of historic criticism. 
 
 It is sometimes said that one cannot tell to 
 what age the poetry of Browning belongs. Any 
 one who reads that poetry with his eyes open 
 must know better. Not to speak of other poems, 
 The Ring and the Book could not have been 
 written in any other century of the world's history. 
 The way in which it treats its theme is necessarily 
 connected with a time that is sceptical as to the 
 ability of one man or one party to tell the whole 
 truth about any matter, — a time that seeks to 
 examine many accounts before it forms a final 
 opinion about a man, or a party, or a sect. Until 
 within a comparatively few years the writing of 
 history depended on any account that had come 
 into the hands of the historian. No attempt was 
 made to pierce the letter of the record or to get 
 at the conditions which might disturb the im- 
 partiality of its author. It was tacitly assumed 
 that Tacitus told the whole truth about the 
 Caesars, and that Eusebius told the whole truth 
 about the leaders of heretical sects. But now the 
 historian makes the record before him only the 
 starting-point for his investigation. He tries to 
 go behind the record and to get at the peculiari- 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 11 
 
 ties, the likes and dislikes of the writer or the 
 political and religious prejudices and preposses- 
 sions which swayed him. He uses him simply 
 as one way of getting at the real truth. He com- 
 pares his account, if possible, with the accounts 
 of others. He realizes how hard it is for one 
 person to tell the whole truth. 
 
 Now in The Ring and the Book we have an il- 
 lustration and manifestation of this spirit of his- 
 toric criticism which everywhere prevails. The 
 poet does not allow the reader to remain satisfied 
 with one version of the story which underlies his 
 poem. He shows us how various persons of 
 different characters and interests tell it, and he 
 causes these to unfold themselves in their nar- 
 ratives. We may not learn from them more about 
 the actual facts, but we know better the thoughts 
 of many hearts. The different stories also enable 
 us to attain to a juster, because completer, knowl- 
 edge of what actually happened. In this way 
 the poem is a grand example of the spirit of 
 historic criticism. 
 
 Mark Pattison in his life of Milton makes it 
 clear, that being the man he was and living at 
 the time and in the country he did, Milton could 
 not have chosen a better subject than the one he 
 took in Paradise Lost. So it may be said of 
 Browning that one endowed with his peculiar 
 
12 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 genius and living in an age animated by psycholog- 
 ical interest and historic criticism, could not have 
 done better than to write a poem like The Ring 
 and the Book, in just the way he did write it, for 
 it is an expression of what is best in himself and 
 also a response to the imperative demand of the 
 dominant spirit of his time. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE STOHY 
 
 The story which forms the basis of The Ring- 
 and the Book is brief and simple. Pietro and 
 
 Violante Comparing a__middle-aged married 
 
 couple, lived in Rome. They were 
 
 "Nor low i' the social scale nor yet too high, 
 Nor poor nor richer than comports with ease." 
 
 Only a child was needed to make them perfectly 
 contented with their lot. They longed for one, 
 not merely to gratify the natural desire of their 
 hearts, but also because they did not wish to have 
 their little property go to unknown relatives, as 
 it would, if they died childless. 
 
 At last a child was born, and named Pompilia, 
 who remained with Pietro and Violante until 
 she was thirteen years old. At that time the Abate 
 Paolo asked Violante for her as a wife for his 
 brother Count Guido Franceschini, a member of 
 one of the noblest families in Arezzo in Tuscany. 
 Guido had been for thirty years a hanger-on of 
 one of the cardinals in Rome, in the hope of 
 obtaining place and fortune. 
 
14 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Violante was, naturally enough, much flattered 
 by the prospect of having a nobleman for a son- 
 in-law, but Pietro, her husband, made inquiries 
 among his acquaintances. They told him, that 
 although Guido was a real count, he 
 
 "was just the heir 
 To the stubble once a corn-field, and brick-heap 
 Where used to be a dwelling-place, now burned." 
 
 Upon this he refused to consider him as a husband 
 for his daughter. Violante, however, was de- 
 termined to have her way, and so, without Pietro's 
 knowledge, she took Pompilia to the church of 
 San Lorenzo and had her married to Count 
 Guido. 
 
 When this had been done and could not be 
 undone Pietro, though with an aching heart, 
 consented to it. He entered into an arrangement 
 that he and his wife should live in Arezzo together 
 with Guido, Pompilia, and Guido's mother and 
 brother Girolamo. In return for their maintenance 
 during their lives, their little property was, on 
 their death, to go to Guido. But the plan did 
 not work well. The parents were unhappy in 
 their new home, and at the end of four months 
 left Arezzo to live, as best they could, at Rome. 
 Nor was that all. Soon afterwards, in the Holy 
 Year or Jubilee, Violante confessed to the priest, 
 
THE STORY 15 
 
 who was vested by the Pope with special power 
 of absolution, that Pompilia was not her own 
 child but the "chance birth of a nameless 
 drab." 
 
 Pietro, learning this, saw an opportunity to 
 escape payment of the dowry or the fulfilment 
 of any agreement which had been made. If 
 Pompilia was not his own child, he was not bound 
 to pay anything. Guido, on his part, maintained 
 that the story of Pompilia's birth was a lie, told 
 to disgrace him and to deprive him of his right 
 to the dowry. The court at Rome tried the case 
 between them and decided that while Pompilia 
 was not the real child of Pietro and Violante, the 
 dowry ought to be paid. This decision suited 
 neither party, and the case was continued for 
 further investigation. 
 
 While this legal contest was going on, the life 
 of Pompilia in Arezzo became so unbearable that 
 one night she fled from the place in company 
 with a young canon of the church by the name of 
 Giuseppe Caponsacchi. The two had almost 
 reached Rome when they were overtaken by 
 Guido at an inn of Castelnuovo. After a stormy 
 scene the priest, according to his right, appealed 
 to the court at Rome to try his case. The court 
 there heard the statements submitted to them 
 and gave a decision, which, trying to suit all, 
 
16 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 really satisfied none. Caponsacchi was sent for 
 a year to live in Civita Vecchia. Pompilia was 
 consigned to the care of the Convertite nuns, 
 whose special office was the care of fallen women. 
 Later still she was placed in the care of her 
 reputed parents. At the same time Guido was 
 not allowed the divorce which he sought. 
 
 In a few months Pompilia gave birth to a son 
 whom she named Gaetano. When Guido heard 
 of this he went with four of his retainers to Rome, 
 where, on a night soon after the Christmas of 
 1697, entering the home of Pietro and Violante, 
 he killed them, and, as he thought, Pompilia, 
 with them. He then attempted to escape from 
 the papal territory into Tuscany where he 
 would have been secure from all interference, 
 but before he could reach the boundary he was 
 overtaken, arrested, and brought to trial for 
 murder. 
 
 His defence was that the conduct of his wife 
 justified his deed and that Pietro and Violante 
 deserved death because they had aided and 
 abetted her in it. The court, however, refused to 
 accept his plea, and sentenced him to be beheaded 
 and his four companions to be hanged. But the 
 case did not end here. Guido, because he had 
 taken some minor orders in the church and so 
 might be called an ecclesiastic, made an appeal 
 
THE STORY 17 
 
 to the Pope, in the hope that he might see some 
 reason to acquit him. Instead of this, the Pope 
 rejected his appeal, confirmed the decision of the 
 court, and ordered the immediate execution of 
 him and his companions. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE METHOD AND THE SPIRIT 
 
 The first book of The Ring and the Book gives 
 the reader all the information he needs concern- 
 ing its name, source, and arrangement. In the 
 first few lines (1-32) we learn that just as the 
 craftsman separates the gold from the alloy, by 
 the aid of which he has been able to fashion it 
 into a ring, so the poet has wrought with the hard 
 crude material of his story until he has, at last, 
 left it a golden ring of poetry. 
 
 We are then told how and under what con- 
 ditions the poet found "the square old yellow 
 book" which contained all the bare facts he is to 
 use and transform. Here we have an actual 
 experience. There is such a book, and Browning 
 bought it, as he says, in Florence, on the steps 
 of the Riccardi palace, for a lira, or about twenty 
 cents. This book is now in the library of Balliol 
 College at Oxford. Then follows a vivid picture 
 of the circumstances under which the poet read 
 the book : — 
 
 "A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact 
 Secreted from man's life when hearts Seat hard, 
 And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since." 
 
METHOD AND THE SPIRIT 19 
 
 With this in his hand he walked on, so absorbed 
 in its contents that he noticed none of the usual 
 scenes through which he was passing. 
 
 ." Still read I on, from written title-page 
 To written index, on, through street and street, 
 At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge ; 
 Till, by the time I stood at home again 
 In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, 
 Under the doorway where the black begins 
 With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, 
 I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth 
 Gathered together, bound up in this book, 
 Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest." 
 
 A captious critic might suggest that a book so 
 bulky and so difficult could hardly be read through 
 in twenty minutes. But we must not expect too 
 much exactness of statement from a poet. We 
 have next the subject of the book. 
 
 " 'Romano, Homicidiorum ' — nay, 
 Better translate — ' A Roman murder-case : 
 Position of the entire criminal cause 
 Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman, 
 With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay, 
 Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death 
 By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, 
 At Rome on February Twenty Two, 
 Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight : 
 Wherein it is disputed if, and when, 
 Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape 
 The customary forfeit.' " 
 
 The poet now narrates the "fanciless facts'* 
 just as they lie recorded in the old yellow book. 
 
20 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 In these commonplace incidents of the course of 
 a murder trial, we have 
 
 "The untempered gold, the fact untampered with, 
 The mere ring-metal ere the ring be made 1 " 
 
 But what has come of it? It has no power to 
 live or else it would be still living in the memories 
 of men. Now, however, it lives only in this book, 
 which, if it were destroyed, would leave Guido 
 and Pompilia in absolute oblivion. Then, too, 
 how little the "crude fact" gives us ! From it we 
 learn nothing about 
 
 "Giuseppe Caponsacchi; — his strange course 
 I' the matter, was it right or wrong or both? " 
 
 From it we learn nothing about either the old 
 couple, Pietro and Violante, Qrthe child of Guido 
 and Pompilia, Gaetano. Nobody, tne poet con- 
 tinuesTTias any recollection of the story, and he 
 is unable to awaken any interest for it in the minds 
 of those to whom he tells it. All records of it 
 had long ago been destroyed. Those hostile to 
 the church, when they found there was nothing 
 in it against the church, but rather something 
 in favor of it, cared to hear no more about it, 
 while those friendly to the church promised him 
 help if he became a convert to it. These latter 
 ask him 
 
METHOD AND THE SPIRIT 21 
 
 " 'Do you tell the story, now, in offhand style, 
 
 Straight from the book? Or simply here and there, 
 (The while you vault it through the loose and large) 
 Hang to a hint? Or is there book at all, 
 And don't you deal in poetry, make-believe, 
 And the white lies it sounds like? ' " 
 
 To these the poet answers "yes" and "no." 
 He used his fancy in reshaping the story — as 
 he claims he had a right to do, since 
 
 V "Fnnpylin't.h fafit is jn^fTTnp fapt. t.hp mrW" 
 
 With the aid of his fancy he tells the story again ; 
 — and now it assumes a more living character. 
 As we read we come into closer relations with 
 the actors in it, and we catch a glimpse of the 
 motives of their actions. We are no longer deal- 
 ing with past hisfory, but the "tragic piece" is 
 enacted before our eyes. We see what before we 
 have only read about. 
 
 For some poets this would have been enough; 
 not so for Browning. He seeks to make "the 
 old woe" li ve again as it lived in Rome two cen- 
 turies- be£oxe_-JTcLuie-4his-4)*-4Hte?fHses—it^ith 
 the motions of his own spi rit. Man indeed can- 
 not create out ot "nothing, but he can put life 
 back into what once lived. The story of Faust 
 is an illustration of this, but better still that of 
 Elisha, 
 
22 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 "Who bade them lay his staff on a corpse-face. 
 There was no voice, no hearing : he went in 
 Therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, 
 And prayed unto the Lord : and he went up 
 And lay upon the corpse, dead on the couch, 
 And put his mouth upon its mouth, his eyes 
 Upon its eyes, his hands upon its hands, 
 And stretched him on the flesh; the flesh waxed warm : 
 And he returned, walked to and fro the house, 
 And went up, stretched him on the flesh again, 
 And the eyes opened. 'T is a credible feat 
 With the right man and way." 
 
 In this manner the poet has unfolded the three- 
 fold method of dealing with his material. In the 
 first place he can state the "crude fact" of the 
 story without any addition of his own. Secondly, 
 he can add fancy to the facts and so render them 
 more impressive and attractive. And, finally, 
 more than that, he can inform and transfuse the 
 facts with his spirit and make them live before 
 us. And now a spirit lives within him, laughs 
 through his eye and sways him, as he turns the 
 "medicinable leaves." The narrative of events 
 reveals the presence of this spirit. 
 
 But the poet proposes to do even more than 
 that. He will bring each character in the story 
 before us, and cause him to appear now as he 
 appeared long ago in Rome or Arezzo. He will 
 reproduce the talk of the city and cause us to hear 
 what those who watched the drama had to say. 
 
METHOD AND THE SPIRIT 23 
 
 The outline and structure of the poem grow 
 naturally out of this. In th e first book H jjf- 
 Rome tells the story as it apr °nr?rl tn tn"i" 
 wh& Jook the side of" th e Tiusban d. Then The 
 Other Half-R ome tells it as it appeared to those 
 wh ose sympathies were withThTwife Terti um 
 Quid reproduces the view takenj>fjlEfilSujle_af- 
 fak- by dm "superior sOct aTsec tion." So much for 
 the talk heard uu the streets and in the drawing- 
 rooms 1 • 
 
 Now those who view the whole matter from 
 within speak. First, C ount_ Guido Franceschini 
 gives his account of his life and deed, doing his 
 best to appear in a good light before his judges. 
 
 "He feels he has a fist, then folds his arms 
 Crosswise, and makes his mind up to be meek." 
 
 Next comes Caponsa cchi, the pries t, and we hear 
 his voice as he speaks in tones to which, under 
 the circumstances, his judges feel they must listen 
 in silence. Then, Pompilia, surrounded by those 
 who watch for every word and minister to every 
 need, sighs out, as she lies dying, her version of 
 the affair. The lawyers appear on the scene " to 
 teach our common sense its helplessness." Hy_- 
 acinthus de Archangelis writes his plea o n behalf 
 of Guido, and is followed by an argument against 
 himTframed by Dr. Johannes-baptista iiottmius. 
 
24 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 After all these comes the Pope, who must give 
 the final decision in the case, and whose medi- 
 tations we are permitted to hear as he sits 
 
 "out the dim 
 Droop of a sombre February day 
 In the plain closet." 
 
 Guido speaks a second time, as he sits "on a 
 stone bench" in his cell, to his old friends, the 
 abate and the cardinal; and we learn from his 
 speech how "the tiger-cat screams now that 
 whined before." After this the poet promises to 
 bring us down to the prosaic events that immedi- 
 ately followed the execution of Guido. 
 
 Each book of the poem is a fulfilment of what 
 is indicated here, and he who reads this first book 
 has the story and the plan of the entire poem. 
 Whatever doubt he may have as to the meaning 
 of particular passages, he can have no doubt as 
 to the arrangement and purpose of the whole. 
 
 To many readers of The Ring and the Book, 
 one account of it seems amply sufficient, and if 
 we were concerned with the story alone the repeti- 
 tion of it might be wearisome. All we can know 
 about it is well and clearly stated in the first book 
 of the poem. The few incidents that are added 
 in the following books are not important enough 
 in themselves to justify the telling of the story 
 over again. 
 
METHOD AND THE SPIRIT 25 
 
 We may assume that the poet knew this as well 
 as any of his readers. He has deliberately chosen 
 to allow each one of his personages to give his 
 own version of the affair, not in order that we 
 may know more about it, but that we may learn 
 more-of— the-differen-t cha r ac ter s. — Ea£h~narrative 
 is a revelation of the thoughts and feelings of the 
 narrator and discloses something of his character, 
 so that when we have finished the poem we know 
 the men and women in it as otherwise we could 
 not hope to know them. To Browning the inci- 
 dents of the poem are of slight importance, com- 
 pared with the knowledge of the persons who 
 relate them. When, therefore, we adopt his point 
 of view the poem assumes an interest which grows 
 and deepens to its completion. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HALF-ROME AND THE OTHER HALF-ROME 
 
 The books of Half-Rome, The Other Half-Rome, 
 and Tertium Quid are, with the exception of 
 the pleas of the lawyers and The Book and the 
 Ring, the least interesting parts of the poem. 
 After reading the first book, one may pass to 
 the other parts without being aware of any 
 serious loss. But while these portions are lack- 
 ing in the intense interest which belongs to those 
 parts where the actors in the story speak for 
 themselves, they have value and significance in 
 the general structure of the whole poem. In 
 these r three books Brown in g allow s m tn hoar 
 again Jhe gossip of the street and th p drawing, 
 r oom as Rome heard it in 1698. The three per- 
 sons who speak in the successive books are 
 representative characters, meant to portray dif- 
 ferent phases of opinion and feeling. They 
 make us feel as if we were living in the atmos- 
 phere of the tragic events which had just taken 
 place, and as if we were looking at them in the 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 27 
 
 light of the prejudices, special experiences, sym- 
 pathies, and antipathies of those around us. 
 
 As we read these books we become aware, as 
 we could in no other way, of the sentiments with 
 which Rome was quivering. Browning, in fact, 
 has not drawn these representative characters 
 from his imagination alone. In "the square old 
 yellow book, part print, part manuscript," there 
 are two versions of the tragic event: one written 
 in sympathy with the husband, the other written 
 in sympathy with the wife. From these the 
 poet has drawn many of the statements and 
 pleas which we find in the particular poems. 
 Thus the poet did not create their opinions; he 
 found them, and quickened them with the life of 
 his own spirit. Tertium Quid, however, has 
 been framed by Browning from a comparison of 
 what ~he~fo~uiid~in t he^two^pamphle t s. In this 
 an atte mpt is made to g ive an impartial And 
 balanc£d_ai^ountjQLthe-VFh©leHstery. 
 
 The oftener I read these books the better 
 satisfied I am with them, the more conscious I 
 am of their vital significance, and the gladder I 
 am that they are where they are. The Ring and 
 the Book would have lost something of its total 
 impressiveness without these books, which the 
 impatient reader is sometimes disposed to pass 
 by or neglect. 
 
28 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 They contain many beautiful passages, taken 
 singly, but their main interest lies in the com- 
 parison of the different forms which the events 
 and characters assume as the persons in them 
 happen to take one side or the other. If we have 
 ever been inclined to talk of seeing things as 
 they are, these accounts will convince us that 
 we never do anything of the kind. We see only 
 according to what we ourselves are. Half-Rome 
 speaks of the parents of Pompilia as "these 
 wretched Comparini" and declares that Vic- 
 lante ought to be throttled for the deception she 
 had practised on Pietro and Guido, while The 
 Other Half-Rome describes the Comparini as 
 "nor low i' the social scale nor yet too high." 
 As for Violante, her deception was well meant; 
 nobody was consciously wronged by it, and, be- 
 sides, the soul of a child had been saved from 
 destruction. 
 
 The accounts of the causes and motives of the 
 marriage of Guido and Pompilia differ in the 
 same way. H alf-Rome asser ts that Vi olante had 
 used Pompilia as a bait to attract a""Eusban d and 
 that she "who had c aught one fish could make 
 the same _bait catch a _s jill_hieger one. So "her 
 minnow was set wriggling on its barb." Guido's 
 motive in marrying her is explained as his desire 
 to gain a "sweet drop from the bitter Past," "to 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 29 
 
 light the dark house," to "lend a look of youth 
 to the mother's face grown meagre," and to better 
 assert his right as elder brother in the home. 
 Then, too, Guido was a choice catch, even if 
 he was " past his prime and poor besides." He 
 was a nobleman, with powerful friends, and he 
 had "a palace one might run to and be safe" 
 from importunate creditors. Half-Rome declares 
 that Count Guido was made to "woo, win, and 
 wed at once," and was carried to San Lorenzo 
 and married "o' the sly there" by some "priest- 
 confederate properly paid to make short work 
 and sure," before he had time to think twice. 
 As for Pietro he did not know of the marriage, 
 in order that he might later play the part of the 
 offended and outraged father. 
 
 But The Other Half-Rome assures the reader 
 that the marriage of Guido and Pompilia was 
 proposed by ljuido's brother ; the Abate faolo, 
 who~ca me to the home of .Fompilia and pleaded 
 witETier mo ther Violante, w hile her father Pietro, 
 tookiiis~aTter-dinner nap. When, later, Violante 
 told her husband of the proposal, he was delighted 
 until he learned from his companions that Guido 
 was miserably poor, and that he would not look 
 at him or his if he had " one penny piece to rattle 
 twixt his palms." In consequence Pietro re- 
 fused to have anything to do with the proposed 
 
30 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 marriage, congratulating himself that while " there 
 was one hope the less" there was "not misery the 
 more." Afterward, however, without his consent 
 or knowledge, Pompilia was taken to the church 
 by her mother and there married to Guido by a 
 priest — "Abate Paolo, perhaps." Then Pietro 
 when he could do nothing else, gave his consent 
 and made the best he could of a bad matter. 
 
 The accounts of the old couple at Arezzo, in 
 the palace of Guido, differ from beginning to 
 end. Half-Rome accuses the Comparini of ex- 
 pecting too much and of anticipating rich ban- 
 quets and lavish expenditure, as if "Plutus paid 
 a whim." But Guido was through with all that; 
 he had found soapsuds bitter to the tongue and 
 hoped that by pinching and paring, he might 
 furnish forth 
 
 {'A frugal board, bare sustenance, no more, 
 Till times, that could not well grow worse, should mend." 
 
 This caused an outcry on the part of the Com- 
 parini, who complained to everybody that they 
 were compelled "to house as spectres in a sepul- 
 chre," the "grimmest in a gruesome town," to 
 "pick garbage on a pewter plate" — that they 
 were "robbed and starved and frozen too." They 
 called Guido's mother a "doited crone," "dragon 
 and devil," and also criticised and blamed what- 
 ever his brother Girolamo did. After four months 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 31 
 
 of this purgatory — "Dog-snap and cat-claw, 
 curse and counterblast" — they left Pompilia; 
 "bade Arezzo rot; cursed life signorial," and re- 
 turned to Rome. 
 
 The - Other Half-Rome in forms us that the 
 Cnmpnri'ni tmirh ed bottom at Are zzo. There 
 they had four months' experience of craft and 
 greed, quickened by penury and pretentious 
 hate; four months' taste of apportioned inso- 
 lence, of graduated cruelty and ruffianism, until 
 at last they fled for their lives to Rome, deeming 
 themselves lucky to bear off a shred of skin, — 
 while Guido remained "lord of the prey." 
 
 We have very different views of Pompilia's 
 conduct at Arezzo, after the departure of her 
 parents, in the two narratives. HalLRame__says 
 that when the parents had gone Pompilia, 
 pricked by some loyal impulse, wrote a letter in 
 which she declared that since Pietro and Vio- 
 lante had departed "hell was heaven" and the 
 house was now as quiet as "Carmel where the 
 lilies live." All her complaints were due to their 
 promptings. She furth er wrote that the y had 
 advised her to flee with a lover to Rome, first 
 putting poison in (juido's cup and stealing his 
 money and jewels. This Hah-itome assures us is 
 
 f'Fact . . . , and not a dream o' the devil . . . 
 Word for word, such a letter did she write." 
 
32 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 After this, however, Pompilia seems to have 
 changed her mind. The house was too dull. 
 She looked outside for life and light, and found 
 both in Caponsacchi, for whom she was always 
 watching at her windows. When Guido remon- 
 strated with her about her conduct she rushed 
 to the governor and to the archbishop, just to 
 torment him and make him the laughing-stock 
 of the town. 
 
 The Other Half-Rome asserts that the letter, 
 said J( T~Gave bmr written - by .Pompilia^ w as 
 reall y written b y her husband in pencil and re- 
 traced byher~in~InE She was* unable to Write 
 and had no knowledge of what she was induced 
 to copy. Then Guido deliberately set himself 
 to annoy her. He "chased her about the coop 
 of daily life" and planned so that no other way 
 of escape was left her than in the arms of Capon- 
 sacchi. When she had been forced to flee with 
 him, Guido expected to be able to brand her 
 as a castaway, and to gain all he wished, the 
 property and the divorce. Pompilia, maddened 
 by her misery and not knowing what to do, ap- 
 pealed to the governor and to the archbishop 
 for help, but both alike declined to interfere. 
 Then she went to a simple friar and begged him 
 to write a letter for her to her parents. This he 
 promised to do, but when he reflected that writ- 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 33 
 
 ing such a letter would involve him in danger, 
 he sighed at the mistake of matrimony and did 
 nothing. As a last resort she sought Caponsacchi, 
 whom she had never seen before, and begged 
 him to take her to Rome ; — and this he con- 
 sented to do. Does this seem improbable ? " So 
 is the legend of my patron saint." 
 
 In the account of the flight of Pompilia 
 with Caponsacchi Half jlome says that Pompilia 
 drugge d Guido, stole his money and jewelry, a nd 
 having thus "spoiled the Philistines," jaunted 
 jollily with her lover to Rome. B ut The Ot her 
 Half-Rome claims that she rose u p in the d ark, 
 laid hands on what came first, "clothes and a 
 trinket or two," and stole from the side of her 
 sleeping husband (who was perhaps sleeping, 
 certainly silent), and then moved " unem barrassed 
 as a fate" from room to room, to the door. 
 "Wife and priest alike reply 
 '. This is the simple thing it claims to be, 
 A course we took for life and honour's sake,' . . . 
 She says, 'God put it in my head to fly, 
 As when the martin migrates : . . . 
 And so we did fly rapidly all night, 
 All day, all night — a longer night — again, 
 And then another day, longest of days, 
 . . . one thought filled both, 
 {' Fly and arrive!"'" 
 
 Half- Rome sneers at Caponsacchi "as s ym- 
 pathy made j lesh," "Apollos turned Apollo," and 
 
34 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 declares that he was always "felt everywhere 
 in Guido's path." He says that Caponsacchi 
 threw comfits to Pompilia in the theatre, "pressed 
 close till his foot touched hers," and that Guido 
 suspected some falseness, but he could do noth- 
 ing. The Ot her Half-Ro me maintains that Ca- 
 ponsacchi must of n ecessity be in Guido's way, 
 since_b_Gin_ot them 
 
 "moved in the regular magnate's march; 
 Each must observe the other's tread and halt 
 At church, saloon, theatre, house of play." 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that he "saw, pitied, 
 loved Pompilia." They "understood each other 
 at first look." 
 
 So differ also the conceptions of Guido. 
 Half Rome doolarca that ho was fnrrpH hy the 
 conduct of Pietro and Violante t o drive the m 
 frc- m his hom e. He could not endure their 
 clamor and the exposure they made of its poverty. 
 After they had gone he treated Pompilia, at first, 
 with kindness. He did not turn her out of doors ; 
 his compassion saved her from scandal. "All 
 might go well yet." He treated her somewhat 
 harshly only when he had reason to suspect her, 
 only when he began to see the marks of Capon- 
 sacchi everywhere, as when "the trouble of 
 eclipse hangs overhead." Then he is harsh be- 
 cause he has the right to judge. 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 35 
 
 Bu t The Other Half-Rome states that Guid o 
 meantj rom the first to drive Pietro and Violan te 
 away by "graduated cruelty," and that it was 
 also his purpose to force Pompilia by devilish 
 devices into a life of shame and so to get rid of 
 her while he retained the dowry. 
 
 " So should the loathed form and detested face 
 Launch themselves into hell and there be lost. 
 While he looked o'er the brink with folded arms." 
 
 There are striking contrasts, again, in the 
 judgments of Guido's motive in committing the 
 murder and of his right to take the course 
 he pursued. Half-Ro me tells us that the 
 ne ws of the birth of a son was the last d rop, 
 whic h poisoned Guido to the bon e. Then "the 
 overburdened mind broke down," and "what 
 was a brain became a blaze." He suggests that 
 Guido named Caponsacchi at the door of the 
 villa in order to make a last experiment to prove 
 the innocence of Pompilia. He describes Guido's 
 companions as " four stout hearts who had sisters 
 and wives." Guido, he alleges, had indeed at 
 first appealed to the courts, but since they had 
 given him no aid he reverted to his original right, 
 — the right of an injured husband. True, he 
 overdid the matter, but his deed had made it bet- 
 ter for "husbands of wives, especially in Rome." 
 
36 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 But The Other Half- Rome asserts that G uido 
 was moved to murder P ietro, Violante, andPom- 
 pilia beca use when these were o ut of the way 
 his ggnjgnnlH V»<» tVio Vipir tn all tho pi pnev an d 
 he himse lf the only custod ian of the helpless in- 
 fant. That he named Caponsacchi at the door 
 oFTne villa showed he knew that Caponsacchi 
 was not within, since otherwise "The man's 
 own self might have been found inside." He 
 designates his four companions as "brutes of 
 his breeding." After Guido's appeal to law he 
 had no right to resort to violence; to allow that 
 were "too commodious." 
 
 It will be seen that in Half-Rome we have 
 a narrative of the affair according to those who 
 were in sympathy with the husband, Guido. It 
 gives us, in a distinct and well-defined form, th e 
 sentiments of those who favor ed his action and 
 approv ed His course ! The person who expresses 
 this phase of popular feeling comes before us in 
 a critical mood. The Roman government was 
 at that time entirely in the hands of ecclesiastics, 
 and the court was composed of those who had 
 condemned Guido. Hence those who defended 
 him were inclined to find fault with everything 
 that was done or left undone. 
 
 Thus Half-Rome begins with a word of reproach 
 for the prie sts of San Loren zo. 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 37 
 
 "Fie ! what a roaring day we 've had I Whose fault? 
 Lorenzo in Lucina, — here 's a church 
 To hold a crowd at need, accommodate 
 All comers from the Corso ! If this crush 
 Make not its priests ashamed of what they show 
 For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse 
 And down with brick and mortar, eke us out 
 The beggarly transept with its bit of apse 
 Into a decent space for Christian ease, 
 Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine." 
 
 He has his contemptuous word for the wooden 
 railing in the church, which the crowd broke, 
 painted like porphyry to deceive the eye. He also 
 has a keen vision for pretense, as we see in his 
 account of the young curate, who comes into the 
 church, mounts the pulpit, and attributes this 
 terrible tragedy to the influence of Molinism 
 "the philosophic sin" — because the cardinal 
 who had written a book on that heresy were pres- 
 ent. He approves of the conduct of Guido, on 
 the whole, but there is a touch of cynicism in his 
 approval. People would care more for him if 
 he were less known, and were not still alive. Half- 
 Rome shows himself a shrewd observer of social 
 ways. He knows how people defer to nobility, 
 and he appreciates the value of being connected 
 with "a nobleman with friends," who has a 
 palace in which one may be safe from importunate 
 creditors. 
 At the same time he fully understands the shifts 
 
38 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 to which impecunious nobility must resort, "the 
 pinching and paring" to get "bare sustenance"; 
 "the cold glories served up with three paul's 
 worth sauce." But with all his shrewdness and 
 keen perception of actual facts his bias is so 
 decidedly in favor of Guido that he takes all he 
 says about his affairs as absolutely true. He 
 acce pts without a doubt the story t hat Pompi lia 
 wrote a _fot pr pftor th» rlgpaT-Hi rf > f .f her repute d 
 pa rents, as h e accepts the correspondence between 
 Caponsacchi a nd .Pompilia without criticis m. As 
 he has no doubt of Guido's word, so he has no 
 faith in Pompilia's honor. He assumes, as a 
 matter of course, that she must be guilty of what 
 is imputed to her, because she belongs to a certain 
 class and has been placed under certain circum- 
 stances. She found herself he says, young and 
 fair, and that her husband was old and poor, 
 and so she did what all like her do, "looked out 
 of the window for life and liberty" — and found 
 both in Caponsacchi. 
 
 He displays the same kind of class judgment, 
 when he comes to consider Caponsacchi. He 
 was a priest, fine looking, in great favor with 
 society in Arezzo, and with abundant leisure; 
 he must have done what Guido said he did. 
 Taking for granted, as he does, Pompilia's mis- 
 conduct at the inn, he sees in her act of drawing 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 39 
 
 the sword of Guido, and threatening his life, only 
 an exhibition of effrontery. He has only a sneer 
 for the popular opinion in her favor. Guido, he 
 thinks, overdid his act, but he was engaged in a 
 good cause, in the interest of the rights of the 
 family, which he always regards as necessarily 
 identical with those of the husband. 
 
 At the close of the poem he clearly reveals the 
 motive which has animated him, and which, no 
 doubt, represents the motives of many about him. 
 He had been annoyed by the attention which the 
 cousin of the one to whom he was talking had 
 been paying his wife. This deed of Guido, 
 though somewhat exaggerated, since he had 
 killed three instead of one, had made it worse 
 for him, but 
 
 ."The better for you and me and all the world, — 
 Husbands of wives, especially in Rome. 
 The thing is put right, in the old place, — ay 
 The rod hangs on its nail behind the door, 
 Fresh from the brine : a matter I commend 
 To the notice, during Carnival that 's near, 
 Of a certain what 's-his-name and jackanapes 
 Somewhat too civil of eves with lute and song 
 About a house here, where I keep a wife. 
 (You being his cousin may go tell him so.) " 
 
 To T he Other Half-Rome the continued exist- 
 ence of Pomp ilia seems a miracl e. She had prayed 
 for this, and her last prayer had been answered. 
 
40 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 He notes the difference between her as she was 
 a few days since, when no one noticed her, and 
 now when the great artist Maratta declares "a 
 lovelier face is not in Rome." He shows moral 
 perception in his judgment of Violante who had 
 passed off Pompilia as her own child. At first 
 it might seem as if she had done what was almost 
 praiseworthy in taking her from the slums, and 
 nurturing her in a good home. " What so exces- 
 sive harm was done?" To which, he thinks, 
 the dreadful answer came in this tragedy which 
 had taken place. 
 
 His sympathy with Pompilia causes him to 
 believe what the companions of Guido had said, 
 that all of him was "gone except sloth, pride, 
 rapacity." So, too, his sympathy makes it easy 
 for him to believe that the story of Caponsacchi's 
 conduct was no more improbable than the story 
 of his" patro n^ saint . He believed in fhe one~case 
 what he wanted to believe, why not in the other ? 
 Men acted from unusual motives ages ago, why 
 not now ? Even out of his unreasoning sympathy 
 there had grown a noble insight. 
 
 "At last she took to the open, stood and stared 
 With her wan face to see where God might wait — 
 And there found Caponsacchi wait as well 
 For the precious something at perdition's edge, 
 He only was predestinate to save, — 
 And if they recognized in a critical flash 
 
THE OTHER HALF-ROME 41 
 
 From the zenith, each the other, her need of him, 
 His need of . . . say, a woman to perish for, 
 The regular way o' the world, yet break no vow, 
 Do no harm save to himself, — if this were thus? 
 How do you say? It were improbable; 
 So is the legend of my patron-saint. 
 
 Anyhow, whether, as Guido states the case, 
 Pompilia, like a starving wretch i' the street 
 Who stops and rifles the first passenger 
 In the great right of an excessive wrong, — 
 Did somehow call this stranger and he came, — 
 Or whether the strange sudden interview 
 Blazed as when star and star must needs go close 
 Till each hurts each and there is loss in heaven — 
 Whatever way in this strange world it was, — 
 Pompilia and Caponsacchi met, in fine, 
 She at her window, he i' the street beneath, 
 And understood each other at first look." 
 
 This sympathy with Pompilia makes him con- 
 scious of Guido's intentions. He has no special 
 knowledge of these, but compassion makes him 
 wise, and he enters into the motive, which, Pom- 
 pilia says, made her leave her husband's home: 
 
 " ' God put it in my head to fly, 
 As when the marten migrates : autumn claps 
 Her hands, cries "Winter 's coming, will be here, 
 Off with you ere the white teeth overtake ! 
 Flee I" So I fled.'" 
 
 He realizes that she obeyed the great call of nature 
 which prompts the she-dove to seek "the un- 
 known shelter by undreamed-of shores." He has 
 
42 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 no patience with Guido's plea that he had a right 
 to resort to violence after he had applied to the 
 courts to decide his case: one or the other he 
 ought to follow. To take the law and then, after 
 it had failed him, to resort to violence was "too 
 commodious" and would not do. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 TERTIUM QUID 
 
 We hav e heard voices tellin g the story of The 
 Rin g and the Bo ok as they happen ed to be ad- 
 vocates of the wife or of the husband! In Tertium 
 Quid we hear the voic e, not of an advocate but 
 of one who poses as judge and who sums up the 
 poss ible arguments which may hpi nrgprl nn hath 
 sides. He is fully aware that his presentation of 
 the affair is far superior to the popular view. 
 There has been, he thinks, enough loose and pas- 
 sionate talk, and now the time has come "to allow 
 qualified persons to pronounce." Some people 
 think law will clear it all up, but law has already 
 failed. He recounts contemptuously the plead- 
 ings of the lawyers, expresses his gratification at 
 being able to entertain people of quality, and, at 
 the same time, his contempt for the mob, and 
 then proceeds to give a detailed account of the 
 condition and conduct of Pietro and Violante up 
 to the time of the marriage of Pompilia. In his 
 description of the act of Violante in passing off 
 Pompilia, the child of a public woman, for her 
 own, he dwells on the good as well as the evil in 
 
44 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 it. We might, he says, infer from this incident 
 in her life that she was capable of 
 
 "Black hard cold 
 Crime like a stone you kick up with your foot 
 I' the middle of a field." 
 
 So he himself thought formerly, bu t he now con- 
 siders^ the good t hat has come from her de ed: 
 "The _sin ha s saved a soul." The heirs to the 
 property are not wronged because they do not 
 know they are wronged. Then he knows that 
 Pietro was made a better man through the child; 
 his habits are improved, he learns how to practise 
 self-denial, and his debts are paid. Violante 
 herself, being happy, was good. 
 
 In t he matter of the marriage neither party-w as 
 really deceived. Each got what he bargained for. 
 Guido got the money and the bride got the title. 
 Neither party, however, obtained all he hoped 
 by the transaction. The aged couple found this 
 out first. They saw that Guido was penniless, and 
 at once screamed "We are cheated." It was not 
 until Guido's cruelty forced them to leave his 
 house that Violante confessed that Pompilia was 
 not her own child, and that Pietro saw in the con- 
 fession his opportunity of revenge and advantage. 
 
 But Guido retorts that he is the wronged one. 
 He did what he promised, and conferred a real 
 title upon his wife. That he was poor was a mere 
 
TERTIUM QUID 45 
 
 incident which might change at any time. But 
 the old couple had promised to give him their 
 child in marriage, and instead, they had given 
 him "a drab's brat." It is hard to determine 
 which of the two parties was ch eater or cheated. 
 
 Guido's treatment of his wife is explained, on 
 the one hand, by his desire to drive her into a life 
 of shame and to compel her to accept the atten- 
 tions of Caponsacchi. On the other hand, it may 
 be urged that it is not necessary to resort to such 
 unusual reasons for Pompilia's conduct; the 
 perversity and weakness of woman's nature might 
 account for that. 
 
 Then, why should Guido frighten his wife with 
 dread of Caponsacchi, if he wanted her to flee 
 with him? The case had been heard and tried 
 in the Tuscan courts, and they had decided in 
 favor of Guido; how then could his conduct be 
 such as was imputed to him ? Even if he wished 
 her to take Caponsacchi as her lover and to flee 
 with him, how could he bring the priest, over 
 whom he had no power, to take his part in the 
 transaction? Admit, too, that Pompilia was 
 wronged, does that justify Caponsacchi's conduct 
 and make it right for him to " Go journeying with 
 a woman that's a wife?" 
 
 Again, it is contended by the priest that he had 
 had no previous acquaintance with the wife, and 
 
46 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 that he felt the truth by instinct. But Guido 
 replies that Caponsacchi did visit his wife and 
 that letters were carried from one to the other by 
 a wench in his own house, and that these letters 
 were found in the inn where they were overtaken 
 and arrested. To this, however, reply is made 
 by both Pompilia and Caponsacchi, that not one 
 word in the letters was written by either of them. 
 Guido, they say, who would profit by them, 
 forged them. On behalf of Guido, it is urged 
 that he had no need to resort to the devices at- 
 tributed to him. He had shown himself a man of 
 force in the end, why should he resort to "weak 
 intrigues" in the beginning? Poison or even 
 violence in his own house would with little or 
 no risk have attained the same result. But. to 
 this the priest may reply: You use violence at 
 last because, like a fox, you will turn when caught. 
 Then, in the end, the birth of the child made 
 Pompilia's murder profitable to Guido. In de- 
 fence of himself the priest replied, "Knowing 
 also what my duty was, I did it." 
 
 Guido's conduct when he had overtaken the 
 fleeing pair at the inn is capable of different in- 
 terpretations. His enemies say that having failed 
 to act at the moment and submitted himself to 
 the courts, he had lost all right to act afterward. 
 But Guido's friends may urge that everybody 
 
TERTIUM QUID 47 
 
 applauded his appeal to the courts. These had 
 really decided nothing, wavering between the two 
 parties, and Guido, maddened by their delay, 
 took on himself the office of judge in his own 
 case. Even suppose he was a coward, has not 
 a coward rights ? Then, too, it may be urged in 
 behalf of Guido, that a wrong like his grows not 
 less but more with the lapse of time. 
 
 Pompilia's conduct in her dying hours may be 
 capable of different interpretations: it is as ex- 
 plicable on the supposition of guilt as of inno- 
 cence. Some may and do say that her words 
 and prayers show "she was of wifehood, one white 
 innocence." Others say that they only show she 
 was consistent in her evil from the beginning to 
 the end of her life, and that as she has "braved 
 heaven and deceived earth throughout," so now 
 she does the same to clear her lover and convict 
 her husband. TW^.m Qnirl — thin Ira _t here is 
 great exaggeration on both sides. 
 
 The wife's friends exclaim over the enormous 
 crime committed for nothing. They will not 
 allow that she merited any punishment. They 
 must make her out an angel, and her parents 
 angels too, " of an aged sort." Guido can hardly 
 be the man his enemies suppose him to be. He 
 is not a "monster" but a "mere man." His 
 mother loves him, his brothers stand by him, the 
 
48 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 archbishop and governor of his native place know, 
 approve, and aid him. He has cardinals who 
 vouch for him and one of them made the marriage 
 for him. Can such a man commit the awfullest 
 of crimes for nothing? It may be that Guido is 
 innocent and is really sacrificed to the popular 
 clamor for justice. 
 
 While Tertium Quid decides nothing his version 
 of the whole attair gives us the materials upon 
 whicna judgmeni can be based. He also pro- 
 vides information whic h so far we have not h aid, 
 and which adds to our knowledge of some of the 
 characters and their doings. He gives us, to begin 
 with, the fullest account of the way in which Fietro 
 _a,nd Violante lived: the easy self-satisfaction of 
 
 3 ietro in his good living, and the pride of Violante 
 in her fine clothes. He indicates how they came 
 to be in debt and were compelled to seek help 
 from the largess of the Pope. He tells us how 
 Violante proposes to remedy this state of things 
 by providing an heir; how she goes to the miser- 
 able home of the future mother of Pompilia, and 
 so overawes the poor woman with the "swirl of 
 silk" that she imagines the Madonna herself has 
 made her a visit. The woman herself is vividly 
 portrayed, and we know her almost as well as if 
 we had seen her washing clothes "at the cistern 
 by Citorio." We overhear the proposition made 
 
TERTIUM QUID 49 
 
 to her to sell her future child. We have learned 
 the fact before, but in the fuller statement it 
 becomes more real. Tertium Quid enables us to 
 follow Violante as she marches in triumph over 
 the success of her scheme to the church and joins 
 in the singing of the Magnificat: 
 
 " ' My reproof is taken away 
 And blessed shall mankind proclaim me now.' " 
 
 so that the priest on the altar turns to see who 
 offers such obstreperous praise. 
 
 He gives us a more complete account of Guido 
 and his family. We learn all the miserable econ- 
 omies of Guido's home; how one of the sons 
 entered the church, how the daughters are mar- 
 ried, how Guido in the hope of a fortune came to 
 Rome and served a cardinal there for thirty years, 
 and how, when he had been at last dropped from 
 his service, he proposed to return to Arezzo, his 
 ancestral home. He gives us the advice of Guido's 
 brother Paolo that he should marry and so gain 
 a little money to take home with him. He de- 
 scribes Guido's visit to the barber who told him 
 of Pompilia and Paolo's visit to Violante. Tertium 
 Quid gives the details of Pompilia's visit to the 
 hermit and the meditation of the hermit afterward. 
 
 "a certain friar of mean degree 
 Who heard her story in confession, wept, 
 4 
 
50 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Crossed himself, showed the man within the monk. 
 
 ' Then will you save me, you the one i' the world ? 
 
 I cannot even write my woes, nor put 
 
 My prayer for help in words a friend may read, — 
 
 I no more own a coin than have an hour 
 
 Free of observance, — I was watched to church, 
 
 Am watched now, shall be watched back presently, — 
 
 How buy the skill of scribe i' the market-place? 
 
 Pray you write down and send whatever I say 
 
 O' the need I have my parents take me hence ! ' 
 
 The good man rubbed his eyes and could not choose — 
 
 Let her dictate her letter in such a sense 
 
 That parents, to save breaking down a wall, 
 
 Might lift her over : she went back, heaven in her heart. 
 
 Then the good man took counsel of his couch, 
 
 Woke and thought twice, the second thought the best : 
 
 'Here I am, foolish body that I be, 
 
 Caught all but pushing, teaching, who but I, 
 
 My betters their plain duty, — what, I dare 
 
 Help a case the Archbishop would not help, 
 
 Mend matters, peradventure, God loves mar? 
 
 What hath the married life but strifes and plagues 
 
 For proper dispensation? So a fool 
 
 Once touched the ark, — poor Uzzah that I am 1 
 
 Oh married ones, much rather should I bid 
 
 In patience all of ye possess your souls ! 
 
 This life is brief and troubles die with it : 
 
 Where were the prick to soar up homeward else? * 
 
 So saying he burnt the letter he had writ, 
 
 Said Ave for her intention, in its place, 
 
 Took snuff and comfort, and had done with all." 
 
 The fact of the murder we have known before, 
 but Tertium Quid gives some details which make 
 it vivid. We hear Pietro as 
 
TERTIUM QUID 51 
 
 ''He bellows, 'Mercy for heaven, not for earth I 
 Leave to confess and save my sinful soul, 
 Then do your pleasure on the body of me I ' " 
 
 and we hear Guido reply 
 
 J' Nay, father, soul with body must take its chance." 
 
 We see Pompilia as she 
 
 "rushes here and there 
 Like a dove among the lightnings in her brake." 
 
 and Guido as 
 
 f'He lifts her by the long dishevelled hair 
 Holds her away at arm's length with one hand, 
 While the other tries if life come from the mouth — 
 Looks out his whole heart's hate on the shut eyes, 
 Draws a deep satisfied breath, ' So, dead at last 1 ' 
 Throws down the burden on dead Pietro's knees 
 And ends all with 'Let us away, my boys.' " 
 
 When Guido was arrested, he asked who told 
 them 't was he who did the deed. And on hearing 
 the reply, "Why, naturally your wife," he 
 
 "drops 
 O' the horse he rode, — they have to steady and stay, 
 At either side the brute that bore him, bound, 
 So strange it seemed his wife should live and speak ! " 
 
 Tertium Quid tells us for the first time of the 
 decision of the Tuscan courts against Pompilia, 
 of which Guido made all he could. All this is 
 knowledge which a person of the superior social 
 section might be supposed to have. 
 
52 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 As we ex amine further the character of T er- 
 tiu nT Quid, we see thai th* p ersgnwho speaks 
 here has evidently taken great pains to acquire 
 all possible iiifuimatio n. He has no confi dence 
 in- the ab ffity~of the law to get at the actual fact; 
 he understands the mechanical and external 
 methods it uses. He repres ents th g__s_uperior 
 clasSj. and all that he says shows him to be o ne 
 whose education fits him to take a more disp as- 
 si onate view of the incidents in the case of G uido, 
 while, aljvhg same time , it shows him to be a 
 man whose sympathies do not extend beyond 
 his partic ular set He is very considerate "of 
 those among whom he moves; he desires to do 
 whatever will add to their pleasure and to avoid 
 whatever will cause them annoyance or incon- 
 venience. For those outside his aristocratic 
 circle, however, he has no concern. They are 
 of another sort and have nothing in common 
 with people of his kind. He does not enter int o 
 the feelings of the people in his story. H e scorn- 
 fully refers to the "mob" whose opinion is worth- 
 less compared with his. The trouble with people, 
 he says, is that they forget that they are only 
 dealing with the "commonalty." This is merely 
 an "episode in burgess life," and people talk as 
 if they had to do with "a noble pair." To him 
 there are different codes for different sets of peo- 
 
TERTIUM QUID 53 
 
 pie, and heJdames-BietrcLjai nd Violante be cause 
 "thems elves love th emselves "^al though such a 
 course is "far from worst even for their betters." 
 He describes them as "human slugs," and 
 "pauper saints." He thinks it would be better 
 for the Pope to crush such people instead of 
 feeding them. He has no patience with a 
 woman like Violante, and says of her 
 
 ."Judge by the way she bore adversity 
 O' the patient nature you ask pity for.'* 
 
 His account of the affair is impartial and balanced, 
 but it lacks any real insight. 
 
 Tertium Quid does not bring us a step n earer 
 to the actual truth. He has information but no 
 sympathy with the parties about whom he has 
 taken so much trouble to inform himself. Never 
 for a moment does he catch a glimpse of the 
 pure motive of Pompilia. It does not require, 
 he thinks, all the malicious devices of Guido to 
 cause her to flee with the priest, any more than 
 it requires that Etna should vomit flames to melt 
 an icicle. Her conduct can be explained by more 
 obvious reasons: 
 
 f'We must not want all this elaborate work 
 To solve the problem why young Fancy-and-flesh 
 Slips from the dull side of a spouse in years, 
 Betakes it to the breast of Brisk-and-bold 
 Whose love-scrapes furnish talk for all the town ! " 
 
54 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 NoT_hm Tftrtinm Quid pny rtweptinn of 
 
 Gui do's real character. He thinks he cannot 
 be as bad as his enemies say he is. He has 
 been "born, bred, and brought up" in the usual 
 way. His mother loves him, his brothers stand 
 by him, the Archbishop and Governor of his 
 native town favor him, he has been in the house- 
 hold of a cardinal who arranged his marriage. 
 Such an one need not be a "monster" but only 
 "a mere man." People, he thin ks, are m is- 
 take n in regarding PompTIia as an an gel and 
 Gui do as a demon: pg3J3p q ^ tr "tl i lies^b e- 
 tweeih, Pompilia may have been a little to blame, 
 while Guido was inconsiderate in his treatment 
 of her. It is significant that his version of the 
 story has no interest for those to whom he talks. 
 They wish to be somewhere else, and he closes 
 with the muttered remark 
 
 "You '11 see, I have not so advanced myself, 
 After my teaching the two idiots here ! " 
 
 After all, the world cares very little for versions 
 of events, the balance between probabilities, 
 without any vital concern for the persons engaged 
 in them. It loves the plea of the advocate and 
 the statement of one who puts his heart into 
 what he says. It is not regardless of the truth, 
 but, with a correct instinct, it feels that a speaker 
 
TERTIUM QUID 55 
 
 is not nearer to the real facts because of his in- 
 difference. History is not correct because it is 
 impartial and dull. It may be that Brownin g 
 takes occasion in Tertium Quid to satirize the 
 kind of history whic h depends more upon in- 
 formation painful ly heap pfl ^p fl"^ ^repii-orf. in 
 
 some external way than for the insight wh ich 
 thro ugh sympathy divines the real motives and 
 charact er s of m e n-and womon. The l isteners , to 
 Tertium_ Quid, no doub t, thought he was clever, 
 but they knew he bored them. So many p raise 
 the laborious compiler of mere facts, but they do 
 not rea d him. Interest belongs to the histo rian 
 
 Who Cares for tfinsp nf mnnm np writQBr — 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 COUNT GUIDO FKANCESCHINI 
 
 We have heard the story of The Ring and the 
 Book as related first by the poet, who has put 
 the life of his spirit into it, then by voices of the 
 Rome of 1698, speaking on one side or the 
 other on the street, or on either side in the draw- 
 ing rooms. These speak, however, as representa- 
 tive characters. But now we hear the narrative 
 of one who has a vital personal interest in the 
 matter, and is an integral element in the story. 
 Count Guido Franceschini knows that every 
 word he says may count for life or death. 
 
 Guido appears to plead his cause before the 
 jiifW-t-rrt th° hnm nn miir r.. He has been severely 
 racked, but he is determined to assume the most 
 gracious mood. He thanks the court for giving 
 him wine when he had expected only vinegar. 
 He disclaims all bitterness of feeling for the 
 sufferings he had been compelled to undergo: 
 they were only what the law demanded. And, 
 after all, these physical sufferings were as nothing 
 compared with the "rasp-tooth toying with his 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 57 
 
 brain" during the last four years. The poverty 
 of his home, the exposure of its economies, the 
 scandalous reports about his treatment of his 
 wife and her actual misconduct; these things 
 had caused him more anguish than the court 
 could inflict. Its mistake had been simply, "to 
 make a stone roll down hill," "to make him ope 
 mouth in his own defence." He— ack nowledg es 
 that he killed Pompilia and the Comp arini, an d 
 he proposes t o give the right interpretation o f 
 th e "irregular deed ." 
 
 His defence falls into three main divisions. 
 The first division, with the exception of the in- 
 troduction just described, is entirely devoted to 
 an account of his life experience up to the time 
 of his marriage to Pompilia. He relates this 
 to show that his present condition is due to the 
 fact that he had been willing to walk in the path 
 prescribed for him. He relates the history of 
 his family, recalls its former wealth and power, 
 and notes the poverty into which it had fallen. 
 "We became poor as Francis or our Lord." 
 He says he was led by this state of his family to 
 consider why such-an-one, whose grandfather 
 sold tripe, was adding a fourth tower to his " pur- 
 chased pile," while his own palace "could hardly 
 show a turret sound"; why another, whose 
 father "dressed vines," should roll in wealth 
 
58 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 and luxury. He observed that the first was a 
 soldier, the second a priest. He thought he 
 might do as they had done, if he should enter 
 either the army or the church. To this, however, 
 his relatives would not listen. It would not do 
 for him — the oldest son, to risk his life in battle 
 or to doom his family to extinction by taking 
 the vow of celibacy. That might do for his 
 brothers but not for him. 
 
 So Guido went to Rome, took minor orders, 
 which brought him near the church and yet left 
 him free from some of its obligations, and entered 
 the service of a cardinal. In that service he 
 waited for thirty years. At the end of that time 
 he became discouraged, and said to his friends : — 
 
 " 'I am tired: Arezzo 's air is good to breathe; 
 Vittiano, — one limes flocks of thrushes there; 
 A leathern coat costs little and lasts long : 
 Let me bid hope good-bye, content at home ! '" 
 
 His friends protested against his withdrawal. 
 Like gamblers they did not like to have one of 
 their number leave too much discouraged at his 
 losses. But his brother, the Abate Paolo, said 
 
 to him : — " """"* 
 
 !' 'Count you are counted; still you 've coat to back, 
 Not cloth of gold and tissue, as we hoped, 
 But cloth with sparks and spangles on its frieze 
 From Camp, Court, Church, enough to make a shine. 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 59 
 
 Entitle you to carry home a wife. 
 
 With the proper dowry, let the worst betide ! 
 
 Why, it was just a wife you meant to take I' " 
 
 Paolo found out that Pietro and Violante had 
 
 a daughter, and a small fortune. - He told Guido: 
 
 " ' She 's young, 
 Pretty and rich; you 're noble, classic, choice. 
 Is it to be a match? ' " 
 
 Guido accepted all and was married to 
 Pompilia. 
 
 He says that when his trouble came he was 
 asked 
 
 " 'What? 
 No blush at the avowal you dared buy 
 A girl of age beseems your granddaughter, 
 like ox or ass? Are flesh and blood a ware? 
 Are heart and soul a chattel ? ' " 
 
 In reply to this he boldly avows that his mar- 
 riage was~ pur ely a b usiness— ffahsaction, — so 
 much money for so much nobility. Honor is 
 a privilege, worth the market price, to be sold to 
 the one who will pay most for it. True, he says, 
 Pietro and Violante soon grew tired of the bar- 
 gain, just as others may of a picture they have 
 purchased. They found his way of living very 
 different from what they had imagined it, and 
 could not endure it. But Guido claims, 
 
 f'l paid down all engaged for, to a doit; 
 Delivered them just that which, their life long, 
 
60 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 They hungered in the hearts of them to gain — 
 
 Incorporation with nobility thus 
 
 In word and deed : for that they gave me wealth." 
 
 Pietro and Violante had the name they bargained 
 for, and the lot was none 
 
 "other than the daily hap 
 Of purblind greed that dog-like still drops bone, 
 Grasps shadow, and then howls the case is hard." 
 
 Guido discusses the obligations of marriage, 
 and seeks to justify his treatment of Pompilia 
 and his conduct in general. He declares that 
 Pompilia "broke her pact" — and that he had 
 a right to be harsh. He denies that marriage 
 called for love on his part. If some one's daughter 
 had avowed her love for him, and appealed to 
 his love for her 
 
 "Then indeed 
 The lady had not reached a man of ice I 
 I would haye rummaged, ransacked at the word 
 Those old odd corners of an empty heart 
 For remnants of dim love the long disused, 
 And dusty crumblings of romance ! But here, 
 We talk of just a marriage, if you please — 
 The every day conditions and no more." 
 
 Guido had married Pompilia as one would pur- 
 chase a haw k: and if Lhn 1m, wk <1i iRT -rnv rrprtdpy 
 the expected service he has a right to " twist her 
 neck." He says: 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 61 
 
 ."The obligation I incurred was just 
 To practice mastery, prove my mastership : — 
 Pompilia's duty was — submit herself, 
 Afford me pleasure, perhaps cure my bile." 
 
 He maintains that Pompilia had no more right 
 to complain of his treatment than the monk who 
 found the "claustral regimen too sharp" because 
 he had "fancied Francis' manna meant roast 
 quails." Guido then says : 
 
 "The couple, father and mother of my wife, 
 Returned to Rome, published before my lords, 
 Put into print, made circulate far and wide 
 That they had cheated me, who cheated them. 
 Pompilia, I supposed their daughter, drew 
 Breath first 'mid Rome's worst rankness, through the 
 
 deed 
 Of a drab and a rogue, was bye-blow bastard-babe 
 Of a nameless strumpet, passed off, palmed on me 
 As the daughter with the dowry. Daughter? Dirt 
 O' the kennel I Dowry? Dust o' the street 1 Naught 
 
 more, 
 Not less, naught else but — oh — ah — assuredly 
 A Franceschini and my very wife 1 " 
 
 He then states what Pompilia ought, out of sheer 
 gratitude because he had not turned her out of 
 doors, to have said after her reputed parents 
 had fled. 
 
 "Why here 's the — word for word, so much, no more — 
 Avowal she made, her pure spontaneous speech 
 To my brother the Abate at first blush, 
 Ere the good impulse had begun to fade : 
 So did she make confession for the pair, 
 So pour forth praises in her own behalf." 
 
62 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 In answer to the accusation that this was the 
 
 language of a letter which he himself had written 
 
 and caused her to trace, he allows its truth and 
 
 urges that he only 
 
 "made her see 
 What it behoved her see and say and do, 
 Feel in her heart and with her tongue declare. — " 
 
 He seeks to justify this by comparing it with the 
 act of the priest who causes "the palsy smitten 
 finger" to make the sign of the cross "at the 
 critical time" or who baptizes "the inarticulate 
 babe" who may grow up and disown what is 
 done. But, Guido continues, Pompilia "soon 
 discovered she was young and fair" — and in- 
 stead of acting as, in view of the reports of her 
 birth, she should have acted, she displayed 
 her charms, and found a lover in the priest 
 Caponsacchi. 
 
 "It was in the house from the window, at the church 
 From the hassock — where the theatre lent its lodge, 
 Or staging for the public show left space, — 
 That still Pompilia needs must find herself 
 Launching her looks forth, letting looks reply 
 As arrows to a challenge; on all sides 
 Ever new contribution to her lap, 
 Till one day, what is it knocks at my clenched teeth 
 But the cup full, curse-collected all for me? 
 And I must needs drink, drink this gallant's praise, 
 That minion's prayer, the other fop's reproach, 
 And come at the dregs to — Caponsacchi 1 " 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 63 
 
 It is true he was harsh, but it would have been 
 better for all if he had been even more severe, 
 and, he says : 
 
 "If I, — instead of threatening, talking big, 
 Showing hair-powder, a prodigious pinch, 
 For poison in a bottle, — making believe 
 At desperate doings with a bauble-sword, 
 And other bugaboo-and-baby-work, — 
 Had, with the vulgarest household implement, 
 Calmly and quietly cut off, clean thro' bone 
 But one joint of one finger of my wife, 
 
 Why, there had followed a quick sharp scream, some pain, 
 Much calling for plaister, damage to the dress, 
 A somewhat sulky countenance next day, 
 Perhaps reproaches, — but reflections too 1 
 
 So, by this time, my true and obedient wife 
 Might have been telling beads with a gloved hand; 
 Awkward a little at pricking hearts and darts 
 On sampler possibly, but well otherwise : 
 Not where Rome shudders now to see her lie." 
 
 The result of the course which he did adopt 
 was that he awoke one morning to find that 
 Pompilia had eloped with Caponsacchi. He 
 pursued and overtook them. Every one blamed 
 him, he says, for not taking his revenge at the 
 time he found them : then was the time, or never, 
 "to take the natural vengeance." But now, 
 when he has killed his wife and her parents, 
 every one cries "so little reverence for law." 
 
64 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 The only reason why he failed to act at the 
 critical moment at the inn must be, all think, 
 because he was a coward. But, he says, he had 
 been taught all his life to respect law, and for 
 that reason he had appealed to it. Even if he 
 were a poltroon, still he had his rights. So he 
 had Pompilia and Caponsacchi arrested, and 
 found, in the room where they had been, letters, 
 which, he declares, it would be useless for them 
 to say they did not write. 
 
 He then relates the course which law took in 
 the matter. It had inflicted only mild punish- 
 ment upon Pompilia a nd Caponsacchi. but mild 
 as th e punishment was it proved them guilty 
 and himself innocent. On tbis_groJLLnd he had 
 applied to the court for a divor ce. 
 
 "He 's banished, and the fact 's the thing. 
 Why should law banish innocence an inch? 
 Here 's guilt then, what else do I care to know? 
 The adulteress lies imprisoned, — whether in a well 
 With bricks above and a snake for company, 
 Or tied by a garter to a bed-post, — much 
 I mind what 's little, — least 's enough and to spare ! 
 The little fillip on the coward's cheek 
 Serves as though crab-tree cudgel broke his pate." 
 
 But the court refused his request for a divorce 
 — informed him that he was met by the cross- 
 suit of his wife for a separation, and also that 
 she had been transferred to the care of her parents. 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 65 
 
 His brother Paolo who had tried in vain to in- 
 duce the Pope to hear the case himself was over- 
 whelmed with the ridicule of Rome, and left 
 Rome for some other land. After all this, Guido 
 says, he endeavored to steel his heart against 
 whatever might happen, when there came the 
 unexpected tidings of the birth of a son. 
 
 "I got such missives in the public place; 
 When I sought home, — with such news, mounted stair 
 And sat at last in the sombre gallery, 
 ('T was Autumn, the old mother in bed betimes, 
 Having to bear that cold, the finer frame 
 Of her daughter-in-law had found intolerable — 
 The brother, walking misery away 
 O' the mountain-side with dog and gun belike) 
 As I supped, ate the coarse bread, drank the wine 
 Weak once, now acrid with the toad's-head-squeeze, 
 My wife's bestowment — I broke silence thus : 
 'Let me, a man, manfully meet the fact, 
 Confront the worst o' the truth, end, and have peace ! 
 I am irremediably beaten here, — 
 The gross illiterate vulgar couple, — bah ! 
 Why, they have measured forces, mastered mine, 
 Made me their spoil and prey from first to last. 
 They have got my name, — 't is nailed now fast to theirs, 
 The child or changeling is anyway my wife; 
 Point by point as they plan they execute, 
 They gain all, and I lose all — even to the lure 
 That led to loss, — they have the wealth again 
 They hazarded awhile to hook me with, 
 Have caught the fish and find the bait entire : 
 They even have their child or changeling back 
 To trade with, turn to account a second time. 
 
66 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 They have caught me in the cavern where I fell, 
 Covered my loudest cry for human aid 
 With this enormous paving-stone of shame. 
 Well, are we demigods or merely clay? 
 Is success still attendant on desert? 
 Is this, we live on, heaven and the final state, 
 Or earth which means probation to the end? 
 Why claim escape from man's predestined lot 
 Of being beaten and baffled? — God's decree, 
 In which I, bowing bruised head, acquiesce. 
 
 I have attained to my full fifty years, 
 
 (About the average of us all, 't is said, 
 
 Though it seems longer to the unlucky man) 
 
 — Lived through my share of life; let all end here, 
 
 Me and the house and grief and shame at once. 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 My brothers are priests, and childless so; that 's well — 
 And, thank God most for this, no child leave I — 
 None after me to bear till his heart break 
 The being a Franceschini and my son I ' " 
 
 And then the letter tells him that he has just 
 that to bear, and he says he "rose up like fire, 
 and fire-like roared." This apparent heir was 
 a new disgrace, an ignominy he could not and 
 would not bear — and he cries 
 
 " Shall I let the filthy pest buzz, flap and sting, 
 Busy at my vitals and, nor hand nor foot 
 Lift, but let be, lie still and rot resigned? 
 No, I appeal to God, — what says Himself, 
 How lessons Nature when I look to learn? 
 Why, that I am alive, am still a man 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 67 
 
 With brain and heart and tongue and right-hand too — 
 Nay, even with friends, in such a cause as this, 
 To right me if I fail to take my right. 
 No more of law; a voice beyond the law 
 Enters my heart, Quis est pro Domino? " 
 
 Guido tells his judges that the serving people 
 who knew his story agreed with him as to the 
 course he ought to pursue and that having selected 
 four of them, he moved toward Rome and arrived 
 there on Christmas Eve. For several days, in- 
 fluenced by the associations of the season, he 
 delayed, but on the ninth day he felt that "some 
 end must be," and "beckoned to his com- 
 panions: 'Time is come!'" From here to the 
 end of the speech we have the direct defense of 
 Guido. 
 
 It is a well-known proverb that he who pleads 
 
 his own case has a fool for a client. This is not 
 
 true in the case of Guido. His defense is shrewd 
 
 and able: every point is urged with skill and 
 
 force. He is tactful and makes the most of every 
 
 opportunity. He first shows that the killing of 
 
 his wife and her parents was an act of passion 
 
 which might not have been committed if he had 
 
 met Pompilia at the door, or even Pietro, instead 
 
 of Violante. 
 
 "And then, — why, even then, I think, 
 I' the minute that confirmed my worst of fears, 
 Surely, — I pray God that I think aright 1 — 
 
68 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Had but Pompilia's self, the tender thing 
 Who once was good and pure, was once my lamb 
 And lay in my bosom, had the well-known shape 
 Fronted me in the door- way, — stood there faint 
 With the recent pang perhaps of giving birth 
 To what might, though by miracle, seem my child, — 
 Nay more, I will say, had even the aged fool 
 Pietro, the dotard, in whom folly and age 
 Wrought, more than enmity or malevolence, 
 To practise and conspire against my peace, — 
 Had either of these but opened, I had paused. 
 But it was she the hag, she that brought hell 
 For a dowry with her to her husband's house, 
 She the mock-mother, she that made the match 
 And married me to perdition, spring and source 
 O' the fire inside me that boiled up from heart 
 To brain and hailed the Fury gave it birth, — 
 Violante Comparini, she it was, 
 With the old grin amid the wrinkles yet, 
 Opened : as if in turning from the Cross, 
 With trust to keep the sight and save my soul, 
 I had stumbled, first thing, on the serpent's head 
 , Coiled with a leer at foot of it. 
 
 There was the end 1 
 Then was I rapt away by the impulse, one 
 Immeasurable everlasting wave of a need 
 To abolish that detested life. 'T was done: 
 You know the rest and how the folds o' the thing, 
 Twisting for help, involved the other two 
 More or less serpent-like : how I was mad, 
 Blind, stamped on all, the earth-worms with the asp, 
 And ended so." 
 
 Guido tries to make it evident that his act 
 was that of a man careless of life. He claims 
 that if he had thought of his own safety he could 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 69 
 
 have hired bravos to commit the murder, or 
 silently put his enemies out of the way by poison. 
 So indifferent was he as to the result of his action 
 that he took no pains to secure the warrant which 
 would have given him the right to hire a con- 
 veyance to take him quickly to a place of safety. 
 "Clearly my life was valueless." But since he 
 has committed the deed he is himself again. 
 "Health is returned and sanity of soul," and 
 he feels the instinct that bids him save his life. 
 He appeals to his judges to vindicate his primal 
 right to act as he did. He then bids them "Take 
 my whole life, not this last act alone" and asks 
 "What has Society to charge me with?" He is 
 a Count, and he has given his life to the service 
 of the church. His last patron was a cardinal 
 whom he left "unconvicted of a fault," and who, 
 "by way of gratitude," had aided him in the 
 matter of the marriage. He had in vain asked 
 the court to annul the marriage, but he has 
 "allowance for a husband's right." He has, it 
 is true, been charged with exceeding that right. 
 Such acts, he says " as I thought just, my wife 
 called cruelty." She had carried her complaints 
 to the Archbishop and to the Governor of Arezzo, 
 and they, with full knowledge of the facts "con- 
 firmed authority in its wholesome exercise." 
 Some say that their decision was influenced by 
 
70 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 friendship, hereditary alliance, prejudice for the 
 
 name of a Franceschini, that could not be urged 
 
 in this court. There are those who may say that 
 
 the decision of his judges against him was caused 
 
 by the popular clamor. He pleads also that he 
 
 has only executed in his deed what the court 
 
 had declared in a milder and less emphatic way, 
 
 representing and carrying out its essential thought. 
 
 The punishment of the court inflicted upon 
 
 Pompilia and Caponsacchi showed that it deemed 
 
 them guilty. If they were not wholly guilty then 
 
 the court had no right to punish them. He calls 
 
 the attention of his judges to the fact that the 
 
 court in Tuscany had condemned Pompilia to 
 
 imprisonment for life — while the court in Rome 
 
 had inflicted only a nominal punishment upon 
 
 Caponsacchi for the " breach of the priestly vow." 
 
 He asks the court then to absolve him, the "law's 
 
 executant." 
 
 Guido then gives the reasons why he should 
 
 live. First, there is his mother whom he wishes 
 
 to care for in her old age. 
 
 ."Let her come break her heart upon my breast 
 Not on the blank stone of my nameless tomb 1 " 
 
 Then his brothers need help, and he also wishes 
 to "lift up the youth and innocence" of his son 
 Gaetano. Guido, however, does not make the 
 slip, which some interpreters say he coes, by 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 71 
 
 admitting that Gaetano is his son, and thus im- 
 plying Pompilia's innocence and the inexcusa- 
 bleness of her murder. He is too much on his 
 guard for that: he speaks of him as one "whom 
 law makes mine," or as one who may be his by 
 "miraculous mercy." At the close of his defence 
 Guido represents himself as a self-sacrificing 
 defender of the social sanctities : 
 
 "And when, in times made better through your brave 
 Decision now, — might but Utopia be ! — 
 Rome rife with honest women and strong men, 
 Manners reformed, old habits back once more, 
 Customs that recognize the standard worth, — 
 The wholesome household rule in force again, 
 Husbands once more God's representative, 
 Wives like the typical Spouse once more, and Priests 
 No longer men of Belial, with no aim 
 At leading silly women captive, but 
 Of rising to such duties as yours now, — 
 Then will I set my son at my right-hand 
 And tell his father's story to this point, 
 Adding, 'The task seemed superhuman, still 
 I dared and did it, trusting God and law : 
 And they approved of me : give praise to both 1 ' 
 And if, for answer, he shall stoop to kiss 
 My hand, and peradventure start thereat, — 
 I engage to smile 'That was an accident 
 I' the necessary process, — just a trip 
 O' the torture-irons in their search for truth, — 
 Hardly misfortune, and no fault at all.' " 
 
 In considering the character of Count Guido, 
 we must remember that he is speaking at his 
 
72 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 own trial, aware that every word he says is weighed 
 by his judges. He is anxious to appear at his 
 very best. What, then, does his speech tell us of 
 himself? He is evidently proud of his family, 
 which if not the oldest is admitted by all to be 
 next to the oldest in Tuscany. He is deeply 
 touched by the poverty into which it has fallen. 
 He suffers because of the exposures made of the 
 little economies of his home, — how his mother 
 makes 
 
 " — the brocade strips o' the seamy side 
 O' the wedding gown buy raiment for a year." 
 
 how she dresses up the lamb's head with her 
 own hands and how the wine used is three parts 
 water. He is tortured by the gossip of the town 
 which reports that he beats his wife. His whole 
 soul writhes at the thought of his marriage to 
 Pompilia, who drew "breath first mid Rome's 
 worst rankness" through "the deed of a drab 
 and a rogue." The imputation of dishonor to 
 a member of his family — his younger brother — 
 revolts his nature, so that he cries, "must I burn 
 my lips with the blister of a lie." He also seems 
 'deeply religious and begins his speech, in the 
 most approved orthodox form, "In the name of 
 the indivisible Trinity." All this may, of course, 
 have been assumed, and must not be taken too 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 73 
 
 seriously. His real character comes out when 
 he attempts to extenuate his course of conduct. 
 He knows he is censured because he had bought 
 a young girl by means of his title, as if flesh and 
 blood were a ware. He ought, it is said, to be 
 ashamed of such an avowal. But Guido does 
 not think so. "What," he declares, is "Frances- 
 chinihood" worth if - it oai mot be "Bartered Tor 
 something ? Deny that titles have a market 
 value, and no one would care to have them. 
 Why should one work for fifty years to obtain a 
 title, if it could not serve to secure a "girl's 
 hand" or a "fool's purse"? If titles had no 
 value in the market it would have been better for 
 him to have spent his life as a "dancer or a 
 prizer," trades that pay. 
 
 5' On the other hand, bid this buffoonery cease, 
 Admit that honour is a privilege, 
 The question follows, privilege worth what? 
 Why, worth the market-price, — now up, now down, 
 Just so with this as with all other ware : 
 Therefore essay the market, sell your name, 
 Style and condition to who buys them best I " 
 
 People have often acted upon this theory, but 
 it has seldom been set forth in such blunt and 
 brutal fashion. Titles, no doubt, do have a 
 money value, but Guido declares they have 
 nothing more. He has no perception of the honor 
 
74 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 which is above all price, and he is incapable of 
 seeing that while his position is a recognition of 
 past services, it also entails an obligation to the 
 performance of present duties. It is strange that 
 a man so proud of his family name should be 
 willing to degrade it into a ware to be sold to the 
 highest bidder; because the moment titles be- 
 come purchasable, they are no better than any 
 other article in the market. But Guido is not 
 content with the reduction of his title into a mar- 
 ketable commodity; he also reveals himself as 
 a man to whom truth is not sacred. He has n o 
 s ense of its intrinsic value. H e is accused of 
 "gilding fact with fraud" in the matter of the 
 marriage; he had made himself richer than he 
 really was. In reply he vi rtually says that that 
 fe of no consequencj u- He had carried out the 
 essence of the bargain, had given what he said 
 he would give and what the other parties really 
 wanted. What he said about his fortune was 
 but 
 
 f'A flourish round the figures of a sum, 
 For fashion's sake that deceives nobody." 
 
 But it did deceive poor Pietro and Violante, and 
 it was meant to deceive them. 
 
 When Guido is charged by the court with 
 having written the letter attributed to her, he 
 admits that he had caused her to trace the char- 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 75 
 
 acters which he himself had first written, but he 
 seeks to free himself from blame by the plea 
 that he had induced her to do what she ought 
 to have done. He was like the priest who 
 makes the palsied finger cross the forehead at 
 the critical time, or who answers for the babe 
 at its baptism. In these cases, however, only 
 good was meant to the persons for whom these 
 things were done, while in his case what he as- 
 sumed to do for Pompilia meant harm to her 
 and to those whom she loved. 
 
 Another example of Guido's disregard of 
 truth is disclosed in his account of the letters 
 which he alleged had passed between Pompilia 
 and Caponsacchi, and which, he declared, had 
 been found in the room of the inn where they 
 had been overtaken and apprehended. He 
 notices the denial of their authorship which had 
 been made by them both, but he gives no proof 
 to show that they did write them. He merely 
 tells a story to illustrate his thought that of course 
 they must make a denial of some kind, and passes 
 on to something else. The whole case rested 
 upon the authorship of these letters, and if Guido 
 had felt certain that his wife and the priest had 
 written them he would not have passed over 
 them so lightly. If he knew they were forgeries, 
 he had no right to use them. His treatment of 
 
76 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 them only shows more clearly that he never 
 hesitated to subordinate the truth to his own 
 purpose. 
 
 Guid o discloses himself as a man who is always 
 conscious of his rights but never 6T his duties. 
 
 In all his discussion of marriage he remembers 
 the obligations imposed by it upon Pompilia, 
 but he altogether forgets his obligations to her. 
 He complains that his wife "violated her pact," 
 that she did not act as a wife should, but he never 
 once raises the question whether he had acted 
 as, according to his vows made in marriage, he 
 should have acted towards his wife. He illus- 
 trates his relation to Pompilia as that of an order 
 to a monk. If he enters it and finds its ways 
 different from what he expected; if he had 
 fancied "Francis' manna meant roast quails," 
 and so revolts against its regimen, he must not 
 hope to have the order change its rules for his 
 convenience, but rather expect punishment for 
 his refusal to conform to them. But here Guido 
 forgets one side of the matter, the right of the 
 monk to demand that his order shall do what, 
 in its rules, it promises to do. If the monastic 
 institution violates its duty to the monk it must 
 expect to be called to account for it. All this 
 Guido leaves out of his consideration. 
 Then again he treats Pompilia as if she were 
 
COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 77 
 
 wholly free in her choice of a husband. If this 
 were so, then she had no right to blame him for 
 being what he was. It could be said to her, " You 
 knew him, and chose to take him for a husband." 
 Now Guido's friends say to him, 
 
 "The fact is you are forty-five years old, 
 Nor very comely even for that age : 
 Girls must have boys." 
 
 And he replies: "Why, let girls say so then." 
 
 He utterly ignores the fact that his wife had no 
 
 more choice in her marriage than a lamb has 
 
 about being carried to the shambles. He is very 
 
 clear as to what is due to himself. He expects 
 
 from the bride loyalty and obedience, and he 
 
 cries 
 
 "With a wife I look to find all wifeliness, 
 As when I buy, timber and twig, a tree — 
 I buy the song o' the nightingale inside." 
 
 But he has not a word to say of what a wife had 
 a fight-to look for in a husband. So it is through- 
 out the w hole defence of C ount Guido~I<'rahces- 
 chini. "Such is the art of .Browning that in "spite 
 of himself he reveals what he essentially is. His 
 defence is an unconscious accusation of himSetft 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CAPONSACCHI 
 
 Giuseppe Maeia Caponsacchi is the young 
 
 priest in whose company Pompilia fled to Rome. 
 
 He comes before the court in a state of great 
 
 excitement and indignation. Here he is, he says, 
 
 to tell the court the story, at the telling of which, 
 
 only six months ag o, the judges had smiled, as 
 
 if to say 
 
 i'The sly one, all this we are bound believe ! 
 Well, he can say no other than what he says. 
 We have been young, too, — come, there 's greater guilt." 
 
 For this story he hadrecejyed-lhe-jocular__pun- 
 ishment of exile to (Jivit a Vecchi a; and now 
 they— eeme and tell him that Pompilia is dead 
 or dyin g, rrmrjgr p rl by t h fi husband from whom 
 he had tried to save her. They had told him 
 he need not meddle, law would care for her, 
 and here is the result. The story that they had 
 asked him to tell them "seems to fill the universe 
 with sight and sound," but let him be 
 
 "the hollow rock, condense 
 The voice o' the sea and wind, interpret you 
 The mystery of this murder." 
 
CAPONSACCHI 79 
 
 The court had seen the beginning of this affair, 
 and why should it be surprised at the end? 
 
 He had himself foreseen it and tried to pre- 
 vent it ; but had been rebuked and, like an over- 
 zealous hound, "kicked, for his pains, to his 
 kennel." Now, he cries, the judges want his 
 help, and are ready to rehabilitate him and 
 recognize his true value; but Pompilia, "the 
 glory of life, the beauty of the world, the splendor 
 of heaven," is "fast dying." Ki ndness to him 
 does not "remit__on* dcath-bcd pang to "her." 
 NevefthelessT he will help them, and ev en burn 
 out his~soul in showing them the truth. His 
 part is done, but he will place Pompilia before 
 them as she really was. He will restrain himself. 
 Calmness will help her and so he says : 
 
 "Calm I '11 keep as monk that croons 
 Transcribing battle, earthquake, famine, plague, 
 From parchment to his cloister's chronicle." 
 
 He t hen gives an account of his family an d 
 his life^ exper ience up to t he time when h e first 
 saw^ Pompil ia. His family was old and~no"ble, 
 one of the greatest in the city of Arezzo. It had 
 rendered great service in the past, and his great- 
 uncle, who was a bishop, had saved the city from 
 destruction and had been an example of humility 
 and self-sacrifice. Caponsacchi had studied for 
 the priesthood with reason to expect advance- 
 
80 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 ment in the church. But when he came to take 
 the vow he felt himself too weak to keep it and 
 would have withdrawn. The bishop remon- 
 strated with him, and showed him that there 
 was an "easier sense" in which the vow was to 
 be regarded, declaring that the church made at 
 present quite other demands than in the days of 
 the confessors and martyrs. , 
 
 " Saint Paul has had enough and to spare, I trow, 
 Of ragged run-away Onesimus : 
 He wants the right-hand with the signet-ring 
 Of King Agrippa, now, to shake and use." 
 
 The church, he declared, had need of men of 
 the world with winning manners and poetic 
 gifts. So, Caponsacchi says, he became a priest 
 and performed the usual duties of his office with 
 those of a man of the world. He heeded the 
 advice of his bishop to pay his respects to certain 
 ladies, and to acquire a "genteel manner," "a 
 polished presence," and tact. 
 
 Then Caponsacchi gives an account of his 
 first sight of Pompilia, as she appeared with her 
 husband at the theatre — " tall, beautiful, strange 
 and sad." She broke upon his vision like a pic- 
 ture of Rafael. As he stared at her, his friend, 
 the Canon Conti, cousin of Guido, tossed some 
 comfits to her, making it appear as if Capon- 
 sacchi had thrown them. Conti promised to 
 
CAPONSACCHI 81 
 
 introduce Caponsacchi later, but the next day, 
 at mass, Conti informed him that Guido did 
 not wish to know him, — and advised him not 
 to make Guido jealous because, as it was, he 
 beat Pompilia. Caponsacchi had better devote 
 himself to Light-skirts or the great dame. Capon- 
 sacchi tried to take the advice but became dis- 
 gusted with both ladies, and resolved to attend 
 faithfully to his priestly duties. His bishop, 
 alarmed at his conduct, asked him if he were 
 turning Molinist, to which Caponsacchi replied, 
 "what if I turned Christian?" He then asked 
 permission to go to Rome, where he could live 
 alone and look into his heart a little. To all his 
 friends he announced his intention of going to 
 Rome. 
 
 Capon sacchi then gives an account of th e 
 visits made to him by the woman messenger, 
 who ostensibly came from Jfompilia, but who, 
 he suspected, really came from Guido. The 
 letter said that she to whom he had lately thrown 
 the comfits in the theatre had a warm heart, 
 and loved him, and bade him visit her house on 
 an evening when her husband would be away 
 at his villa of Vittiano. To this Caponsacchi 
 made reply: "What made you marry your 
 hideous husband?" In this way, he repaid 
 Guido for his transparent trick. The next day 
 6 
 
82 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 another letter came from her, by the same mes- 
 senger, reproaching him for his cruelty, and 
 asking only for a fragment of his love. She had 
 heard that he was going to Rome, and asked him 
 to take her with him because she was wretched 
 in her home and her husband was a monster. 
 The letter also stated that he need not write, 
 but that she was ever "at the window of her 
 room, over the terrace, at the Ave." To this he 
 replied : 
 
 "I am a priest, and you are wedded wife, 
 Whatever kind of brute your husband proves.'' 
 
 Here, he has made Guido, " the cheat and spy," 
 "anticipate hell's worm once more." Still the 
 letters continued to come to which he returned 
 always the same answer. At last one came, as 
 from Pompilia, warning him that her husband 
 suspected him and begging him to stay away 
 from the window. To this he replied that if it 
 pleased him, he would pass the street that eve 
 since the street belonged to all. He determined 
 to walk that way in the hope that he might call 
 Guido out of his hiding place, and say to him 
 "what a man thinks of a thing like you." But 
 as he passed the window, lo! there appeared 
 Pompilia with the "great, grave, griefful air" of 
 "Our Lady of all the Sorrows." She vanished, 
 
CAPONSACCHI 83 
 
 then reappeared and addressed him. She re- 
 proached him for the letters which, she had been 
 told, had come from him, and which had been read 
 to her. But she was in sore need of help; her 
 parents had abandoned her, her husband hated her, 
 and she~^5ust go to .Rome. He had come upon 
 her like a thief, but even a thief had "said the last 
 kind word to Christ," and he too might render 
 her the service she needed much. Now that she 
 had looked into his eyes she knew he neither in- 
 tended wrong nor wrote the letters, and that he 
 was true. Caponsacchi then promised to do the 
 service she wished, and "recognized her at 
 potency of truth." 
 
 But in the evening, as he began to think it 
 over, and to realize all that his promise meant, 
 a new vision of life broke in upon him. His 
 heart urged him one way, while the voice of his 
 church urged "him the other. 
 
 ' I' the grey of dawn it was I found myself 
 Facing the pillared front of the Pieve — mine, 
 My church: it seemed to say for the first time 
 ' But am not I the Bride, the mystic love 
 O' the Lamb, who took thy plighted troth, my priest, 
 To fold thy warm heart on my heart of stone 
 And freeze thee nor unfasten any more? 
 This is a fleshly woman, — let the free 
 Bestow their life-blood, thou art pulseless now I 
 
 Leave that live passion, come be dead with me ! '" 
 
84 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Perhaps, he thought, it was best for him to trust 
 to God to help her, without any interference on 
 his part, without any scandal on hers. So he 
 went about the usual duties of the church, and 
 then returned to his home. But then the thought 
 flashed across his mind that Pompilia might 
 think he had failed her, just as the Governor 
 and Archbishop had failed her, because he feared. 
 She must not be allowed to think that of him, 
 and besides, it was his duty as a priest " to advise 
 her seek help at the source, above all, not despair." 
 He went to her : she reproached him and again 
 appealed to him for aid. He consented to give 
 it and indicated the course she should pursue. 
 Through the day he made all the arrangements, 
 and at midnight Pompilia entered into the car- 
 riage, and he addressed the coachman : 
 
 "By San Spirito, 
 To Rome, as if the road burned underneath ! 
 Reach Rome, then hold my head in pledge, I pay 
 The run and the risk to heart's content I " 
 
 Capon sacchi describes the journey, th e in- 
 cidents by the way, and the words that Pompilia 
 spoke. 
 
 "Each incident 
 Proves, I maintain, that action of the flight 
 For the true thing it was." 
 
 For the first hour they were silent in the dark- 
 ness, like "two martyrs somewhere in a tomb" 
 
CAPONSACCHI 85 
 
 who wait "the last day, but so fearless and so 
 safe." In the morning Caponsacchi told Pom- 
 pilia that they had passed Perugia and were now 
 opposite Assisi — and in answer to her question, 
 how long since they had left Arezzo, he said 
 "Years — and certain hours beside." He related 
 an incident which shows how anxious she was 
 not to delay a moment on the way and he recalled 
 a remark of hers that she was fearful now be- 
 cause her soul no longer knew pain. Then he 
 remembers her inquiry as to how he had learned 
 to serve women and whether men were not often 
 as unhappy in their strength as women in their 
 weakness. At another time, he says, she wanted 
 to know why he smiled at the great gate of some 
 city; and he told her, not because she would un- 
 derstand, but because she asked him. Again, 
 when they had heard the angelus, she bade him 
 read Gabriel's song, the lesson, and the little 
 prayer to Raphael, "proper for us travellers." 
 At Fo ligno he wished her to rest but she cried: 
 "On t o Rome, on, on ! 
 
 They travelled all that night, and through it 
 she moaned low, and waved something away 
 that seemed to menace her. 
 
 "Then I, 
 'Why in my whole life I have never prayed 1 
 Oh, if the God, that only can, would help I 
 
86 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Am I his priest with power to cast out fiends? 
 Let God arise and all his enemies 
 Be scattered.' By morn there was peace, no sigh 
 Out of the deep sleep." 
 
 When they were within twelve miles of Rome, 
 and he rejoiced because their journey was so nearly 
 over, she seemed to dread the interruption and 
 said: "I want no face nor voice that change and 
 grow unkind." And he says: "That I liked, 
 that was the best thing she said." At another 
 place where they stopped, he put Pompilia in 
 the care of a woman with a child and asked her 
 to comfort her. Pompelia thanked him for the 
 good it had done her and said: "This is a whole 
 night's rest and how much more!" Here, too, 
 she asked him if he thought she had done amiss 
 in making the effort to flee from Guido, and 
 called him "friend." As they drove on from 
 here she wandered in her mind and addressed 
 him as Gaetano, — and he ordered the driver to 
 stop no more but to 
 
 "straggle through ! 
 
 Then drench her in repose though death's self pour 
 
 The plenitude of quiet." 
 
 At last, he continues, they reached Castelnuovo, 
 in sight of Rome. He would have driven on but 
 Pompilia 
 
 " screamed out, 'No, I must not die ! 
 Take me no farther, I should die : stay here I 
 
CAPONSACCHI 87 
 
 I have more life to save than mine 1 ' 
 
 She swooned. 
 We seemed safe: what was it foreboded so? 
 Out of the coach into the inn I bore 
 The motionless and breathless pure and pale 
 Pompilia, — bore her through a pitying group 
 And laid her on a couch, still calm and cured 
 By deep sleep of all woes at once. The host 
 Was urgent. ' Let her stay an hour or two I 
 Leave her to us, all will be right by morn.' 
 Oh 1 my foreboding ! But I could not choose. 
 I paced the passage, kept watch all night long. 
 I listened, — not one movement, not one sigh. 
 ' Fear not : she sleeps so sound ! ' they said : but I 
 Feared, all the same, kept fearing more and more, 
 Found myself throb with fear from head to foot, 
 Filled with a sense of such impending woe, 
 That, at first pause of night, pretence of gray, 
 I made my mind up it was morn. 'Reach Rome, 
 Lest hell reach her ! A dozen miles to make, 
 Another long breath, and we emerge ! ' I stood 
 I' the court-yard, roused the sleepy grooms. ' Have 
 
 out 
 Carriage and horse, give haste, take gold ! ' said I. 
 While they made ready in the doubtful morn, — 
 'T was the last minute, — needs must I ascend 
 And break her sleep; I turned to go. 
 
 And there 
 Faced me Count Guido, there posed the mean man 
 As master, — took the field, encamped his rights, 
 Challenged the world : there leered new triumph, there 
 Scowled the old malice in the visage bad 
 And black o' the scamp." 
 
 Count Guido made his charge against him, 
 and while Caponsacchi was waiting, and still 
 
88 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 had the opportunity to gripe him by the throat 
 and end his career, officers appeared on either 
 hand and placed him under arrest. Then the 
 room of Poinpilia, where she was still sleeping, 
 was entered. She awoke, she started up, and 
 when she saw her husband, 
 
 " 'Away from between me and hell,' she cried : 
 'Hell for me, no embracing any more 1 
 I am God's, I love God, God — whose knees I clasp, 
 Whose utterly most just award I take, 
 But bear no more love-making devils : hence 1 ' " 
 
 She seized the sword of Guido, and would have 
 slain him with it, had not the police interfered. 
 She was held by them, and the room was searched. 
 Then Caponsacchi demanded trial for himself 
 and Pompilia before the Roman court: 
 
 "I demand that the Church I serve, decide 
 Between us, right the slandered lady there. 
 A Tuscan noble, I might claim the Duke : 
 A priest, I rather choose the Church, — bid Rome 
 Cover the wronged with her inviolate shield." 
 
 Caponsacchi reviews the different accusations 
 made against him at the trial which followed, 
 and the replies he had made. "What of the letters 
 of Pompilia to him? How was it that one who 
 was innocent and a stranger to him could write 
 such a page ? 
 
 '"She wrote it,'" he says, "'when the Holy Father wrote 
 The bestiality that posts thro' Rome, 
 Put in his mouth by Pasquin.' " 
 
CAPONSACCHI 89 
 
 What about the answers to her letters? They 
 are clumsy mimics of his own character, as likely 
 to be Bembo's as his own. He wrote the prose 
 in these letters when St. John wrote the "tract 
 De Tribus." How came the letters to be found 
 in his room in the inn after his departure? Be- 
 cause there were none to be found in his presence. 
 What had he to say of the clandestine visits to 
 the house of Guido? As well might it be said 
 that he flew to the moon on a broomstick. The 
 witness to these visits was a courtesan, and her 
 testimony was worthless. What of the testimony 
 of Borsi the coachman who said that during the 
 flight there were "kissings in the coach, — fre- 
 quent, frenetic"? The coachman said that after 
 several weeks of sharp imprisonment. 
 
 This was the defence he had made on his trial 
 but the court appeared to have no faith in his 
 innocence. He must, it thought, be a little in the 
 wrong; he was human, but then Potiphar pressed 
 him too hard to do anything much out of the way. 
 Hence the jocular punishment about which his 
 friends only laughed. He was sent to Civita 
 Vecchia. Now the murder had opened their 
 eyes. So after all he had been a real St. George 
 and Guido " a real dragon breathing flame." So, 
 at last, they had seen the spirit of Guido mani- 
 festing itself and discovered that he had forged 
 
90 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 the letters of which much had been made. As 
 for himself if he had been conscious of guilt, why 
 should he have fled from Arezzo ? 
 
 "What need of flight, what were the gain therefrom 
 But just damnation, failure or success? " 
 
 In the whole flight they had not stopped anywhere 
 an hour, or diverged a step from the right road. 
 
 The court by its decision in Pompilia's case 
 had shown that it believed she had good cause 
 for her flight; if the end was allowable then why 
 not the means used to that end. He is done with 
 being judged; he knows himself "guiltless in 
 thought, word, and deed." He will avow that 
 he "was blessed by the revelation of Pompilia" — 
 and bids them make the most of it. Then he 
 pronounces an invective against Guido: 
 
 "But for Count Guido, — you must counsel there 1 
 I bow my head, bend to the very dust, 
 Break myself up in shame of faultiness. 
 I had him one whole moment, as I said — 
 As I remember, as will never out 
 O' the thoughts of me, — I had him in arm's reach 
 There — as you stand, Sir, now you cease to sit, — 
 I could have killed him ere he killed his wife, 
 And did not : he went off alive and well 
 And then effected this last feat — through me 1 
 Me — not through you — dismiss that fear ! 'T was you 
 Hindered me staying here to save her, — not 
 From leaving you and going back to him 
 And doing service in Arezzo. Come, 
 
CAPONSACCHI 91 
 
 Instruct me in procedure I I conceive — 
 
 In all due self-abasement might I speak — 
 
 How you will deal with Guido : oh, not death I 
 
 Death, if it let her life be : otherwise 
 
 Not death, — your lights will teach you clearer I I 
 
 Certainly have an instinct of my own 
 
 I' the matter: bear with me and weigh its worth 1 
 
 Let us go away — leave Guido all alone 
 
 Back on the world again that knows him now I 
 
 I think he will be found (indulge so far I) 
 
 Not to die so much as slide out of life, 
 
 Pushed by the general horror and common hate 
 
 Low, lower, — left o' the very ledge of things, 
 
 I seem to see him catch convulsively 
 
 One by one at all honest forms of life, 
 
 At reason, order, decency and use — 
 
 To cramp him and get foothold by at least; 
 
 And still they disengage them from his clutch. 
 
 'What, you are he, then, had Pompilia once 
 
 And so forwent her? Take not up with us ! ' 
 
 And thus I see him slowly and surely edged 
 
 Off all the table-land whence life upsprings 
 
 Aspiring to be immortality, 
 
 As the snake, hatched on hill-top by mischance, 
 
 Despite his wriggling, slips, slides, slidders down 
 
 Hill-side, lies low and prostrate on the smooth 
 
 Level of the outer place, lapsed in the vale : 
 
 So I lose Guido in the loneliness, 
 
 Silence and dusk, till at the doleful end, 
 
 At the horizontal line, creations verge, 
 
 From what just is to absolute nothingness — 
 
 Whom is it, straining onward still, he meets? 
 
 What other man deep further in the fate, 
 
 Who, turning at the prize of a footfall 
 
 To flatter him and promise fellowship, 
 
 Discovers in the act a frightful face — 
 
92 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Judas, made monstrous by much solitude ! ' 
 
 The two are at one now ! Let them love their love 
 
 That bites and claws like hate, or hate their hate 
 
 That mops and mows and makes as it were love 1 
 
 There, let them each tear each in devil's-fun, 
 
 Or fondle this the other while malice aches — 
 
 Both teach, both learn detestability ! 
 
 Kiss him the kiss, Iscariot ! Pay that back, 
 
 That smatch o' the slaver blistering on your lip, 
 
 By the better trick, the insult he spared Christ — 
 
 Lure him the lure o' the letters, Aretine I 
 
 Lick him o'er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth 
 
 O' the verse-and-prose pollution in love's guise I 
 
 The cockatrice is with the basilisk I 
 
 There let them grapple, denizens o' the dark, 
 
 Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound, 
 
 In this one spot out of the ken of God 
 
 Or care of man, for ever and ever more I " 
 
 After this fiery utterance Caponsacchi be- 
 comes conscious of being too deeply moved, and 
 that the court may have reason to be vexed, or 
 even to imagine he was in love with Pompilia. 
 He cites an incident in their journey to show 
 that this was not so, and declares that she was not 
 beautiful in any artistic sense. She had, he says, 
 the face of one who bore an invisible crown "of 
 martyr and saint," or the face of one "careful 
 for a whole world of sin and pain." He notes 
 the fact that Guido would not have vindicated 
 his honor if he had escaped as he had hoped to 
 do: for in that case no one would have known 
 
CAPONSACCHI 93 
 
 that he had killed Pompilia. He argues that the 
 court only imputed a technical offence to him. 
 Because of friends who think it may make some 
 difference to his defence, — he brings out the 
 fact that Pompilia sought him only when all 
 others, Conti and Guillichini, had failed to re- 
 spond to her appeal for help. What had these 
 gained by their refusal ? Conti had been poisoned, 
 and Guillichini sent to the galleys. 
 
 The courts of Arezzo had convicted himself 
 and Pompilia for breaking in and stealing, but 
 the courts of Rome could not so easily be de- 
 ceived. The lie which Guido got Arezzo to receive, 
 he did not dare to bring to Rome. Caponsacchi 
 says he chooses Rome, and above all the good 
 Augustinian monk, who had heard Pompilia's 
 confession, and had declared he had never heard 
 one, "so sweet and true and pure and beauti- 
 ful." He then seeks to calm himself with the 
 reflection that he is as good as out of life, and 
 has only the duty of a priest; who has had a deep 
 experience of life to perform. 
 
 " I do but play with an imagined life 
 Of who, unfettered by a vow, unblessed 
 By the higher call, — since you will have it so, — 
 Leads it companioned by the woman there. 
 To live, and see her learn, and learn by her, 
 Out of the low obscure and petty world — 
 Or only see one purpose and one will 
 
94 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Evolve themselves i' the world, change wrong to right : 
 
 To have to do with nothing but the true, 
 
 The good, the eternal — and these, not alone 
 
 In the main current of the general life, 
 
 But small experiences of every day, 
 
 Concerns of the particular hearth and home : 
 
 To learn not only by a comet's rush 
 
 But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, God — 
 
 But the comfort, Christ. All this, how far away ! 
 
 Mere delectation, meet for a minute's dream 1 — 
 
 Just as a drudging student trims his lamp, 
 
 Opens his Plutarch, puts him in the place 
 
 Of Roman, Grecian; draws the patched gown close, 
 
 Dreams, 'Thus should I fight, save or rule the world I' — 
 
 Then smilingly, contentedly, awakes 
 
 To the old solitary nothingness. 
 
 So I, from such communion, pass content . . . 
 
 O great, just, good God ! Miserable me ! " 
 
 The first impression made by the account of 
 Caponsacchi is that of its straightforwardness 
 and reality. It is evident that he has nothing to 
 evade or conceal. He opens his whole life for 
 inspection. He narrates in detail every incident 
 of his relations with Pompilia in the confident 
 assurance that every one will recognize them at 
 their true worth, will discern that they are not 
 "coprolite" but "Parian." The first note of 
 his c haracter is sincerity. He never" pretends to 
 himself to be what he is not. 
 
 It is clear that he did not enter the priesthood 
 simply to earn a living or to get some advantage. 
 The memory of a saintly great-uncle had inspired 
 
CAPONSACCHI 95 
 
 him to walk in his footsteps. He is conscientious 
 in his studies, and strives to make himself worthy 
 of his high calling. He had, however, not realized 
 all that priesthood involved, and so when the 
 vow was read to him he stops short, awestruck, 
 and cries out: 
 
 "How shall holiest flesh 
 Engage to keep such vow inviolate, 
 How much less mine, — I know myself too weak, 
 Unworthy. Choose a worthier, stronger man ! " 
 
 Here was one who did not wish to be a sham. 
 He expected to keep his word when it had once 
 been given. An insincere man would have felt 
 no such compunctions, the brothers of Guido did 
 not. Many would have promised without seri- 
 ous thought or with mental reservation. Capon- 
 sacchi's unwihMngn£ss--fc€r-take the vow reveals 
 him as a man who believed that words meant 
 something and that promises were made to be 
 kept It is tr ue that he consented to take~t he 
 vow when it was interpreted in a larger an d 
 looser way; but the interpretation was not his 
 own but that of his superior in the church, and 
 was, no doubt, generally accepted. In pursuing 
 the course which he afterward did as priest and 
 man of the world he was conscious of no vio- 
 lated promise : he was simply doing all that was 
 expected of him. It is true that Caponsacchi did 
 
96 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 not show himself a spiritual hero. Such an one 
 would have said "either the vow means some- 
 thing or nothing and in either case I can have 
 nothing to do with it." But he did, under the 
 circumstances, show himself to be a man who 
 would make no false pretences, a man who was 
 real and genuine. No doubt the highest kind 
 of man would not have allowed himself to be 
 persuaded to pursue the course of conduct he 
 did, but a man a little less sincere than he would 
 have required no persuasion. 
 
 Ca eonsacchi reveals coura ge. Farther on we 
 shall see that he has moral courage, but here I 
 speak only of that which is physical. No one 
 can fail to see the indications of it throughout 
 the poem. When he declined the invitation 
 which Pompilia was supposed to have sent him, 
 he said to himself: 
 
 "Last month, I had doubtless chosen to play the dupe, 
 Accepted the mock-invitation, kept 
 The sham appointment, cudgel beneath cloak, 
 Prepared myself to pull the appointer's self 
 Out of the window from his hiding-place. . . . 
 Such had seemed once a jest permissible : 
 Now I am not i' the mood." 
 
 Again when another letter came beseeching him 
 to stay away from the window of Guido's home, 
 he replied : 
 
CAPONSACCHI 97 
 
 "You raise my courage, or call up 
 My curiosity, who am but man. 
 Tell him he owns the palace, not the street." 
 
 Again when after his flight with Pompilia he was 
 overtaken, Caponsacchi faced Guide- and the 
 rabble around him with an impassive front. Al- 
 though appearances were against him, and all 
 around were ready to believe Guido's malicious 
 accusation, he never flinched for a moment, and 
 as a result, came off victorious. The only fear 
 he shows is the fear that Pompilia may think he 
 is a coward. At first he hesitated to do as he had 
 promised. He tried to make himself believe that 
 God would aid her and work a miracle on her 
 behalf. Then there came the thought that she 
 might think 
 
 "I fear 
 The world now, fear the Archbishop, fear perhaps Count 
 Guido." 
 
 HlgTPalJppT i'g that thp. reputatio n of Pompilia 
 may suffer through his attempt to rescue_her. 
 Could he save her and not endanger that ? Could 
 she be rescued without a breath of scandal? So 
 long as that seemed possible, he hesitated. When, 
 at last, no other course was open, he acted like 
 the man he was, unmindful of everything save 
 the deliverance of the lady from the home, which 
 to her had become a hell. 
 Dr. Johnson said he loved a good hater. If 
 
98 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 he had lived long enough to read The Ring and 
 the Book, and to study Caponsacchi, I think he 
 would have found in him a man after his own 
 heart. I know of no one in all literature who 
 shows greater capacity for indignation. In that 
 lower form of hate which consists merely in per- 
 sonal ill will, others excel him. He was as good- 
 natured as Guido was evil natured. He took 
 people pretty much as he found them and evi- 
 dently viewed them with large-hearted tolerance. 
 But there must have been in him all the time, 
 though hidden even from himself, a capacity for 
 hating what was mean, a capacity without which 
 a man can never be a power for righteousness. 
 The source of real goodness in a man or woman 
 lies in the intensity of his disposition to cleanse 
 the face of the earth from all that smuts and be- 
 smirches it. This Caponsacchi had in full meas- 
 ure. It discloses itself in the taunting tone of his 
 letters, in response to those which seemed to 
 come from Pompilia, but which he felt sure 
 came from Guido himself. 
 
 "Let the incarnate meanness, cheat and spy, 
 Mean to the marrow of him, make his heart 
 His food, anticipate hell's worm once more ! " 
 
 It is evident in his regret that when he had had 
 Guido within arms' length, he had not been more 
 prompt : 
 
CAPONSACCHI 99 
 
 " — one quick spring, 
 One great good satisfying gripe, and lo 1 
 There had he lain abolished with his lie, . . . 
 A spittle wiped off from the face of God." 
 
 But nci one who readsC aponsacchi 's. invpr»*iV«» 
 against Guido, one of the most tremendous 
 utterances of~concentrated cont empt andj iate 
 in att TJTeTa^e^olLjifi H ~g"tiy o t h™- pi-nnf -ftfc his 
 capacity f or indigna tion. All the other instances 
 I have cited are mere mutterings of the storm 
 which here breaks forth in cyclonic fury, and 
 by its awful power sweeps Guido before it. 
 
 "out of the ken of God 
 Or care of man, for ever and ever more I" 
 
 Such a soul has in itself something of the spirit 
 of Him who will overturn and overturn until 
 righteousness is established in the earth. 
 
 Combined with this disposition to hate the 
 evil, we find what perhaps is the other and better 
 side of the same feeling, a confident trust in the 
 good, which no appearances to the contrary 
 could destroy. He is a sy mbol of j hejcpmpleresr. 
 fait h of the human heart. The faith of Capon- 
 sacchi rested on no proof, and was contradicted 
 by all the available evidence. He had seen 
 Pompilia only once, and that was enough. From 
 that moment he "recognized her, at potency of 
 truth." Then came the letters, that, if accepted 
 
100 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 as Pompilia's, would make her vile, but his faith 
 was"~uul ltAAtiitd by IheuL It enabled him to 
 see through the mean devices of Guido and he 
 did not doubt her purity for a moment. As well 
 might one tell him that a serpent had proceeded 
 from the mouth of Raphael's Madonna as to tell 
 him that these letters came from her. When he 
 saw Pompilia in the window, even as the lying 
 letter said she would be found at such an hour, 
 his faith rose superior to his sight, and he says : 
 
 "I thought — 'Just so : 
 It was herself, they have set her there to watch — 
 Stationed to see some wedding-band go by, 
 On fair pretence that she must bless the bride, 
 Or wait some funeral with friends wind past, 
 And crave peace for the corpse that claims its due. 
 She never dreams they used her for a snare. 
 And now withdraw the bait has served its turn.' " 
 
 Then we see the kindly helpful spirit of the 
 man. He thinks of himself as one who has a 
 "score of strengths with no use for them," and 
 then of Pompilia who has none. Only a kind 
 heart would reason so. These are some of the 
 qualities of the man at the time when Pompilia 
 appealed to him for help. He was not the man 
 he afterward became through her influence, but 
 he must have had the possibilities of his later 
 manhood in him. These might never have 
 awakened, as they did, into fullness of life and 
 
CAPONSACCHI 101 
 
 power but for his experience with her, but unless 
 they had already been there she would have 
 availed no more for him than for others. It is 
 not enough that the sunlight falls upon the earth; 
 the earth must have the germs of life and beauty 
 in its bosom. 
 
 It was the glory of Caponsacchi that there was 
 that within him which made him quick to dis- 
 cern the revelation in Pompilia's life and words. 
 He assures us that he was blessed by the revela- 
 tion. The first sight of her lifted him above his 
 care for common and trivial things. He saw 
 "Light-skirts" in her real ugliness, and discerned 
 the spiteful spirit of "the great dame." The 
 bishop's table with its fine food and jovial con- 
 versation no longer attracted him. He found it 
 now 
 
 " more amusing to go pace at eve 
 I' the Duomo, — watch the day's last gleam outside 
 Turn, as into a skirt of God's own robe 
 Those lancet-windows' jewelled miracle." 
 
 The old life faded away in the light of the new 
 vision to which he was not disobedient. 
 
 The service which Pompilia asked him to 
 render was one that called for the sacrifice of 
 reputation. He was a priest, and if he hoped for 
 promotion, as no doubt he did, there must be 
 no spot on his name. He might well ask whether 
 
102 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 he owed so costly a service to her. Why should 
 he intervene when his superiors had refused to 
 do so? Nobody could reproach him for declin- 
 ing to help her, wniie to do what she besought 
 him would subject him to suspicion , lTnot con- 
 demnation of "the good and to the incredulous 
 laughter of fools. Happiness and prosperity lay 
 in the prescribed and usual course; the loss of 
 all that was most precious to him was imminent 
 if he took the unaccustomed and unusual way. 
 No wonder that all through the spring night he 
 realized that he was passing from an old to a 
 new form of life ! He was learning that he could 
 bear blame more easily than blameworthiness; 
 that there is something better in this world than 
 happiness; that to do his duty, however hard 
 it might be, for one howevqr humble, is the 
 surest way to the highest life. In some way he 
 had always thought so, but now he knew in 
 his own experience that "The very immolation 
 made the bliss." This knowledge endowed him 
 with that rarest of all courage, the courage to 
 sacrifice reputation to character, to surrender the 
 approval of man for the consciousness of right. 
 He would rather be than to appear right. 
 
 In taking up the cause of Pompilia, Capon- 
 sacchi found also that he had been freed from 
 bondage to the conventional. He was a priest, 
 
CAPONSACCHI 103 
 
 consecrated to the service of his church; how 
 dared he attempt any other service? The new 
 mission seemed one which he had no right to 
 undertake. The inward struggle must have 
 been hard and long. The church seemed to 
 stand in the way of the service which his heart 
 bade him render. What he owed to the eccle- 
 siastical institution conflicted with what he owed 
 to the instinct of humanity. Should the plead- 
 ing of a woman for deliverance mean more to 
 him than the commands of the church to which 
 he had sworn allegiance? The church's call 
 was divine; that of the woman was humbly 
 human. The questionings of his heart drove 
 him beyond the forms and shadows of things 
 to their core and substance. They compelled 
 him to ask whether the church meant as much 
 as it professed. He recalled that it had not stood 
 in the way of his careless and indifferent action. 
 It had allowed him to go on as he would until 
 some living duty straight from the heart of things 
 had appealed to him; and then it had begun to 
 whine about his duty to it. Why should it have 
 no word to say until some real work was de- 
 manded of him, and then all at once become 
 urgent? It had been silent when he lived as a 
 "fribbler and coxcomb"; it found voice to utter 
 a denial only when he was moved to render a 
 
104 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 human service. As between the two he preferred 
 to obey the voice of God, which made itself heard 
 in a woman's cry for help, rather than the scruples 
 of the church which addressed him only in ste- 
 reotyped phrases. 
 
 So Caponsacchi was able to divine the real 
 obligation he was under. The instinct of his 
 natu re was wiser than thp formal codes oL Mie 
 church. ^^ JBecause he wa s true he acted truly, 
 experience had taught him that the church was 
 an echo rather than a voice. Often the two 
 might, and did, sound the same note, but now 
 that the two were not in accord, it remained for 
 him to find "his freedom in responding to the 
 real call of God." He learned that while there 
 is a visible church that well serves to remind the 
 world of the sanctities of the past, there is also 
 a still, small voice which stirs the heart to serve 
 the necessities of the present. He found de- 
 liverance from the conventional in his recogni- 
 tion of the actual. He made the discovery, 
 which it is well for all of us to make, that con- 
 science, in so far as it means obedience to the 
 ordinary and usual, must be ignored, even dis- 
 obeyed, if we would attain to the highest form 
 of manhood or womanhood. 
 
 It is evident too that in his experience Capon- 
 sacchi had learned that the great deeds of the 
 
CAPONSACCHI 105 
 
 world are as possible in the present as in the 
 past. He and those before whom he had been 
 tried thought a heroic duty was done by those 
 who in former ages had rescued forlorn damsels 
 in some crisis of their lives. Such service was 
 called chivalrous, even sacred, and it was deemed 
 worthy of all honor. When Saint George rescued 
 the princess from the dragon, it was thought he 
 had well earned the title of "saint." But here 
 and now was a simple priest who had endan- 
 gered what must have been dearer than life itself, 
 to rescue a girl in Arezzo, whom her reputed 
 parents had abandoned and whom her husband 
 hated, from cruelty and shame. Was this so 
 very different from the deeds of the ancient heroes 
 and saints ? Ca ponsacchi h a d learned to s ee 
 that his_de ed was of the same piece with all the 
 heroism and helpfulnes s of the past. Pompilia 
 was as good as any princess, better than most 
 of them. Her husband, Guido, was worse than 
 the dragon whom Saint George overthrew, and 
 his attempt to save her was no less worthy praise. 
 Caponsacchi no longer saw his deed in i ts lit tle- 
 ness, because it was done by himself inCArezzoj 
 for one so humble, but in its greatness as a-paft 
 of the manifestation of the love of God in human 
 souls, in all places, in all ages, and for all who 
 need. As he stands before his judges he reveals 
 
106 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 his full consciousness of his right to place him- 
 self by the side of those who in past times had 
 succored the forlorn and helpless. 
 
 "Yes, 
 I rise in your esteem, sagacious Sirs, 
 Stand up a Tenderer of reasons, not 
 The officious priest would personate Saint George 
 For a mock Princess in undragoned days. 
 What, the blood startles you? What, after all 
 The priest who needs must carry sword on thigh 
 May find imperative use for it? Then, there was 
 A Princess, was a dragon belching flame, 
 And should have been a Saint George also? " 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 POMPILIA 
 
 Pompilia, who now speaks, appears in a very 
 different light from the others to whose voices 
 we have been listening. She is not defending 
 herself against a charge of crime "like Guido, nor 
 is she "a friend of the court" like Caponsacchi. 
 She is a dying girl who "sighs out" her pitiful 
 stor y, not so much to vin dicate Tierselt", for she 
 feels no need of that, as tcTplace the man; who 
 had~nsked all to save her, in the righYTight. 
 The keynote of her narrative lies in these lines: 
 
 f'Then, I must lay my babe away with God, 
 Nor think of him again, for gratitude. 
 Yes, my last breath shall wholly spend itself 
 In one attempt more to disperse the stain, 
 The mist from other breath fond mouths have made, 
 About a lustrous and pellucid soul : 
 So that, when I am gone but sorrow stays, 
 And people need assurance in their doubt 
 If God yet have a servant, man a friend, 
 The weak a saviour and the vile a foe, — 
 Let him be present, by the name invoked, 
 Guiseppe-Maria Caponsacchi 1 " 
 
 In her narrative there are no literary or historic 
 allusions. Guido and Caponsacchi were men 
 
108 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 acquainted with the world, its literature and art, 
 and they reveal this knowledge in what they 
 say, but there is nothing in . Pompilia's story 
 which indicates anything beyond the particular 
 happenings of her own experience. She tells us 
 about her church, San Lorenzo, and its curate 
 Ottoboni, of her play with her friend, of the 
 goat that was made to stand on four sticks, of 
 the madman who seized her hand and proclaimed 
 himself to be pope. She has no knowledge of 
 the places through which she passed on her 
 journey from Arezzo to Rome, or of the historic 
 associations and memories of either city. Once 
 she mentions the name of a famous physician, 
 but only because he had visited her and given 
 her some medicine which cured her childish ail- 
 ment. Once she refers to the Molinists, but the 
 word is put into her mouth by the Archbishop to 
 whom she had gone for deliverance from her 
 trouble. He says to her: 
 
 '"For see — 
 If motherhood be qualified impure, 
 I catch you making God command Eve sin ! 
 — -A blasphemy so like these Molinists', 
 I must suspect you dip into their books.'" 
 
 When we remember that P ompilia could n ot 
 read, we realize what a woodenhead the Arch- 
 bishop must have been. Then the narrative has 
 not the order and method which we find in that 
 
POMPILIA 109 
 
 of either Guido or Caponsacchi; it is th e simple 
 outpouring of a soul, to the loving hearts oTThe 
 nuriS7 of her lite experience, controlled by no 
 other motive than the desire to right her frien d. 
 Her discourse cannot be analyzed. I shall, 
 therefore, attempt only to indicate its general 
 course and spirit. 
 
 Pompilia begins with the most simple facts 
 of her life and tells us her age, the name of the 
 church, San Lorenzo, in which she had been 
 baptized and married, and her name in full, 
 Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela Pompilia 
 Comparini. She has been the mother of a son, 
 Gaetano . "exactly two weeks." She rejoices in 
 the fact that her babe has been baptized and is 
 "safe from being hurt," and she hopes that when 
 he becomes a man and asks what his mother 
 was like, some one will assure him that she was 
 not like the girls of seventeen whom he will or- 
 dinarily see. Her name, she hopes, will keep 
 her apart in his mind, from what girls are. Her 
 son, she knows, will have no knowledge of his 
 parents, nor will there be any one to care for him. 
 For that reason she has given him the name of 
 Gaetano, that he may have the help of a new 
 saint after whom only a few, as yet, are named. 
 She does not want him to know her sad story. 
 
 Everything in her experience has been a sur- 
 
110 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 prise. Pietro and Violante h ad declared that 
 they*were not her parents. She had always sup- 
 posed that husbands loved" thei r wives7 bu t 
 Gu ido hated her. Then people persisted in say- 
 ing that Caponsacchi was her lover. Her whole 
 former life seems something apart from herself, 
 unreal and fantastic. She recalls the incidents 
 of a few days before, when, with her foster- 
 parents, she sat by the fire and talked of the boy 
 who had been given her, and what he would do 
 when he was grown up. She tells how Pietro 
 went out and then came back to speak of the 
 sights he had seen, and how while he talked, and 
 all were happy, — the end came. 
 
 She does not think that P ietro deserved pun- 
 ishment, and as for Violante she had done wrong, 
 but what she had done seeme d right to her and" 
 it was meant for the best. She had tried, too, 
 to make all right by the marriage, although it 
 was such a grief to give up one whom love had 
 made her own. Perhaps, on the whole, it had 
 been well; at any rate, now that she was dying 
 everything seemed softened and bettered. As 
 she leaves life, all the past fades away into calm. 
 She had lived happily with her parents until the 
 time of her marriage, about which at the time 
 she understood nothing, and was bidden by her 
 mother to be silent. 
 
POMPILIA 111 
 
 She relates how on a rainy day she was taken 
 by her mother to San Lorenzo, and married 
 there in the empty church, and how afterward 
 life went on just the same, until she became the 
 witness of the quarrel between Pietro and Guido, 
 and realized that something "low, mean and 
 underhand," had taken place. Violante, at last, 
 consoled her with the promise of the high position 
 she would occupy in Arezzo as the wife of a noble- 
 man, and the statement that they were to be all 
 together there. 
 
 Her memory of the four years she lived with 
 her husband was almost a blank. During that 
 time she was sustained by her prayer to God 
 and her hope, that in answer to that prayer, 
 some one would come to rescue her in her great 
 need. Sh e has really very little to forgive. Her 
 husband had some right to feel aggrieved be- 
 cause no money came, as he had expected, with 
 th e marriag e. Then it was hard for him to learn 
 that she was not the chi ld of Pietro and Violante, 
 ancTTn his anger at them, he reveng ed himse lf 
 on her. She might have known what to do if 
 she had been able to understand what he really 
 wanted. But his plan was so different from 
 anything she could imagine, that all she tried to 
 do to please him only angered him the more. 
 Aware, as she was, that there was no communion 
 
112 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 of soul between herself and Guido she thought 
 she ought not to live with him as his wife. But 
 the Archbishop, whom she consulted, told her 
 that she was to blame for thinking thus, and that 
 her proposed course reflected discredit on Eve. 
 Nor did he heed her complaint against the canon, 
 Girolamo, Guido's younger brother. He bade 
 her go back to her husband, and by her conduct 
 towards him send the brother "back to book 
 again." But although she obeyed the advice 
 given her she did not lessen Guido's hatred of 
 her or his brother's advances. She says : " Hence- 
 forth I asked God counsel not mankind." 
 
 When she saved herself by her flight with the 
 priest~p eople had said she showed herse lf the 
 daught er of her shameless mother. This c riticism 
 made her feel that somehow her mother had been 
 greatly wronged, and that she might have parted 
 from her — the child she loved — because she 
 wanted to save her from the fate which had be- 
 fallen herself. But now, with the coming of her 
 own child, she knew that God would care for 
 him. 
 
 People, Pompilia says, speak of her relations 
 with Caponsacch i as though he were blameworthy, 
 and the thought of righting him, that others 
 may see him, as she sees him, — "purity in quin- 
 tessence," — gives her strength. She relates Sow 
 
POMPILIA 113 
 
 she came to know him. She had seen him at the 
 theatre whither she had gone with her husband. 
 As she was seated there, a twist of comfits was 
 thrown into her lap. They seemed to come from 
 Caponsacchi, but, as she regarded him, she felt 
 sure he had not thrown them. Soon after, her 
 cousin Conti came to her box and acknowledged 
 as much. Guido, however, chose to believe that 
 they came from Caponsacchi and that he was 
 her lover. He called her a "wanton," "drew his 
 sword, and feigned a thrust." She was so accus- 
 tomed to this that she did not heed it, but repeated 
 the mere truth and held her tongue. Guido de- 
 clared that her amour with Caponsacchi was 
 "town-talk" — and that he would kill him the 
 next time he found him underneath his eaves. 
 
 Pompilia gives an account of the letters brought 
 to her by the serving woman, who said they came 
 from Caponsacchi — and explains how this maid, 
 Margherita, tried to induce her to accept the pro- 
 posals which, she said, were made in them. To 
 all her suggestions, however, Pompilia was deaf 
 until she bade her invite him to appear at her 
 window that evening, and here she gives the 
 motive which led her to do so. She had gone to 
 bed one night, thinking: 
 
 " ' How good to sleep and so get nearer death ! ' — 
 When, what, first thing at daybreak, pierced the sleep 
 8 
 
114 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 With a summons to me? Up I sprang alive, 
 Light in me, light without me, everywhere 
 Change ! 
 
 ... I stepped forth, 
 Stood on the terrace, — o'er the roofs, such sky I 
 My heart sang, ' I too am to go away, 
 I too have something I must care about, 
 Carry away with me to Rome, to Rome 1 . . . 
 I have my purpose and my motive too, 
 My march to Rome, like any bird or fly 1 
 Had I been dead 1 How right to be alive 1 
 Last night I almost prayed for leave to die, 
 Wished Guido all his pleasure with the sword 
 Or the poison, — poison, sword, was but a trick, 
 Harmless, may God forgive him the poor jest ! 
 My life is charmed, will last till I reach Rome 1 
 Yesterday, but for the sin, — ah, nameless be 
 The deed I could have dared against myself 1 
 Now — see if I will touch an unripe fruit, 
 And risk the health I want to have and use ! 
 Not to live, now, would be the wickedness, — 
 For life means to make haste and go to Rome 
 And leave Arezzo, leave all woes at once 1 ' " 
 
 Before this she had gone to the Governor, the 
 Archbishop, the holy friar, to Guillichini, and to 
 Conti; she had besought them to help her and 
 all had declined to do so. But Conti refers her 
 to Caponsacchi, — "your true Saint George." 
 As a last resort she turned now to him and bade 
 fh° ST ¥ing wr -m an, to h fi r great surprise . "Tell 
 hi m to com e." Somehow Pompilia felt sure of 
 his coming. She cried: 
 
POMPILIA 115 
 
 " ' He will come.' 
 And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up 
 To God the strong, God the beneficent, 
 God ever mindful in all strife and strait, 
 Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme, 
 Till at the last He puts forth might and saves. 
 An old rhyme came into my head and rang 
 Of how a virgin, for the faith of God, 
 Hid herself, from the Paynims that pursued, 
 In a cave's heart; until a thunderstone, 
 Wrapped in a flame, revealed the couch and prey 
 And they laughed — 'Thanks to lightning, ours at last 1 ' 
 And she cried 'Wrath of God, assert His love ! 
 Servant of God, thou fire, befriend His child 1 ' 
 And lo, the fire she grasped at, fixed its flash, 
 Lay in her hand a calm cold dreadful sword 
 She brandished till pursuers strewed the ground, 
 So did the souls within them die away, 
 As o'er the prostrate bodies, sworded, safe, 
 She walked forth to the solitudes and Christ : 
 So should I grasp the lightning and be saved ! " 
 
 When at her bidding Caponsacchi arrived, she 
 appealed to him to take her with him to Rome, 
 to her own people, — and so to save " Something 
 that's trulier me than this myself." His answer 
 was, "I am yours." Aft er some delay the prep - 
 aratio ns were made for the flight and at th e 
 dawn_o f day they fled together. All that he had 
 been to her and had done for her on the journey 
 was a revelation of all that was good. Perhaps 
 he was not one of the great saints, but he had 
 done something of a saint's service for her and 
 
116 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 so she cries, "This one heart brought me all the 
 Spring." She relates all the kindly services he 
 rendered, how at one place he told her " all about 
 a brave man dead," and how, at another town 
 which seemed as if it "would turn Arezzo's self," 
 he put a new-born babe into her arms. 
 
 "I could believe himself by his strong will 
 Had woven around me what I thought the world 
 We went along in, every circumstance, 
 Towns, flowers and faces, all things helped so well 1 
 For, through the journey, was it natural 
 Such comfort should arise from first to last? 
 As I look back, all is one milky way ; 
 Still bettered more, the more remembered, so 
 Do new stars bud while I but search for old, 
 And fill all gaps i' the glory, and grow him — 
 Him I now see make the shine everywhere." 
 
 So it was until the dread morning when her 
 
 husband and the world broke in upon her slumber 
 
 at the inn and she saw her " angel helplessly held 
 
 back," while Guido towered triumphant. 
 
 "then 
 Came all the strength back in a sudden swell, 
 I did for once see right, do right, give tongue 
 The adequate protest : for a worm must turn 
 If it would have its wrong observed by God. 
 I did spring up, attempt to thrust aside 
 That ice-block 'twixt the sun and me, lay low 
 The neutralizer of all good and truth." 
 
 She had borne the wrongs inflicted on herself 
 and her parents and the possible harm to her un- 
 
POMPILIA 117 
 
 born child, but she could not bear to have her 
 
 "angel's self made foul i' the face by the fiend 
 
 that struck there." That was the reason why 
 
 her first and last resistance was invincible. Then 
 
 she learned that "Prayers move God; threats 
 
 and nothing else move men." She "will not 
 
 have the service fail"; her angel saved her. 
 
 The judges had done right when they consigned 
 
 her to the care of the nuns "who said and sung 
 
 away the ugly past." Through his service her 
 
 babe had been born in quiet of her parents' 
 
 home. 
 
 "It would not have peeped forth, the bird-like thing, 
 Through that Arezzo noise and trouble : back 
 Had it returned nor ever let me see I 
 But the sweet peace cured all, and let me live 
 And give my bird the life among the leaves 
 God meant him I " 
 
 Yes: through what he had done she had been 
 given the opportunity to think over her past and 
 to allow "good premonitions" come to her un- 
 thwarted. Her child had been born "all in love, 
 with naught to spoil the bliss." Now, as never 
 before, she realized the meaning of God's birth 
 and "how he grew like God in being born." As 
 for her foster parents, " all is over, they see God." 
 For her husband she gives him "for his good the 
 life he takes I" — and she prays that he may 
 "touch God's shadow and be healed." He has 
 
118 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 rendered her a service in destroying a bond which 
 was hateful to them both. As for her child: he 
 will be the safer without father and mother, 
 "through God who knows I am not by." 
 
 She is ready to "compose herself for God," re- 
 calling, as her last words, all that she owes 
 to Caponsacchi — her "soldier-saint" — and she 
 closes with the words: 
 
 "My fate 
 Will have been hard for even him to bear: 
 Let it confirm him in the trust of God, 
 Showing how holily he dared the deed ! 
 And, for the rest, — say, from the deed, no touch 
 Of harm came, but all good, all happiness, 
 Not one faint fleck of failure I 
 
 Say, — I am all in flowers from head to foot I 
 Say, — not one flower of all he said and did, 
 Might seem to flit unnoticed, fade unknown, 
 But dropped a seed, has grown a balsam-tree 
 Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place 
 At this supreme of moments I " 
 
 Pompilia remembers that Caponsacchi is a 
 priest, and cannot marry. She thinks he would 
 not marry if he could. 
 
 "Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit, 
 Mere imitation of the inimitable : 
 In heaven we have the real and true and sure. 
 'T is there they neither marry nor are given 
 In marriage but are as the angels : right, 
 Oh, how right that is, how like Jesus Christ 
 To say that I . . . 
 
POMPILIA 119 
 
 Be as the angels rather, who, apart, 
 Know themselves into one, are found at length 
 Married, but marry never, no, nor give 
 In marriage ; they are man and wife at once 
 When the true time is : here we have to wait 
 Not so long neither ! Could we by a wish 
 Have what we will and get the future now, 
 Would we wish aught done undone in the past? 
 So, let him wait God's instant men call years ; 
 Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, 
 Do out the duty ! Through such souls alone 
 God stooping shows sufficient of His light 
 For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise. " 
 
 In Pompilia we have a revelation of one whose 
 pure - beauty redeems the w orld ill which bh e 
 mov ed from universal bfame . ^Yithout her in 
 the poem, as without such souls in life, we should 
 lose our hope in human kind. We need her per- 
 fect whiteness to hearten us, as she heartens the 
 Pope, with the assurance that the world 
 
 "in the absolutest drench of dark, — 
 Ne'er wants a witness, some stray beauty-beam 
 To the despair of hell." 
 
 She is different in all respects from the 
 other characters who reveal themselves in the 
 poem. Guido and Caponsacchi are men ac- 
 quainted with life. They have had some ex- 
 perience in affairs. Guido has been connected 
 with the pontifical court for thirty years; he 
 knows the men of position and power. Capon- 
 
120 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 sacchi is the polished man of the world, and he 
 occupies a dignified and influential place in the 
 city of Arezzo. Through their speeches we are 
 continually finding references to famous works 
 of art, to the ela stic buuks o f the nation , to the 
 theologians of the church, and to the prevailing 
 theological thought of the time. But Pompilia 
 is o nly the girl wife, "only seventeen," and her 
 port raiture is in perfect keeping with everything 
 we know of her age, ran k, and experienc e of life. 
 She -sa ys nothing thatcontradicts these. Her 
 speech_j n_ the poem does not contain a single 
 li terary allus ion. There is not the sligKtest Tn- 
 dication of any acquaintance with historic events, 
 hardly a word that shows a knowledge of any- 
 thing beyond her home and the happenings in 
 the immediate neighborhood. She knows the 
 way from the house of her father and mother to 
 the church of San Lorenzo in Rome, and she 
 speaks of her parents, the priest of the parish 
 church, the "marble lion rushing from the wall," 
 the goat that the man made to stand on four 
 sticks, the madman who claimed to be Pope, 
 the poor image of the Virgin, " thin white glazed 
 clay," in the niche; the games she played with 
 her little friend. That is all she knows of Rome; 
 and she knows no more of Arezzo. Her hus- 
 band's palace, the church, the theatre, and the 
 
POMPILIA 121 
 
 houses of Archbishop and Governor, and the 
 few streets that lead from one to the other are all 
 she tells us of a city — rich in memories of men 
 famous in literature and art, in state and church. 
 The great world of eminent men and memorable 
 deeds was to her unknown. Reading might have 
 widened her world, but Pompilia could not read, 
 and all she says is limited by her experience of 
 life. Once she refers to a famous physician, but 
 she remembers him as the thin austere man who 
 gave her the bitter dose that cured her childish 
 ailment — " so ugly all the same." She men- 
 tions the Molinists, who were exciting attention 
 in the religious world in her time, only because 
 she happens to recall what the Archbishop said 
 to her when she appealed to him for relief. 
 
 Pompilia, too, knows nothing of the places 
 throu gh— which bhe journeys from Arezzo to 
 Rome. Caponsacchi gives a description of ev ery 
 step_ of the way, — the, name and character of 
 each place, the time when they arrived and w hen 
 they left. H is is the narrative of an educa ted 
 man. But Po mpilia's story reveals her utter 
 ignorance of^places and times. If we knew about 
 her in no other way, we could yet easily see from 
 her account of the journey, that things outside 
 herself made little or no impression upon her. 
 There are only two distinct points in her mind, — 
 
122 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 the home of her husband in Arezzo and the home 
 of her reputed parents in Rome. Her only con- 
 cern was to escape from the one, to find refuge 
 in the other. She recalls with a vivid sense of 
 gratitude all that Caponsacchi did for her and 
 was to her on the way. She knows that — " this 
 one heart brought me all the Spring," but of the 
 journey all she can tell is, 
 
 "Each place must have a name though I forget; 
 How strange it was, — there where the plain begins 
 And the small river mitigates its flow — " 
 
 An ignorant girl could not better describe her 
 ignorance. 
 
 T here are many indication s of the artlessness 
 and simplicity of Pompilia! The splendor of 
 art does not impress her. Her child was born 
 outside the walls and so had to be baptized at 
 St. Paul's, the nearest church, of which she 
 chirps : 
 
 "A pretty church, I say no word against, 
 Yet stranger-like, — while this Lorenzo seems 
 My own particular place, I always say." 
 
 St. Paul's is one of the most beautiful churches 
 in Christendom, but to Pompilia it is a "pretty 
 church." Art is of no consequence to her com- 
 pared with San Lorenzo, the church in which 
 she felt at home. She amuses herself, just as 
 
POMPILIA 123 
 
 a child might, even in the presence of death, 
 with the recitation of her names, "Francesca 
 Camilla Vittoria Angela Pompilia Comparini." 
 She calls her son Gaetano, because the saint 
 after whom he was named was a recent one 
 and had not grown weary like her own five saints, 
 and so might take better care of him. Her faith 
 is s o simple, natural, and spontaneous that she 
 can weave amusing fancies around it and still 
 reverence it, not less, but all the more. 
 
 Po mpilia makes no defence, and utters no 
 denial She is too conscious of he r inn ocence to 
 feel t he need of asserting it. And she needs no 
 defence; the simple unfolding of he r life ex - 
 perience is enough. Others may plead and 
 reason; she only tells what she knows. As one 
 listens to her he finds it impossible to suspect her 
 of any wrong. All that she says has the ring of 
 truth in it. Her, p urpose in speaking is to vin di- 
 cate tire character of Caponsacchi, who had r isked 
 all to save her. She wants him to know that his 
 service has not failed, and that through him God 
 has enabled her to rise into a higher and better 
 life. In all she says she reveals a soul that was 
 animated by concern for others. 
 
 We might easily suppose that the experience 
 of Pompilia would render her harsh and un- 
 charitable in her judgments of her little world. 
 
124 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Who could blame her if it had? Almost every- 
 body had failed her, and had been unfaithful to 
 trust, as far as she was concerned. Her own 
 mother had sold her before she was born. Her 
 foster parents, whom she had been brought up 
 to believe were her real parents, had publicly 
 disowned her. Her husband had disregarded all 
 the sanctities and even the decencies of the mar- 
 riage relation, making her life a protracted mar- 
 tyrdom and ending with the murder. But in 
 spite of all these things, her judgments are kindly 
 and manifest the love that never fails. She 
 finds some justification for every one, some mo- 
 tive at the heart of each which may lessen the 
 blame attaching to eacITact. While she keenly 
 realizes all the wrong that others have done 
 her, and knows how bad it was, she has the per- 
 ception which enables her to understand the 
 impulse of good in the blameworthy deed. She 
 says that Violante did wrong in buying her from 
 her poor mother and passing her off as her own 
 child to her husband. But then, she thinks, she 
 meant well by it. Her own childhood was hap- 
 pier and better than it would otherwise have 
 been and Old Pietro's days were fuller of sun- 
 shine because of the presence of a child in his 
 home. Then Violante did not think she had 
 really told a lie. 
 
POMPILIA 125 
 
 " She thought, moreover, real lies were lies told 
 For harm's sake ; whereas this had good at heart." 
 
 Then, she thought, Violante had meant to atone 
 for her fault by giving her in marriage, in which 
 everything would be righted. To do this she had 
 sacrificed the dearest affection of her heart. And 
 so Pompilia declares : 
 
 "I know she meant all good to me, all pain 
 To herself, — since how could it be aught but pain 
 To give me up, so, from her very breast? — 
 
 She meant well : has it been so ill i' the main? " 
 
 Pompilia's judgment of her poor unknown 
 mother is equally tender and true. She imputes 
 to her motives of which she herself is conscious. 
 Might not she, terrible as the thought is, yield 
 her Gaetano to save him, and so might not her 
 mother have sold her to save her? 
 
 '.' If she sold, — what they call, sold — me her child — 
 I shall believe she hoped in her poor heart 
 That I at least might try be good and pure, 
 Begin to live untempted, not go doomed 
 And done with ere once found in fault, as she." 
 
 Even the miserable serving woman, Margherita, 
 who sought to tempt her to evil, is not utterly 
 condemned. To her, she says : 
 
 "Let it suffice I either feel no wrong 
 Or else forgive it, — yet you turn my foe ! 
 The others hunt me and you throw a noose 1 " 
 
126 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 She cannot find any goodness in Guido. For 
 him she attempts no palliation, but sh e pardons 
 
 him^aTui gJYft S him the life .hp. ta kes. Perhaps, 
 
 after all, he had rendered a service, though he 
 meant it not, in her murder. He had thus ended 
 a relation which was essentially false. Her 
 presence had always been an annoyance to him, 
 therefore it will be well if they never meet again. 
 Still, even in this soul, Pompilia believes there 
 may be something to love. "I could not love 
 him, but his mother did." Even for him, she 
 thinks the presence of God may avail, and she 
 prays that it may. 
 
 "But where will God be absent? In His face 
 Is light, but in His shadow healing too : 
 Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed ! " 
 
 Pompilia's insight grows and deepens, so that 
 at last she trusts in it more than in any merely 
 external authority. She is a devout Catholic, 
 and to her mind an Archbishop "stands for 
 God." When she had gone to him and had 
 poured out her troubles as she would to her 
 mother, he gave advice and she received it hum- 
 bly, but she learns through her experience that 
 he was mistaken, and cries : 
 
 "But I did wrong and he gave wrong advice 
 Though he were thrice Archbishop — that I know." 
 
POMPILIA 127 
 
 She divines that the instinct of her h eart is w iser 
 than any official authority. It would be foolish 
 to say that this young and ignorant girl revolted 
 against ecclesiastical authority. She could never 
 have dreamed of such a thing. She had only 
 learned that there were some things she knew 
 for herself better than any one in the world. In 
 these she was taught of God. 
 
 Pompilia shows that she had the gift which 
 enables one to divine the natures of men, so that 
 she trusted rightly even against all appearances. 
 The comfits at the theatre seemed to have been 
 thrown by Caponsacchi, but Pompilia knew 
 better. 
 
 f'Ere I could reason out why, I felt sure, 
 Whoever flung them, his was not the hand." 
 
 A web of lies is woven about him. She hears letters 
 read, purporting to come from him, which must 
 have made him odious to the soul of a pure woman. 
 But in spite of them she feels sure that he is true 
 and will render her true service. She knew him 
 "by the crystalline soul." Her experience has 
 taught her to see through shams. The way in 
 which the Governor threatened her foster parents 
 with punishment for theft, though they had only 
 received from her what they had given her, and 
 the indifference with which he had heard her com- 
 
128 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 plaints, taught her how little impartial justice 
 there may be in the administration of affairs. 
 To her it became clear that the forms of jus- 
 tice were often mere travesties of the vision of 
 ideal right, that is revealed to the "pure in 
 heart." 
 
 No thing is more beautiful in the character of 
 Pompilia than he r convict ion_of the_dignity and 
 responsibility oFmo therhoo d. It was that which 
 prompted her night from the home of her hus- 
 band. While she had no one to care for but 
 herself, she was resigned to suffering and death. 
 After all, what did it matter? Deserted by her 
 parents, hated by her husband, persecuted by 
 those about her, her appeal for comfort and help 
 disregarded by church and state, a lonely girl 
 in a strange city, it could make no difference how 
 soon or in what way the end came. That was 
 her only way out of trouble into peace at the 
 last. But when the sense of a life "more than 
 her own" dawned upon 'feer she saw a new duty 
 an d Iuya,Hy icspunded to ~iE She called tor aid 
 and determined to flee. — Sfre-aeeepted the obliga- 
 tion "Lu defend that trust of trusts, Life from 
 i the Ever Living." 
 
 This sense of motherhood revealed to her 
 something of the way in which God cares for his 
 children. God will care for the little one whom 
 
POMPILIA 129 
 
 she is leaving better even than her mother-heart 
 could wish. 
 
 "He shall have in orphanage 
 His own way all the clearlier : if my babe 
 Outlived the hour — and he has lived two weeks — 
 It is through God who knows I am not by." 
 
 So all the significance of the Christmas time, 
 and the mystery of the incarnation grew clear 
 to the mother-heart. Now she felt what she had 
 always believed. She discerned in her own life 
 what the theologians reason about, and often, 
 by their reasonings obscure. She and Mary were 
 alike mothers. 
 
 "I never realized God's birth before — 
 How He grew likest God in being born. 
 This time I felt like Mary, had my babe 
 Lying a little on my breast like hers." 
 
 Such is the character revealed in the story of 
 this ignorant Italian girl of "only seventeen." 
 She had in her own way learned the deepest 
 wisdom of life. The source of all her thought 
 and action was love for others. She saw the 
 evil of the men and women about her, but she 
 saw more clearly the good in the evil. The 
 hardest experiences of hatred, indifference, and 
 neglect only imbued her with tender pity and a 
 spirit of forgiveness. By her fidelity to each 
 duty of life, as child, wife, and mother, she ac- 
 9 
 
130 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 quired that insight which pierced to the core of 
 things and infallibly distinguished between the 
 true and the false, the real and the apparent. 
 Through her brief experience of motherhood 
 she realized the sweetest and noblest ideals of 
 the Christian faith. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DOMINTTS HTACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 
 
 Heretofore we have listened to the voices of 
 tho se who have spoken out ot their prejudices, 
 th eir love or hate, their ho p*» nr fpar They_have 
 all been animate d by personal interest or feeling. 
 Ti nt in the sp eeches of the lawyers only a pro- 
 fessional interest in the story appears. 
 
 Hyaci nthus de Archangelis, who has been a p- 
 poin ted to defend ("liiidn and his fpn r compani ons, 
 inte nds to base his defence on certain abstract 
 princi ples of law and honor. He knows that 
 he cannot evade the charge of murder or, as he 
 prefers to phrase it, of the "killing." Unfor- 
 tunately Guido had been unable to endure the 
 torture and had made confession of his deed. 
 Otherwise he could have proved the murder a 
 "mere myth." He could have urged that Guido 
 at the time of its commission was 
 
 "visiting his proper church 
 The duty of us all at Christmas-time; 
 When Caponsacchi, the seducer, stung 
 To madness by his relegation, cast 
 About him and contrived a remedy 
 In murder: since opprobrium broke afresh, 
 
132 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 By birth o' the babe, on him the imputed sire, 
 
 He it was quietly sought to smother up 
 
 His shame and theirs together, — killed the three, 
 
 And fled — (go seek him where you please to search) — 
 
 Just at the time when Guido, touched by grace, 
 
 Devotions ended, hastened to the spot, 
 
 Meaning to pardon his convicted wife, 
 
 'Neither do I condemn thee, go in peace ! ' — 
 
 And thus arrived i' the nick of time to catch 
 
 The charge o' the killing, though great-heartedly 
 
 He came but to forgive and bring to life. 
 
 Doubt ye the force of Christmas on the soul? 
 
 'Is thine eye evil because mine is good? ' " 
 
 But now that Count Guido, not being able to 
 bear pain, has confessed his deed, this plea 
 would not answer, and he must find other means 
 to extenuate or perhaps justify it. He contends, 
 therefore, that he finds excuse on the grou ng]J;hat 
 Guic kVs honor had been threatened, an d that 
 in defence of that alone he had killed Pompilia 
 and Those with he E 
 
 "Therefore we shall demonstrate first of all 
 That Honour is a gift of God to man 
 Precious beyond compare : which natural sense 
 Of human rectitude and purity, — 
 Which white, man's soul is born with, — brooks no touch : 
 Therefore, the sensitivest spot of all, 
 Wounded by any wafture breathed from black, 
 Is, — honour within honour, like the eye 
 Centred i' the ball, — the honour of our wife. 
 Touch us o' the pupil of our honour, then, 
 Not actually, — since so you slay outright, — 
 But by a gesture simulating touch, 
 
HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 133 
 
 Presumable mere menace of such taint, — 
 This were our warrant for eruptive ire 
 'To whose dominion I impose no end.' " 
 
 Having laid down the abstract principle, 
 de Archangelis proceeds to illustrate its truth. 
 He quotes a passage from Theodoric, refers to 
 the "chaste bees," and tells an interesting story 
 of an elephant which had rebuked the dishonor 
 done to his master by trampling the guilty wife 
 and her paramour to death. Then mounting 
 from beast to man, he cites the Athenian code, 
 and Roman laws of different periods, such as 
 those of Romulus, Julian, Cornelius, and Grac- 
 chus, and endeavors to show how, even before 
 the "perfect revelation" had been made, these 
 had proclaimed the right of the injured husband 
 to avenge his threatened honor by the shedding 
 of blood. Grace emphasized what nature had 
 revealed. 
 
 "All that was long ago declared as law 
 By the natural revelation, stands confirmed 
 By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint, — 
 To- wit — that Honour is man's supreme good." 
 
 To the proof and elucidation of this he brings 
 forward passages from St. Jerome, St. Gregory, 
 St. Bernard, and Solomon. He finds in Samson 
 an antetype of Guido, who he says bore all evils, 
 "gyves, stripes and daily labor at the mill," but 
 
134 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 drew the temple down and killed his foes when 
 his sense of honor was stirred by being brought 
 out as an object of sport. 
 
 Even in the words of our Lord Himself he 
 claims to find a proof of the justice of his plea 
 and a reason for the acquittal of Guido, because 
 he said " my honour I give to no man." j£ a man 
 m ust defend his honor, an d th e old law that 
 punished the adulterous wife with stoning has 
 bee n abolished, primitive PEVeugtJ must lake 
 its place. It is now a man's duty to use his 
 natural privilege. And this, not only nature but 
 .the social sentiment demands. It is not a cause 
 which must wait the decision of a court. It de- 
 mands prompt and immediate action. Courts 
 were not intended to punish such offences or to 
 determine in such matters the measure of in- 
 nocence or guilt; the husband must defend his 
 own honor. But if this be so, why does the 
 court find it necessary to condemn Guido at all ? 
 Simply because it was improperly done. " A 
 good thing done unhandsomely turns ill." In 
 proof of this de Archangelis cites of "Sicily's 
 Decisions sixty-first." 
 
 Then_the_learned lawyer seeks to explain why 
 G uido killed three inst ead oToneranri refers 'to 
 cases in ancient history, which, whether they 
 justify Guido or not, show that his lawyer was 
 
HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 135 
 
 a man of great erudition. Now the question 
 presses : why did GniHn prnr rastinate his r e- 
 ven ge ? Why did he do in cold blood that which 
 he failed to do when his blood was hot? To 
 argue in this way, de Archangelis claims, shows 
 ignorance of the way in which honor bears a 
 wound: thi s, time makes it harder to bea r. 
 " Long er the sufferance, stronger grows t he 
 pain," Murder ought to be avenged at once, 
 but this is more like the punishment of a theft 
 which one can inflict whenever or wherever he 
 finds the thing stolen in the hands of the thief. 
 But Guido had waited a week after he had ar- 
 rived in Rome on his mission of revenge, it may 
 be urged. To this de Archangelis replies with 
 an outburst of apparently religious indignation : 
 
 "Is no religion left? 
 No care for aught held holy by the Church? 
 What, would you have us skip and miss those Feasts 
 O' the Natal Time, must we go prosecute 
 Secular business on a sacred day?" 
 
 Six aggravations of the crime, urged by the prose- 
 cution, are all adroitly explained away, and 
 treated as of no consequence, because no crime 
 being committed, there can be no aggravation 
 
 of it. 
 
 "Fisc, 
 How often must I round thee in the ears — 
 All means are lawful to a lawful end? 
 
136 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Concede he had the right to kill his wife : 
 The Count indulged in a travesty; why? 
 De ilia ut vindictam sumeret, 
 That on her he might lawful vengeance take, 
 Commodius with more ease, et tutius, 
 And safelier." 
 
 De Archangelis then justifies Guido for hiring 
 others to help him commit "the killing." They 
 could not understand reasons of honor. We 
 must, he contends, "translate our motives like 
 our speech into the lower phrase that suits the 
 sense of the limitedly apprehensive." 
 
 With this he ends the defe nce of Guido an d 
 denotesa^ew contemptuous, plau sible passa ges 
 to the defence of his hirelings. It is true, he 
 says/ that they afterwards intended to kill Guido 
 for merely neglecting to pay them. But that 
 again showed his cultivated mind. He would 
 not desecrate the deed, nor vulgarize justice by 
 defraying its cost " by money dug out of the dirty 
 earth." 
 
 "What though he lured base hinds by lucre's hope, — 
 The only motive they could masticate, 
 Milk for babes, not strong meat which men require? 
 The deed done, those coarse hands were soiled enough, 
 He spared them the pollution of the pay." 
 
 The lawye rs__ip The ping an d the Book add 
 nothi ng to our knowledge pf rt»» t^flgHy jyhi'-h 
 they have been called upon to con sider. T heir 
 
HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 137 
 
 whcde^£ndeayor is to make speeches which will 
 produce an effect upon the judges and which, 
 above all, will add to their own reputation for 
 le arning and special ple ading. There is~not a 
 trace of insight in all they say. Their formulas 
 of law obscure their vision of reality. But little 
 as they tell us of the facts of the case, they tell 
 us much of themselves. In and through their 
 pleadings, and in and through the processes of 
 their minds as they prepare them, we learn what 
 manner of men they are. They unconsciously 
 reveal the secrets of their own hearts. 
 
 We see de Archangelis in his study, preparing 
 his argument in defence of Guido. We hear him 
 speak and we know at once that he is a fond 
 father, and that love for his boy and desire for 
 his welfare are motives that animate his efforts. 
 Eviden tly he has very little interest in h is case, 
 and hi" mind wnrln upon it mechanica lly. But 
 the thought of what he may do for his boy frees 
 him for a time from the seductions of sluggish- 
 ness and appetite. This speech will help his 
 boy in his future career, and for that he will work 
 with all the might that is in him. 
 
 "We 'II beat you, my Bottinius, all for love; 
 All for our tribute to Cinotto's day." 
 
 The supper he is to give on this his son's birth- 
 day will, he hopes, win the favor of the grand- 
 
138 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 father, and he plans how he may gain bequests 
 for the boy from the other relatives. He is a 
 man of domestic temper who loves the enjoy- 
 ments of home, and these have power to console 
 him for the loss of the office which Ejo ttinius , 
 hjs_rival, had gained. 
 
 "Well 
 Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp 1 
 How vain are chambering and wantonness, 
 Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad I 
 Commend me to home-joy, the family board, 
 Altar and hearth 1 These, with a brisk career, 
 A source of honest profit and good fame, 
 Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust, 
 Just so much play as lets the heart expand, 
 Honouring God and serving man, — I say, 
 These are reality, and all else, — fluff. 
 Nutshell and naught, — thank Flaccus for the phrase I 
 Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor I " 
 
 He is very fond of a good meal, and the expecta- 
 tion of the birthday feast in the evening again 
 and again interrupts the construction of his plea. 
 Supper and argument, indignation and ques- 
 tions of cookery, mingle in surprising and de- 
 lightful confusion. He is seeking to mitigate one 
 of the aggravations of his client's offence and 
 here is the course his mind takes : 
 
 "Yes, here the eruptive wrath with full effect I 
 How, did not indignation chain my tongue, 
 Could I repel this last, worst charge of all 1 
 
HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 139 
 
 (There is a porcupine to barbecue ; 
 
 Gigia can jug a rabbit well enough, 
 
 With sour-sweet sauce, and pine-pips ; but, good Lord, 
 
 Suppose the devil instigate the wench 
 
 To stew, not roast him? Stew my porcupine? 
 
 If she does, I know where his quills shall stick I 
 
 Oome, I must go myself and see to things: 
 
 I cannot stay much longer stewing here.) 
 
 Our stomach ... I mean, our soul is stirred within, 
 
 And we want words." 
 
 It^ is_ easy enough to see that to Hyacinth us 
 de A rchangelis the soul is a rhetorical phr ase, 
 whil e the stomach is a s ub stantia l fact. It is 
 evident too that he is shrewd; his eye is always 
 wide open to any chance. The Pope may re- 
 member the speech he is making which will help 
 him to decide the case of Guido, and Rome is 
 full of people now to edify, and to give one name 
 and fam«. Hyacinthus has sympathy; his own 
 discomfort reminds him of the discomfort of 
 others. As he writes his fingers grow cold, and 
 so he thinks : 
 
 "Guido must be all goose-flesh in his hole, 
 Despite the prison-straw: bad carnival 
 For captives I no sliced fry for him, poor Count 1 " 
 
 I am not aware that he is peculiar in this, for 
 after all most of us are sympathetic only when 
 we happen to think of it. His view of provi- 
 dence is somewhat like his sympathy, z The 
 
140 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 h qrror of the case does not imp ress him. Provi- 
 dence has allowed the murder to take place just 
 to help him on. Here he is anxious to succeed 
 and to give his boy a good start in life. 
 
 f'Now how good God is I How falls plumb to point 
 This murder, gives me Guido to defend 
 Now, of all days i' the year, just when the boy 
 Verges on Virgil. . . . 
 
 The fact is, there 's a blessing on the hearth, 
 A special providence for fatherhood I " 
 
 In this he is neither better nor worse than those 
 who imagine that the universe was constructed 
 for their special advantage — and that whatever 
 happens is good because it enables them to make 
 a few more dollars or win a higher place in some 
 social set. 
 
 It is plain that de Archangelis has only a pro- 
 fessional interest in (juido. He is far more sorry 
 late r that he loses bis case than that Gui do 
 should lose his head, and he tries to make up the 
 disapp ointment tn his hoy hy getting him the 
 pleasure^pf_ witnessing the ex ecution- Intellect- 
 ually he impresses us as a man of prosaic mind, 
 one who worked slowly, and who beat out his 
 speeches by patient toil. He is not carried along 
 by a train of consecutive thought, and chance 
 words very often suggest the cause of his reason- 
 ing. He mentions a flea and then says : 
 
HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS 141 
 
 "Talking of which flea, 
 Reminds me I must put in special word 
 For the poor humble following, — the four friends, 
 Sicarii, our assassins caught and caged." 
 
 On the whole Hyacinthu s reveals himself to 
 us as a dull man inclined to be lazy, whom the 
 love of his home spurred i nto activity. "He is 
 fond of good dinners, and his sympathies and 
 views are somewhat contracted. He has his 
 little spites and prejudices, but on the whole he 
 means well, and in this particular case does the 
 best he can for a sorry client. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 JUBIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS 
 
 When we t urn from the speech for the defen ce 
 to that of the prosecution, we fin d_ the same lin e of 
 subfle TTngenious argumentation running throu gh 
 it^ It is based upon an abstract principle which 
 is twisted now this way, and now t hat. It su its 
 the p urpose of Bottinius, when he is p reparin g 
 the speech he intends to deliver in court, to sp eak 
 in high jHJ aTse of Pomp ilia : 
 
 "A great theme: may my strength be adequate I 
 For — paint Pompilia, dares my feebleness? 
 How did I unaware engage so much 
 — Find myself undertaking to produce 
 A faultless nature in a flawless form? 
 What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blaze 
 Of such a crown, such constellation, say, 
 As jewels here thy front, Humanity 1 
 First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl; 
 Then childhood — stone which, dew-drop at the first, 
 (An old conjecture) sucks, by dint of gaze, 
 Blue from the sky and turns to sapphire so : 
 Yet both these gems eclipsed by, last and best, 
 Womanliness and wifehood opaline, 
 Its milk-white pallor, — chastity — suffused 
 With here and there a tint and hint of flame, — 
 
JURIS DOCTOR 143 
 
 Desire, — the lapidary loves to find. 
 Such jewels bind conspicuously thy brow, 
 Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife — 
 Crown the ideal in our earth at last 1 
 What should a faculty like mine do here? 
 Close eyes, or else, the rashlier hurry hand 1 " 
 
 He describes Pompilia's life from her b irth to 
 her marringp r and he contends that Gu ido did 
 not forbear, as he might have done, with the 
 frolicsome girl who had become his wife; .that 
 he pressedj iis right as a husband too far. It was 
 very unwise, "if Pompilian plaint wrought but 
 to aggravate Guidonian ire." He thinks he 
 ought to have borne with her all the more be- 
 cause the parents, who were the source of all his 
 troubles, had left his home. He ha d no c ause to 
 make thp daily lj fe of Pompilia intolerable b y 
 his jealousy. But he is unreasonable. 
 
 ' ' Enough ! Prepare, 
 Such lunes announced, for downright lunacy I 
 Insanit homo, threat succeeds to threat, 
 And blow redoubles blow, — his wife, the block. 
 But, if a block, shall not she jar the hand 
 That buffets her? The injurious idle stone 
 Rebounds and hits the head of him who flung. 
 Causeless rage breeds, i' the wife now, rageful cause, 
 Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep. 
 Rebellion, say I? — rather, self-defence, 
 Laudable wish to live and see good days, 
 Pricks our Pompilia now to fly the fool 
 By any means, at any price, — nay, more, 
 
144 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Nay, most of all, i' the very interest 
 
 O' the fool that, baffled of his blind desire 
 
 At any price, were truliest victor so. 
 
 Shall he effect his crime and lose his soul? 
 
 No, dictates duty to a loving wife; 
 
 Far better that the unconsummate blow; 
 
 Adroitly baulked by her, should back again, 
 
 Correctively admonish his own pate ! " 
 
 j^-To achieve a good end, all efficacious means 
 are allowable. Now, urges Bottinius, beauty 
 was all that Pompilia had ; therefore to use it was 
 praiseworthy. If she needed some one to serve 
 her, what better could she offer to secure him 
 than her love? "Becaus e, permit the end — per- 
 mit therewith, means jo the endj " All the rest of 
 ^his speech is a variation upon this theme. By 
 ingenious use of it every suspicious circumstance 
 is allowed to be fact, and then justified. He cites 
 the example of Ulysses and Venus to excuse 
 Pompilia's approaches to Caponsacchi and her 
 deceitful wiles. What does it matter, if she does 
 hold nocturnal meetings with him ? 
 
 "Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut? 
 He were a Molinist who dared maintain 
 That midnight meetings in a screened alcove 
 Must argue folly in a matron." 
 
 To say so would be to cast a slur on Judith. All 
 these things, it is true, have been proved false; 
 there were no visits to Pompilia's house by Capon- 
 
JURIS DOCTOR 145 
 
 sacchi, and t here wgrejQ "nnffairnn.1 mpptings/' 
 but, for the sa.ke nf his argument he allows th em 
 to stand-as- true. 
 
 Pompilia is charged with taking money for 
 the expenses of her journey, but -".pe rmit th e 
 end, permit the means to the end." He will 
 allow the - truth of the coachman , s~evidence that 
 "the journey was one long embrace." What of 
 that ? Admit the end, a.nrl ynn admit the meam 
 
 "Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again I 
 Such osculation was a potent means, 
 A very efficacious help, no doubt : 
 Such with a third part of her nectar did 
 Venus imbue : why should Pompilia fling 
 The poet's declaration in his teeth? — 
 Pause to employ what — since it had success, 
 And kept the priest her servant to the end — 
 We must presume of energy enough, 
 No whit superfluous, so permissible? " 
 
 Bottinius justifies Pompilia's lie, as he allows 
 it to be called, about her inability to write, as a 
 praiseworthy attempt to repair a wrong hastily 
 done, and construes her assertion that she had 
 never learned to write as an act of bravery; and 
 he cries, " O splendidly mendacious ! " But his 
 opponent will urge that the means used were 
 vile. Not so, since no other means were at hand. 
 Governor and Archbishop had failed her in her 
 hour of need; every one waited for a miracle to 
 
 10 
 
146 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 save her, while Caponsacchi acted. In illustra- 
 tion of this he cites an incident from the Jewish 
 "Sepher Toldoth Yeschu" : 
 
 fit happened once, — begins this foolish Jew, 
 Pretending to write Christian history, — 
 That three, held greatest, best, and worst of men, 
 Peter and John and Judas, spent a day 
 In toil and travel through the country-side 
 On some sufficient business — I suspect, 
 Suppression of some Molinism i' the bud. 
 Foot-sore and hungry, dropping with fatigue, 
 They reached by nightfall a poor lonely grange, 
 Hostel or inn; so, knocked and entered there. 
 'Your pleasure, great ones? ' — ' Shelter, rest and food 1' 
 For shelter, there was one bare room above ; 
 For rest therein, three beds of bundled straw : 
 For food, one wretched starveling fowl, no more — 
 Meat for one mouth, but mockery for three. 
 'You have my utmost.' How should supper serve? 
 Peter broke silence : 'To the spit with fowl ! 
 And while 't is cooking, sleep 1 since beds there be, 
 And, so far, satisfaction of a want. 
 Sleep we an hour, awake at supper-time, 
 Then each of us narrate the dream he had, 
 And he whose dream shall prove the happiest, point 
 The clearliest out the dreamer as ordained 
 Beyond his fellows to receive the fowl, 
 Him let our shares be cheerful tribute to, 
 His the entire meal, may it do him good 1 ' 
 Who could dispute so plain a consequence? 
 So said, so done; each hurried to his straw, 
 Slept his hour's-sleep and dreamed his dream, and woke. 
 'I,' commenced John, 'dreamed that I gained the prize 
 We all aspire to: the proud place was mine, 
 Throughout the earth and to the end of time 
 
JURIS DOCTOR 147 
 
 I was the Loved Disciple : mine the meal ! ' 
 
 'But I,' proceeded Peter, 'dreamed, a word 
 
 Gave me the headship of our company. 
 
 Made me the Vicar and Vice-gerent, gave 
 
 The keys of heaven and hell into my hand, 
 
 And o'er the earth, dominion : mine the meal.* 
 
 'While I,' submitted in soft under-tone 
 
 The Iscariot — sense of his unworthiness 
 
 Turning each eye up to the inmost white — 
 
 With long-drawn sigh, yet letting both lips smack, 
 
 ' I have had just the pitif ullest dream 
 
 That ever proved man meanest of his mates, 
 
 And born foot-washer and foot-wiper, nay 
 
 Foot-kisser to each comrade of you all ! 
 
 I dreamed I dreamed; and in that mimic dream 
 
 (Impalpable to dream as dream to fact) 
 
 Methought I meanly chose to sleep no wink 
 
 But wait until I heard my brethren snore ; 
 
 Then stole from couch, slipped noiseless o'er the planks, 
 
 Slid downstairs, furtively approached the hearth, 
 
 Pound the fowl duly brown, both back and breast, 
 
 Hissing in harmony with the cricket's chirp, 
 
 Grilled to a point ; said no grace but fell to, 
 
 Nor finished till the skeleton lay bare. 
 
 In penitence for which ignoble dream, 
 
 Lo, I renounce my portion cheerfully ! 
 
 Fie on the flesh — be mine the ethereal gust, 
 
 And yours the sublunary sustenance ! 
 
 See that whate'er be left ye give the poor ! ' 
 
 Down the two scuttled, one on other's heel, 
 
 Stung by a fell surmise ; and found, alack, 
 
 A goodly savour, both the drumstick bones, 
 
 And that which henceforth took the appropriate name 
 
 O' the Merry-thought, in memory of the fact 
 
 That to keep wide awake is man's best dream. 
 
148 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Let others shriek 
 'Oh what refined expedients did we dream 
 Proved us the only fit to help the fair ! ' 
 He cried, 'A carriage waits, jump in with me.' " 
 
 Bottinius continues: Guido might have been 
 content with the decision of the court which 
 really gave him what he ought to have most de- 
 sired, the justification of his wife. After this 
 vindication of her spotlessness he should have 
 been ready to welcome her back to his home, 
 and by so doing prevent the possible visits of 
 Caponsacchi to the home of her parents where 
 she was still residing. 
 
 TheJbi rth of a son should have inclined his 
 hea rt to pea ce with the mother and have led him 
 to welcome the little one wh o might be near the 
 heart of both his parents. Inst ead of prod ucing 
 that effect, i t vexes him all the more . 
 
 "The perverse Guido doubts his eyes, 
 Distrusts assurance, lets the devil drive." 
 
 But to the last Pompilia "used the right means 
 to the permissible end, and by a full confession 
 saved her soul." It then occurs to Bottinius that 
 if this confession is true it really leaves him 
 "nothing to excuse, reason away, or show his 
 skill about." This result he seeks to evade by 
 a resort to technical devices. The confession, 
 he acknowledges, is not to be believed: still 
 
JURIS DOCTOR 149 
 
 Pompilia was justifiable in using her dying 
 
 words to make it easier for the priest Caponsacchi. 
 
 If that plea will not do, then he will maintain that 
 
 Pompilia confessed before she talked and so 
 
 "the sacrament obliterates the sin" of falsehood. 
 
 After another legal quibble, Bottinius closes his 
 
 argument in a way that indicates his perfect 
 
 satisfaction with it. 
 
 "Thus, 
 Law's son, have I bestowed my filial help, 
 And thus I end, tenax propositi ; 
 Point to point as I purposed have I drawn 
 Pompilia, and implied as terribly 
 Guido : so, gazing, let the world crown Law — 
 Able once more, despite my impotence, 
 And helped by the acumen of the Court, 
 To eliminate, display, make triumph truth I 
 What other prize than truth were worth the pains? 
 
 " There 's my oration — much exceeds in length 
 That famed panegyric of Isocrates, 
 They say it took him fifteen years to pen. 
 But all those ancients could say anything I 
 He put in just what rushed into his head : 
 While I shall have to prune and pare and print. 
 This comes of being born in modern times 
 With priests for auditory. Still, it pays." 
 
 Bottinius does not discover himself to us in so 
 good a light as his opponent, in mentaT abi lity 
 he is, no doubt, far superi or to de Archangelis . 
 He has great oratorical powers, and nobody 
 
150 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 knows it better than he. He does not like the 
 custom of presenting pleas in writing. 
 
 "Had I God's leave, how I would alter things ! 
 If I might read instead of print my speech, — 
 Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower 
 Refuses obstinate to blow in print, 
 As wildings planted in a prim parterre, — 
 This scurvy room were turned an immense hall; 
 Opposite, fifty judges in a row; 
 This side and that of me, for audience — Rome : 
 And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide — 
 Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough. 
 A buzz of expectation ! Through the crowd, 
 Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff, 
 Up comes an usher, louts him low. 'The Court 
 Requires the allocution of the Fisc ! ' 
 I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause 
 O'er the hushed multitude: I count — One, two — " 
 
 He has some poetic feeling and a command of 
 glittering phrases which to some may appear to 
 have something substantial in them. He takes 
 great pleasure in his work and has no doubt of 
 its excellence. When he has finished his speech, 
 he is satisfied that it is a masterpiece, something 
 far more difficult to achieve than any that classic 
 orators have handed down; it pays, and he is 
 content. He c ares more for his sp eech and his 
 own ingenuit y than he *^tp<» fojJwr-^Tipnt 
 
 In~Tea3Ing the argument of Archangelis for 
 Guiffo we' feel that he said about allTtefould say 
 
JURIS DOCTOR 151 
 
 for him. He emp loyed all the technicalities o f 
 
 pleading because he could d o no more. But 
 
 Bottinius has a cli ent whose confession mak es 
 h er a martyr and saint . He has no proof that she 
 is not all that she appears to be, and yet he is so 
 possessed with t he desire to d ispla y his ing e- 
 nuit y that he sets Pompilia's confession aside, a nd 
 defends ^ her as if everything urged against h er 
 we re tru e. Jle has no faith in human nature - 
 He does not know purity and innocence wh en he 
 s ees th em. Such a man may do well in defence 
 of a scoundrel, because he can understand him, 
 but innocence puzzles and annoys him. To de- 
 ceive such a man one needs only to tell him the 
 truth. Hi s defence o f Pompilia is a judgment 
 on his moral obtuseness and a revelation uf th e 
 inherent nastiness of his nature . For Pompilia 
 to be acquitted on the grounds which he presents 
 wou ld have been to give her legal justification^ at 
 the expense of moral condemnation. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE POPE 
 
 We have heard the voices of those who are in- 
 terested in the story of The Ring and the Book, 
 of those who took part in it, and of the lawyers 
 who pleaded for and against Guido as they hap- 
 pened to be professionally engaged. We now 
 are to hear one speak whose attitude toward all 
 the incidents of t he story is that of the impartial 
 spectator. The Pope, to whom appeaJJhasbeen 
 made to rescue Guido, bec ause, having taken 
 some~minor orders he is~entitled to benefit of 
 clergy71s~made, by the genius of the poet, to un- 
 fold t he workings ot his~mind as he ponders tha 
 case of which he is to b e the final judge . His 
 meditation consists of three distinct parts. In 
 the first part the Pope discloses his method of pre- 
 paring for a decision on important matters. Like 
 Ahasuerus he turns to the chronicles of the past 
 for instruction and guidance. He reads in one 
 of them an account of Formosus, who was made 
 Pope in 891, and of his trial and condemnation 
 after death by his successor Stephen VI, and he 
 
THE POPE 153 
 
 follows also the successive decisions for or against 
 him, until John IX in the year 898, " Exact eight 
 hundred years ago to-day" pronounced in his 
 favor. 
 
 " So worked the predecessor : now my turn 1 
 In God's name ! . . . Once more appeal is made 
 From man's assize to mine : I sit and see 
 Another poor weak trembling human wretch 
 Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right, 
 Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins 
 From this world to the next, — gives way and way, 
 Just on the edge over the awful dark : 
 With nothing to arrest him but my feet." 
 
 "Guido," he says, "catches at me with con- 
 vulsive force" and cries for "leave to live the 
 natural minute more." To this his enemies 
 reply: "Leave? None!" "Put him to death." 
 "Punish him now." He, "the solitary judge," 
 must either save the wretch or let him "drift 
 to the fall." He dallies with the thought "as if 
 reprieve were possible for both prisoner and 
 Pope," but he knows this is a mere delusion : 
 
 "The case is over, judgment at an end, 
 And all things done now and irrevocable: 
 A mere dead man is Franceschini here, 
 Even as Formosus centuries ago." 
 
 All the evidence, the Pope tells us, has been 
 read and weighed, and the essential facts evolved; 
 and he simply pauses before he acts. 
 
1S4 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 '.' Irresolute? Not I, more than the mound 
 With the pine-trees on it yonder ! " 
 
 Nor does his sense of fallibility deter him, for he 
 says: "Call ignorance my sorrow, not my sin!" 
 If in some after-time, some one, by deeper prob- 
 ing into the mass of facts, should find Guido in- 
 nocent, he declares, "I shall face Guido's ghost 
 nor blanch a jot. " GoH ^he knows, has given hi m"» 
 "so much, no more" of reasoni ng faculty — and 
 he is responsible only for t he best possible use p f 
 it. Indeed, he feels more guilty for discharging a 
 chaplain, for no cause save that he snuffled when he 
 said mass, than he will if he should make a mistake 
 as to Guido's guilt. For God judge s not the result 
 of our acts, but the motives which prompted them. 
 
 "Therefore I stand on my integrity, 
 Nor fear at all." 
 
 But, as the day closes, he knows that "two 
 names now snap and flash from mouth to mouth," 
 Guido's and his own. Which of the two will 
 live the longer? He might "dip in Virgil," or, 
 better still, consult the "sagacious Swede who 
 finds by figures how the chances prove," to an- 
 swer the question. Take the latter: tell him the 
 condition of the two men. Here is Guido, doomed 
 to death, it is true, but who, like hundreds of 
 others, may escape. He is full of strength, noble, 
 backed by nobler friends ; and the community is in 
 
THE POPE 155 
 
 sympathy with him. Such an one may bribe the 
 jailor, or break jail, or be rescued by his friends. 
 The other man, himself, is eighty-six years 
 old, one who bears all the world's "cark and 
 care." A straw swallowed in his posset or a 
 stool over which he might stumble may end his 
 life at any moment. Which of the two will live 
 the longer? Does the Swede say that Guido 
 will? Then he is wrong; "to-day is Guido's 
 last, my term is yet to run." But suppose the 
 Swede were right ? Then how shall he, the Pope, 
 answer for this last act of his before the Judge of 
 all? He will not answer that question in words, 
 for words hide more truth than they show; nor 
 will he answer as Pope. He will answer as 
 A ntonio Pignatelli, 
 
 f'Thou, not Pope, but the mere old man o' the world, 
 Supposed inquisitive and dispassionate, 
 Wilt thou, the one whose speech I somewhat trust, 
 Question the after-me, this self now Pope, 
 Hear his procedure, criticize his work? " 
 
 The second part contains the judgment which, 
 as Antonio Pignatellij. he passes upon all the 
 characters in the poem, and first upon Guido. 
 The Pope recalls the conditions of his life, and 
 declares that he has "a sound frame," and a 
 "solid intellect." He has had, indeed, to struggle 
 with the temptations incidental to the lot of one 
 
156 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 "who born with an appetite lacks food," but 
 
 these need not have proved so much a stumbling 
 
 block as a stepping stone. To help him he had 
 
 a traditionary name, choice companionship, and 
 
 "conversancy with the faith." But he has used 
 
 the church to aid his selfishpurpose. He is a 
 
 "religious parasite,""^iidaccepts sacred duties 
 
 to avoid the consequences of his iniquity. The 
 
 honorable name he bears does not enlarge his 
 
 nature; he grows more unworthy of it. He 
 
 seeks not to live up to it, but to live by it. Test 
 
 him by his last act, the marriage, and in it can be 
 
 seen that 
 
 "Not one permissible impulse moves the man, 
 From the mere liking of the eye and ear, 
 To the true longing of the heart that loves, 
 No trace of these : but all to instigate, 
 Is what sinks man past level of the brute 
 Whose appetite if brutish is a truth. 
 All is the lust for money." 
 
 He then reviews his course "f f""fhirt tnwnrrh 
 
 the Cbmparini and Fo mpilia — and shows ho w 
 
 he tried to drive his~wife to ruin, and how, when 
 
 that failed, he devised the letters ~ ~" 
 
 " — false beyond all forgery — 
 Not just handwriting and mere authorship, 
 But false to body and soul they figure forth — 
 As though the man had cut out shape and shape 
 From fancies of that other Aretine, 
 To paste below — incorporate the filth 
 With cherub faces on a missal-page I" 
 
THE POPE 157 
 
 Caponsacchi's intervention saved him from 
 crime, and the courts, by their decision, did the 
 same service for him. The way was now open 
 for him to escape from his past "though as by 
 fire." But, the Pope says, Guido refused to 
 learn his lesson. The birth of his son taught 
 him only a new way to get money. All that he 
 could see was "the gold in his curls," and that 
 if Pietro and Violante and Pompilia were out of 
 the way the money would belong to the child, 
 and the child would be in his keeping. Knowing 
 this he called four peasant laborers, and, with 
 them, went to Rome to commit the profitable 
 crime. Everything seemed to conspire to favor 
 his purpose, and he might have escaped from 
 Roman territory and laughed in Arezzo at its 
 officials if he had not forgotten to secure the 
 permit, to be had for the asking, to hire a 
 conveyance. 
 
 Perhaps, the Pope thinks, he cursed his omis- 
 sion, and yet it was the mercy stroke that stopped 
 the fate ; for his companions had planned _ to 
 murder hmTXecause he had not pa id them, and 
 woulcL bave done so, had thev not been arrested 
 befo re they could carry out their purpose. 
 
 The Pope then depicts some of the minor 
 characters of the poem. Of the Abate Paolo, 
 the older brother of Guido, he says : 
 
158 THE RING. AND THE BOOK 
 
 "This fox-faced horrible priest, this brother-brute 
 . . . who trims the midnight lamp 
 And turns the classic page — and all for craft, 
 All to work harm with, yet incur no scratch." 
 
 He refers to Girolamo, the younger brother, as 
 one in whom he discerns "a new distinctive 
 touch," "nor wolf, nor fox, but hybrid." Words 
 seem too feeble to describe the mother of Guido : 
 
 "Unmotherly mother and unwomanly 
 Woman, that near turns motherhood to shame, 
 Womanliness to loathing : " 
 
 and he calls the four companions, "These God- 
 abandoned wretched lumps of life." Then we 
 have the Pope's opinion of the Governor and of 
 the Archbishop. With the former he can do 
 nothing, but of the Archbishop he says signifi- 
 cantly, "With thee at least anon the little word!" 
 The Pope's impression of Pompilia follows in 
 one of the noblest and most beautiful passages 
 of the whole poem. 
 
 "First of the first, 
 Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now 
 Perfect in whiteness : stoop thou down, my child, 
 Give one good moment to the poor old Pope 
 Heart-sick at having all his world to blame — 
 Let me look at thee in the flesh as erst, 
 Let me enjoy the old clean linen garb, 
 Not the new splendid vesture 1 Armed and crowned, 
 Would Michael, yonder, be, nor crowned nor armed, 
 The less pre-eminent angel? Everywhere 
 
THE POEE 159 
 
 I see in the world the intellect of man, 
 That sword, the energy his subtle spear, 
 The knowledge which defends him like a shield — 
 Everywhere; but they make not up, I think, 
 The marvel of a soul like thine, earth's flower 
 She holds up to the softened gaze of God I 
 It was not gi ven Pompilia to know much, 
 Speak "mucK, to write a book, to move mankind, 
 Be memorized by who records my time. 
 Yet if in purity and patience, if 
 In faith held fast despite the plucking fiend, 
 Safe like the signet stone with the new name 
 ■That saints are known by, — if in right returned 
 For wrong, most pardon for worst injury, 
 If there be any virtue, any praise, — 
 Then will this woman-child have proved — who 
 
 knows? — 
 Just the one prize vouchsafed unworthy me, 
 Seven years a gardener of the untoward ground 
 I till, — this earth, my sweat and blood manure 
 All the long day that barrenly grows dusk : 
 At least one blossom makes me proud at eve 
 Born 'mid the briers of my enclosure ! Still 
 (Oh, here as elsewhere, nothingness of man !) 
 Those be the plants, imbedded yonder South 
 To mellow in the morning, those made fat 
 By the master's eye, that yield such timid leaf, 
 Uncertain bud, as product of his pains 1 
 While — see how this mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed 
 
 seed 
 That sprang up by the wayside 'neath the foot 
 Of the enemy, this breaks all into blaze, 
 Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire 
 To incorporate the whole great sun it loves 
 From the inch-height whence it looks and longs I My 
 
 flower, 
 
160 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 My rose, I gather for the breast of God, 
 
 This I praise most in thee, where all I praise, 
 
 That having been obedient to the end 
 
 According to the light allotted, law 
 
 Prescribed thy life, still tried, still standing test, — 
 
 Dutiful to the foolish parents first, 
 
 Submissive next to the bad husband, — nay, 
 
 Tolerant of those meaner miserable 
 
 That did his hests, eked out the dole of pain, — 
 
 Thou, patient thus, could'st rise from law to law, 
 
 The old to the new, promoted at one cry 
 
 O' the trump of God to the new service, not 
 
 To longer bear, but henceforth fight, be found 
 
 Sublime in new impatience with the foe ! 
 
 Endure man and obey God : plant firm foot 
 
 On neck of man, tread man into the hell 
 
 Meet for him, and obey God all the more ! 
 
 ... Go past me 
 And get thy praise — and be not far to seek 
 Presently when I follow if I may 1 " 
 
 Next to Pompilia the Pope app roves Capon- 
 sacchiT^He calls him "my warrior*"priest," and 
 "Irregular noble 'scapegrace — son the same!" 
 Perhaps the church had been "faulty" in attempt- 
 ing to subject such a nature as his to its service. 
 All the qualities he had shown were not given 
 him by the church, but belonged to him already. 
 He finds much that was "blameworthy" in 
 Caponsacchi, in "this youth prolonged though 
 age was ripe." But he prefers to dwell upon 
 " the healthy rage, — when the first moan broke 
 from the martyr-maid." There may, he thinks, 
 
THE POPE 161 
 
 have been much rashness shown, but he thanks 
 
 God for the outcome. 
 
 "Ay, such championship 
 Of God at first blush, such prompt cheery thud 
 Of glove on ground that answers ringingly 
 The challenge of the false knight, — watch we long 
 And wait we vainly for its gallant like 
 From those appointed to the service." 
 
 He b elieves that throughout all his warfare he 
 was pure, and that the greatness of his tempta- 
 tion had served to^reveal in him what was worth y 
 of praise. ~He had~~done the duty wh ich those 
 who , wer e trainpH fr»r it f ailed to do because they 
 
 were somehow 
 
 "too obtuse 
 Of ear, through iteration of command, 
 For catching quick the sense of the real cry, — 
 Thou, whose sword-hand was used to strike the lute, 
 Whose sentry-station graced some wanton's gate, 
 Thou didst push forward and show mettle, shame 
 The laggards, and retrieve the day. Well done ! 
 Be glad thou hast let light into the world 
 Through that irregular breach o' the boundary, — see 
 The same upon thy path and march assured, 
 Learning anew the use of soldiership, 
 Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear, 
 Loyalty to the life's end ! Ruminate, 
 Deserve the initiatory spasm, — once more 
 Work, be unhappy, but bear life, my son ! " 
 
 Last of all the Pope re fers to the Comparing 
 as~^starvea~samples of humanity," "Foul and 
 
162 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 fair sadly mixed natures," and so they suffer, 
 "Life's business being just the terrible choice." 
 
 We might well suppose now that all was over 
 and done with ; not so our Pope. He is only be- 
 ginning. He asks the question, Upon what do 
 these judgments of mine rest? What light have 
 I, from the upper sky, to guide me ? The medita- 
 tion upon this forms the third part of "The Pope" 
 and extends from line 1284 to line 1954. 
 
 He believes that he himself reflects something 
 of theTTght of God — that his "poor spark had 
 for its source the sun." He has in the Christian 
 revelation a tale of God which his heart loves 
 and his reason approves. It satisfies the demand 
 of his nature for love in God, as nothing else 
 does or can. There may, indeed, be errors in 
 the transmission of the Gospel story, but these 
 do not concern him; the same truth may be 
 revealed under various forms. Nor does the 
 experience of Pompilia, who suffers in her inno- 
 cence, and who, by what seems an accident, 
 barely escapes moral condemnation, disturb his 
 faith. This life is short, and the future may serve 
 to right the wrong. Nor, again, does it seriously 
 troub le him that so me r eject Christianity. Life 
 is pr obation, and there could be no test of our 
 natur es if we were arbitrarily compell ed to be- 
 lieve, — if there were no possibility of d oubt. 
 
THE POPE 163 
 
 What really troub les him is tha t_men who ac- 
 cept the truth "Ho so little with it- This Aretine 
 archbTshop to whom Pompilia cried, "Protect 
 me from the fiend," would not do so because 
 he feared Guido, and he threw her back to him 
 as a " bone to mumble." 
 
 "Have we misjudged here, over-armed our knight, 
 Given gold and silk where plain hard steel serves best, 
 Enfeebled whom we sought to fortify, 
 Made an archbishop and undone a saint? " 
 
 The monk is one whose prayers and fastings 
 may be supposed to have rendered him superior 
 to the fear of the world. To him Pompilia came 
 with her story of sorrow, but at the thought of 
 doing anything displeasing to those above him, 
 he shuddered to the marrow, and ended by say- 
 ing, " I break my promise : let her break her heart." 
 
 And here is "The Monastery called of Con- 
 vertites, meant to help women because these 
 helped Christ." They had cared for Pompilia 
 and had borne witness 
 
 "To her pure life and saintly dying days. 
 She dies, and lo, who seemed so poor, proves rich. 
 What does the body that lives through helpfulness 
 To women for Christ's sake? The kiss turns bite, 
 The dove's note changes to the crow's cry: judge ! 
 ' Seeing that this our Convent claims of right 
 What goods belong to those we succour, be 
 The same proved women of dishonest life, — 
 And seeing that this Trial made appear 
 
164 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Pompilia was in such predicament, — 
 
 The Convent hereupon pretends to said 
 
 Succession of Pompilia, issues writ, 
 
 And takes possession by the Fisc's advice.' 
 
 Such is their attestation to the cause 
 
 Of Christ, who had one saint at least, they hoped : 
 
 But, is a title-deed to filch, a corpse 
 
 To slander, and an infant-heir to cheat? 
 
 Christ must give up his gains then ! They unsay 
 
 All the fine speeches, — who was saint is whore. 
 
 Can it be this is end and outcome, all 
 
 I take with me to show as stewardship's fruit, 
 
 The best yield of the latest time, this year 
 
 The seventeen-hundredth, since God died for man? 
 
 Is such effect proportionate to cause? " 
 
 And the terror increases, he says, when he sees 
 that men do as well on natural as they do on 
 supernatural reasons. Caponsacchi responds to 
 the call of oppressed innocence. But "where 
 are the Christians in their panoply?" "Slunk 
 into corners." At this, there will be a protest 
 from those who claim that they have "left their 
 martyr-mark" everywhere. True, but they have 
 worked no greater deeds than others have 
 
 "Done at an instinct of the natural man. 
 Immolate body, sacrifice soul too, — 
 Do not these publicans the same? " 
 
 There is zeal and earnestness, but they are about 
 things far off, like the excitement about the proper 
 term for Deity in Chinese. But 
 
THE POPE 165 
 
 '.' Where is the gloriously-decisive change, 
 Metamorphosis the immeasurable 
 Of human clay to divine gold, we looked 
 Should, in some poor sort, justify its price? " 
 
 If a member of the order of the Rosicrucians 
 could make no more gold by his mystical proc- 
 esses than the vulgar got by the old smelting 
 process 
 
 '.' Would not we start? . . . 
 If this were sad to see in just the sage 
 Who should profess so much, perform no more, 
 What is it when suspected in that Power 
 Who undertook to make and made the world, 
 Devised and did effect man, body and soul, 
 Ordained salvation for them both, and yet . . . 
 Well, is the thing we see, salvation? " 
 
 But he himself has faith and even his doubts 
 
 have their value. The weakness in a faith may 
 
 be the source of its strength. So he concludes, 
 
 "I have light nor fear the dark at all." Euripides 
 
 might claim that he 
 
 " When the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two, — 
 Whose lot fell in a land where life was great 
 And sense went free and beauty lay profuse, 
 I, untouched by one adverse circumstance, 
 Adopted virtue as my rule of life, 
 Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake, 
 And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world, 
 And have been teaching now two thousand years." 
 
 Why, Euripides might ask, should he be blamed, 
 when he attained so long ago to what men fail 
 
166 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 now to see even in the full blaze of the Christian 
 revelation? How shall he answer Euripides? 
 May it not be that our truth has become so true, 
 so much a part of the order of the world, that it 
 no longer requires purity of soul to perceive it, 
 a heroic courage to maintain it? Faith may 
 have become so easy that the most ordinary mo- 
 tives lead men to adopt it. This old faith may 
 need to be broken up in order to resolve itself into 
 a new and living faith. May not the coming age 
 
 " Correct the portrait by the living face, 
 Man's God by God's God in the mind of man? " 
 
 But such an age must be one of trial and terror. 
 Many will sink in the ocean of doubt. Some like 
 Pompilia will do what is right and true just the 
 same; they will distingui sh— th e - right~by "foo t- 
 feel." Ot hers will say, "Follow your heart as I 
 did mine.'' T his was the way oTD aponSacchi, 
 and it was well, for his heart was ngTrl;r~~But the 
 Abate, and those like him, may say "my heart 
 beats to another tune," and live for greed, am- 
 bition, lust, revenge. 
 
 The Pope now imagines that he hears the re- 
 monstrances made in Guido's favor, made not 
 in the name of mercy, but of what is called honor. 
 They urge that he need give no reason for a de- 
 cision in his behalf except that even minor orders 
 
THE POPE 167 
 
 n the church secure one from punishment. He 
 may claim to acquit Guido in the interest of the 
 church, or he may say that culture, the spirit of 
 civilization, demands his pardon. Does he wish, 
 they urge, to end his days condemning a man to 
 death ? Will he have it said as soon as he is dead, 
 
 "scarce the three little taps 
 O' the silver mallet ended on thy brow, — 
 ' His last act was to sacrifice a Count 
 And thereby screen a scandal of the church ' " 1 
 
 He hears the voices that demand judgment, and 
 cry: "Pronounce then, for our breath and pa- 
 tience fail." To these the Pope replies : — 
 
 "I will, Sirs : but a voice other than yours 
 Quickens my spirit. 'Quis pro Domino? 
 Who is upon the Lord's side? ' asked the Count. 
 I, who write — 
 
 'On receipt of this command, 
 Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows four 
 They die to-morrow: could it be to-night, 
 The better, but the work to do, takes time. 
 Set with all diligence a scaffold up, 
 Not in the customary place, by Bridge 
 Saint Angelo, where die the common sort; 
 But since the man is noble, and his peers 
 By predilection haunt the People's Square, 
 There let him be beheaded in the midst, 
 And his companions hanged on either side : 
 So shall the quality see, fear and learn. 
 All which work takes time : till to-morrow, then, 
 Let there be prayer incessant for the five ! ' 
 For the main criminal I have no hope 
 
168 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Except in such a suddenness of fate. 
 
 I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 
 
 I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 
 
 Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: 
 
 But the night's black was burst through by a blaze — 
 
 Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, 
 
 Through her whole length of mountain visible : 
 
 There lay the city thick and plain with spires, 
 
 And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. 
 
 So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, 
 
 And Guido see, one instant, and be saved. 
 
 Else I avert my face, nor follow him 
 
 Into that sad obscure sequestered state 
 
 Where God unmakes but to remake the soul 
 
 He else made first in vain ; which must not be. 
 
 Enough, for I may die this very night : 
 
 And how should I dare die, this man let live? " 
 
 The Pope is called upon to accept or reject the 
 plea of Guido, that because he was in orders he 
 was entitled to exemption from the penalty im- 
 posed by the court. It is in his power to set 
 Guido free or to send him to the scaffold. The 
 decision of such a case which actually required 
 only the consideration of a few minutes, occupied 
 hours in the poem. 
 
 The Pope is an old man of eighty-six, whose 
 life the slightest circumstance might terminate. 
 He wishes to judge this case as if it were his last, 
 and as if his whole life were to be estimated in 
 the light of it. His reading of history has taught 
 him how the estimates of men change from 
 
THE POPE 169 
 
 generation to generation: one blames, another 
 praises, the same act. How will men regard this 
 last judgment of his? It is not enough for him 
 that he is the head of the church: he will not 
 fall back upon any official excuse for his decision. 
 Antonio Pignatelli, "the mere old man o' the 
 world, supposed inquisitive and dispassionate," 
 must judge what is done by the Pope. He has 
 looked into this case, has pored over all the docu- 
 ments and pleadings of the lawyers, and has ar- 
 rived at a conclusion. 
 
 Still he ponders and again brings before his 
 mind the persons involved in the murder case. He 
 praises and blames i n a wa y that s hows that lo ng 
 experi ence of life has taught him toread the hea rt 
 of ma n, an d thp tpkApv fppl« that he has sai d the 
 last word in the matter. He goes beyond this, 
 and seeks to test the reality of the moral and 
 spiritual ideas on which his decision rests. 
 
 In and through his long meditation he im- 
 presses us as a man of profound conscientious- 
 ness, whose opinions were always based upon 
 first-hand knowledge and the deepest reflection. 
 He also reveals himself as a man capable of 
 moral indignation. We feel it throbbing through 
 his review of the career and character of Guido, 
 and of his mother and brothers. In it all there is 
 clearly perceptible a hatred of shams, and 
 
170 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 cruelty, and greed. He has no patience with the 
 Convertite nuns who seek to gain money by the 
 vilification of Pompilia who had been entrusted 
 to their care, and we know it will go hard with 
 the Archbishop when he speaks to him "anon 
 the little word." 
 
 But along wit h his hatred of thp wrnng gr> his 
 perception and approval of the good. His w hole 
 nature — ts-stirrecl by the characterof Pompi lia. 
 He sees in her a revelation of the highest form of 
 humanity. He knows a beautiful soul when he 
 sees it. Jt might have been expected that he 
 would condemn Caponsacchi, but while he dis- 
 cerns" the technical oiience ot the priest, he still 
 more~clearIy perceives _the real cha racter and 
 motive of the man. To him the impulse of help- 
 fulness was much more important than the 
 violation of priestly etiquette, and the sacrifice 
 of reputation in defence of a woman in peril was 
 worth more than the formal correctness of those 
 who had neglected her appeals. The public and 
 even the judges of the court who tried Capon- 
 sacchi did not believe his direct and simple state- 
 ment. To them it was only a story cleverly told 
 on his own behalf. But the Pope recognizes its 
 genuineness and says 
 
 "In thought, word and deed, 
 How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure, 
 I find it easy to believe." 
 
THE POPE 171 
 
 The Pope has what is rarer than conscien- 
 tiousness, or moral indignation, or perception of 
 reality; he has spiritual courage. Many men 
 have doubts and quesTfemings- about the deepest 
 faiths of their souls, but few have the courage to 
 face them resolutely as does the Pope. Usually 
 they turn their thoughts away from the facts that 
 disturb the repose of their minds and hearts. 
 They are afraid to examine the foundations on 
 which their faith rests. They turn aside from 
 the fact that many acknowledge Christianity 
 and yet act as if they had never heard of it. Still 
 less are they ready to ask themselves why many 
 who never heard of Christianity shame its ad- 
 herents by their conduct and character. They 
 never venture to ask why it is that the deeds 
 prompted by natural instinct are as great and 
 noble as those inspired by Christian faith. 
 
 These are just the questions which the Pope 
 faces. He will not hide them from sight. He 
 meets them not as a doubter but as a man whose 
 faith is deeper and stronger than his questionings; 
 he is a man of faith because he has the courage 
 to doubt. His courage goes beyond this. It is 
 clear to him that the old faith is now so easily 
 accepted that it exerts little influence on the 
 practical life. Perhaps, as a result of this, it may 
 be well to break up the long established and 
 
172 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 customary order of thought and belief. He 
 shudders at the thought because he sees that 
 many would do worse than they do now, if the 
 usual standards should be removed. Some, like 
 Pompilia, might know the right way by "the 
 fool^feel," and others might follow the guidance 
 of their higher nature, like Caponsacchi, but 
 how about those who trust to what is lower in 
 themselves and follow it, like Guido and his 
 brothers? Yet in spite of all his forebodings he 
 has the courage to believe that even the dissolu- 
 tion of the old order would result at last in the 
 establishment of one that would better serve the 
 higher interests of humanity. There is not in 
 all literature and history a nobler example of 
 spiritual courage than this. 
 
 Then our Pope is independent of all external 
 influences. The suggestion that he may be mis- 
 taken in his judgment of Guido, and that later 
 knowledge may show him as really innocent, 
 does not deter him. He knows his integrity- and 
 stands t securely upon th at — I gnoranc e is his 
 sorrow^ no_t_his-ein. He knows that he has done 
 his best and has acted upon a worthy motive; 
 and for him that is enough. Nothing offends him 
 more than the intimation that people will criti- 
 cize his action. This only serves to precipitate 
 his final decision. When the friends of Guido 
 
THE POPE 173 
 
 are represented as addressing him, and appeal- 
 ing to him on the ground that after he is gone it 
 will be said that 
 
 f'His last act was to sacrifice a Count, 
 And thereby screen a scandal of the Church "; 
 
 when they urge him to pronounce his decision 
 because their "breath and patience fail," he 
 does so in a way altogether different from what 
 they had anticipated. 
 
 "I will, Sirs, but a voice other than yours 
 Quickens my spirit. 'Quis pro Domino? 
 Who is upon the Lord's side ? ' asked the Count. 
 I who write — 
 
 'On receipt of this command 
 Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows four, 
 They die to-morrow; could it be to-night, 
 The hgj jf hut, the, wnrk to- d n t n kn n t i rn ^ " 
 
CHAPTER Xn 
 
 GTJIDO 
 
 We have, once before, heard Guido speaking 
 in his ow n defence before the court, and using 
 all his gkjl l and craft to save his life. Now w e 
 hear hi m, after the trial is over, and after t he 
 Pope has refused to revoke the sentence against 
 him. He is in his prison cell where his old time 
 friends, Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Pancia- 
 tichi, have come to notify him of his impending 
 doom, and to hear his confession. In their 
 presence he pours out, without much order or 
 premeditation, all the thoughts and feelings that 
 possess him. He recalls the place where the castle 
 of the Cardinal's ancestor was situated, and then 
 breaks forth into an appeal for help, urging that 
 his blood comes from as far a source. Perhaps, 
 after all, their coming is simply a trick on their 
 part to test his courage, but, he declares, he is 
 calm as he hears them, knowing that he is inno- 
 cent. All honest Rome had "approved his part." 
 His lawyers had assured him that on account of 
 his "priestly tonsure" he could depend upon 
 
GUIDO 175 
 
 the intervention of the Pope, "so meek and mild 
 and merciful." But the Pope had refused the 
 chance to save him: he is old himself, tired of 
 life, and so is glad to have him die. 
 
 Again Guido turns to his friends, and cries: 
 "Sir Abate, can you do nothing?" Things have 
 changed so much since the days of his grandfather, 
 who stabbed the man who merely threw a gibe 
 at him as he passed by, and was never called to 
 account for it. Now he does the same thing and 
 "death is the penalty." The Abate and Cardinal 
 must hear him talk, others will hear them at 
 "pleasant supper time." Then he exclaims: 
 
 "Life! 
 How I could spill this overplus of mine 
 Among those hoar-haired, shrunk-shanked odds and ends 
 Of body and soul old age is chewing dry ! 
 Those windlestraws that stare while purblind death 
 Mows here, mows there, makes hay of juicy me, 
 And misses just the bunch of withered weed, 
 Would frighten hell and streak its smoke with flame 1 
 How the life I could shed yet never shrink, 
 Would drench their stalks with sap like grass in May I 
 Is it not terrible, I entreat you, Sirs? — 
 With manifold and plenitudinous life, 
 Prompt at death's menace to give blow for threat, 
 Answer his 'Be thou not 1 ' by 'Thus I am ! ' — 
 Terrible so to be alive yet die? " 
 
 Now, he continues, he sees things cj eajly. His 
 folly consisjtfid—in— tbi ukiug he needed a wife, 
 
176 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 when, what he seemed to lack was already within 
 himself. But while he talks he allows himself to 
 wander to the contemplation of the Mannaia 
 which he had seen, in all its ghastliness "many 
 a good year gone," just after it had decapitated 
 a man who had struck a nobleman for taking 
 away his sister. 
 
 The Pope will no t be merciful, as he oug ht; 
 and so they now want his confess ion. Why do 
 they want it? Well, because they wish to pre- 
 vent people from imputing bad motives to the 
 Pope. They want him to "end the edifying 
 way," but he will end telling the truth. He is 
 a wolf, and of course the shepherds must hate 
 him, but that is no reason why the wolf should 
 " lick the prong that spits him." Why should he 
 repent ? To do so will not save him from death. 
 He is about to die, and so he will out with the 
 truth and ask no respite. He has opposed him- 
 self to the regular order of things; he has fenced 
 with the law, and law has thrust him through, 
 and made an end of him. But they want him to 
 acknowledge that virtue alone disarmed and 
 slew him. Law does not suffice. They seek a 
 word from him which shall "somehow put the 
 keystone in its place and crown the arch." To 
 this Guido says, "Then take the word you -want." 
 Long ago it was agreed that a man must not 
 
GUIDO 177 
 
 commit extra-legal acts because they pleased 
 himself, — and that whosoever did must pay the 
 forfeit. He has broken this compact and loses 
 his head. 
 
 "But, repentance too? 
 But pure and simple sorrow for law's breach 
 Rather than blunderer's-ineptitude? 
 Cardi nal, no ! Abate, scarcely thus I 
 'T is the fault, not that I dared try a fall 
 With Law and straightway am found undermost, 
 But that I failed to see, above man's law, 
 God's precept you, the Christians, recognize? 
 Colly my cow ! Don't fidget, Cardinal ! 
 Abate, cross your breast and count your beads 
 And exorcize the devil, for here he stands 
 And stiffens in the bristly nape of neck, 
 Daring you drive him hence I " 
 
 If ever there was such a thing as Christian faith 
 it hasrranisnexl long ago. It is no longer a reality 
 in the"wbrkil Once, perhaps, it affected conduct, 
 but it does so no more. Everybody does as he 
 would do if he believed just the reverse of what 
 Christianity teaches. 
 
 "Why should things change because men disbelieve 
 What 's incompatible, in the whited tomb, 
 With bones and rottenness one inch below? 
 What saintly act is done in Rome to-day 
 But might be prompted by the devil, — 'is ' 
 I say not, — 'has been, and again may be,' — 
 I do say, full i' the face o' the crucifix 
 You try to stop my mouth with ! " 
 12 
 
178 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 As for his friends what had they taught him? 
 They told him to get pleasure, but they never 
 warned him of the consequences of pursuing it. 
 No word of warning ever fell from their lips. 
 Instead of that, they as good as told him to wear 
 the sheep's wool over the wolf's skin. But now 
 when the wolf has shown his teeth too much, 
 they join with those who seek his destruction. 
 If he were only free once more they would get 
 " a growl for their beckoning." 
 
 Why do people call his defence "plausible 
 but false," when plausibility is the only reason 
 they can give "in favor of the best belief they 
 hold !" He had told his story of the flight of his 
 wife with the priest, and how they took their 
 pleasure in the two days' flight, and people call 
 it incredible. But why? The story might 
 seem credible to the husband, at least. Men 
 are often blamed for not perceiving the mis- 
 conduct of their wives; why should he be 
 blamed for suspecting wrong when in fact there 
 was none? 
 
 Presently, however, Guido asks : 
 
 "What shall I say to God? 
 This, if I find the tongue and keep the mind — 
 'Do Thou wipe out the being of me, and smear 
 This soul from off Thy white of things, I blot ! 
 I am one huge and sheer mistake, — whose fault? 
 Not mine at least, who did not make myself I ' " 
 
GUIDO 179 
 
 He declares that he is unable to repent one par- 
 ticle of the past, and longs for "some cold wise 
 man" who might go into the depths of his being, 
 see how he came to commit this blunder, which 
 others call a crime, and pronounce on his desert 
 with reason. He was at the turning of the roads; 
 where did bte take the first false step ? 
 
 He remembers Pompilia who seems to stand 
 before him now as she stood for the first time 
 with 
 
 f'The amazed look, all one insuppressive prayer, — 
 Might she but breathe, set free as heretofore, 
 Have this cup leave her lips unblistered, bear 
 Any cross anywhither anyhow, 
 So but alone, so but apart from me ! 
 You are touched? So am I, quite otherwise, 
 If ' t is with pity. I resent my wrong, 
 Being a man? 7 
 
 He was old, and the whole attitude of Pompilia 
 showed her aversion to him. Her mother tried 
 to persuade him that by taking a litde pains with 
 himself he might appear even better to her than 
 a boy. But that deceived only for a moment, 
 the man who saw that her neck writhed, corded 
 itself against his kiss, and that her hand was 
 rigid with despair when he clasped it All this 
 he resented because he was young in soul. So, 
 he claims, Pompilia began by wronging him, and 
 he hated her. At the marriage she came, knelt, 
 
180 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 rose, spoke, and was silent, just as she was bid, 
 and this also he resented. She did all and sub- 
 mitted — to his will simp l y Iwansp hpr mother 
 bade_her. There might have been some com- 
 pensation in revolt, but there was none in this 
 "predetermined saintship." People, he says, 
 told him that he must teach the child -to love — to 
 endure — him. He must be contented, they said, 
 with friendship, even as young lovers are, when 
 they have kissed themselves cold. But he did 
 not wish "to miss the daisied mile the course 
 begins with." His wife was really no wife, but 
 "a nullity in female shape," who was soon to 
 become a "pungent plague," when associated 
 with the aged couple — Pietro and Violante. He 
 does not see what these two had to complain of 
 him. They had meant to fool him, and he had 
 fooled them. Instead of taking their punishment 
 quietly, they kept up 
 
 "A perfect goose-yard cackle of complaint 
 Because I do not gild the geese their oats." 
 
 He turned them out, and was just beginning to 
 
 enjoy "the sweet sudden silence all about" when 
 
 he found 
 
 "My dowry was derision, my gain — muck, 
 My wife, (li re - Church doolarod my flesh and blood) 
 
 My old name turned henceforth to . . . shall I say 
 'He that received the ordure in his face.' " 
 
GUIDO 181 
 
 Guido reminds the Abate of his punishment of 
 a man who had written an abusive poem about 
 himself, and asks how he can think he has taken 
 undue revenge upon the parents of Pompilia 
 who had 
 
 "Circled me, buzzed me deaf and stung me blind, 
 And stunk me dead with fetor in the face 
 Until I stopped the nuisance." 
 
 But they may urge that Pompilia was innocent, 
 and if so, he had no reason for murdering her. 
 It is true she did just as he bade her : 
 
 '.' She sits up, she lies down, she comes and goes. 
 Kneels at the couch-side, overleans the sill 
 O' the window, cold and pale and mute as stone, 
 Strong as stone also." 
 
 She annoyed him all the more that she made no 
 resistance to his wishes and desires. There must 
 be some reason for it all : 
 
 f'ls there no third party to the pact? . . . 
 Who is the friend i' the background that notes all? 
 Who may come presently and close accounts? 
 This self-possession to the uttermost, 
 How does it differ in aught, save degree, 
 From the terrible patience of God? " 
 
 But his friends will say to him: all this only 
 means she did not love you. What of that ? The 
 servants do not love him, but no less they render 
 what he desires. The horse admonished by the 
 
182 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 whip fullfils the will of his master. If a woman 
 can " feel no love, let her show the more." Why, 
 the soprano who sang last week in Rome for " two 
 gold zecchines the evening," made love in such 
 a way that ladies swooned, although "the poor 
 bloodless creature never felt": 
 
 "Here 's my slave 
 Whose body and soul depend upon my nod 
 Can't falter out the first note in the scale 
 For her life I Why blame me if I take the life? " 
 
 But there is no necessity for defending his deed : 
 it is enough for him to say t hat he chose to h ate 
 her. Others have tn eir likes an ^ r^ l <alilfpg r -3ghy 
 not he? True, he might have turned the mar- 
 riage" to better account. It is easy to say that 
 now, but he has taken the wrong step which is 
 to end with the scaffold. Give him another 
 chance, and he will do better. These religious 
 guides had all his life taught him to suppress 
 himself, which really meant denial of himself to 
 pleasure them. Now he had avenged an outrage 
 committed on himself in a way that they blamed, 
 but they ought to blame themselves. His wife 
 proved a stumbling block in his way. He had 
 resorted to law, but to no purpose. Then he had 
 acted for himself in the spirit of the law. If 
 things had gone at the inn, as he had expected, 
 
GUIDO 183 
 
 and if he had surprised the runaways asleep 
 and pinned them through, even they would have 
 agreed that it was a just judgment upon the 
 guilty ones. But somehow matters did not turn 
 out so; what might have been a success turned 
 out a failure. His act, which might have been 
 gravely, grandly right, now proved to be grossly 
 wrong. So it was in his last act at the villa. As 
 he marched towards it with his four companions 
 he thought everything had been so far success- 
 ful, and wondered where he should find the 
 failure. Only two of the three might be within, 
 or perhaps some visitor, outlingering others, 
 might make an outcry. But all three were within 
 and no one else. 
 
 But he found the three alone, as he hoped, 
 and his failure came in his forgetfulness to secure 
 the permit beforehand which would have given 
 him the right to hire a conveyance to carry him 
 away from the city. What was more, the only 
 man in Rome who could not be bribed was the 
 one to whom he applied. Otherwise he could 
 have snapped his fingers at the Roman courts 
 and found refuge in Tuscany, where the laws 
 "understand civilized life and do its champions 
 right." All that might have been was "baulked 
 by just a scrupulous knave." When he was 
 brought back to Rome, he found his wife, rid- 
 
184 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 died with wounds, still living to confront him, 
 and by her death-bed story to turn his "plausi- 
 bility to nothingness." 
 
 " When destiny intends you cards like these; 
 What good of skill and preconcerted play? " 
 
 If she had been dead, Guido thinks he could 
 have claimed that - he had come to Rome to see 
 his child, and fearing danger, had taken four 
 companions for protection, but had come unex- 
 pectedly to the villa to find Pompilia "in the em- 
 brace of the priest." These two, backed by 
 Pietro and Violante, had sprung upon him, he 
 would have said, and in defence of his life he 
 was compelled to slay them all, except the priest, 
 who had escaped. 
 
 "What 's disputable, refutable here? — 
 Save by just this one ghost-thing half on earth, 
 Half out of it, — as if she held God's hand 
 While she leant back and looked her last at me, 
 Forgiving me (here monks begin to weep) 
 Oh, from her very soul, commending mine 
 To heavenly mercies which are infinite, — 
 While fixing fast my head beneath your knife I 
 'T is fate not fortune." 
 
 He learns that his four companions were 
 "cherishing a scheme" to cut his throat for 
 their own benefit, and he rejoices that he is to 
 be executed last and so will be able to behold 
 
GUIDO 185 
 
 them all "dangling high on either hand like 
 scare-crows in a hempfield." 
 
 Guido then comes back to his trial, in which 
 his lawyers tried every device in vain. Every- 
 thing had been against him. The appeal to the 
 Pope was useless. Law had condemned him 
 while the Pope merely bade him, "Confess and 
 be absolved." Well, they may tell "his Holi- 
 ness, that he has acquired new strength from 
 his despair." He will give "earth spectacle 
 of a brave fighter" who succumbs to odds that 
 turn defeat to victory." H«-win tud hib life, and 
 Rome will approve him as much as if he had 
 died on the field of battle fighting against the 
 Turks. Th«e-Js-BG-ieascui_adiy_Jie_shojiLi_live 
 " fouge r: — The popular sympathy would fail him 
 the moment he became free. His friends would 
 not care to be seen in his company. At his home, 
 in Arezzo, the coming years would be "sad and 
 sapless." The priests would leer at him; his 
 friends would look askance. The populace 
 would be in love with the "poor young good 
 beauteous murdered wife." His brothers would 
 remind him of his past mistake whenever he be- 
 came angry or attempted to give them advice; 
 even his mother would groan confirmation of 
 his failure. Besides, he is fifty years old and 
 there are no new openings before him. He might 
 
186 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 renew his youth in his son, but he would have 
 to wait twenty years for him to share life with 
 him; and then the son is apt to crowd his father 
 to one side. Even if he were obedient and all 
 that, one can hire service just as good. The four 
 young fellows, he says 
 
 "did my hest as unreluctantly, 
 At promise of a dollar, as a son 
 Adjured by mumping memories of the past 1 " 
 
 Then, why should he wish to live when all the 
 mean s of lite a re lacking? And~now that he is 
 about to die, he will speak out the truth. He 
 neve r was a Christian; he is a "primitive relig- 
 ionist." He has obeyed the specific commands 
 of Christianity, but in everything outside of these 
 he has reverted to his own natural impulses. He 
 intimates that his companions are of the same 
 way of thinking. No one, he says to the Abate, 
 "teaches you what Venus means." We "give 
 alms prescribed on Friday," but there is no ex- 
 plicit word in the book which debars revenge 
 because the foe is prostrate. The old faith of 
 the primitive religionist, obedience to impulse, 
 can exist under the new forms ; all that is needed 
 is to "sin o' the sly." He claims that he has fol- 
 lowed the logic of his position: 
 
 "I, like the rest, wrote 'poison ' on my bread, 
 But broke and ate : — said 'Those that use the sword 
 Shall perish by the same ; ' then stabbed my foe." 
 
GUIDO 187 
 
 What his friends ought to say to him, if they 
 had the wit, is, that he had merely pursued the 
 wrong method, so that while loving life as much 
 as he did, they were compelled to punish him. 
 He should, first of all, have put forth the re- 
 ligious motive at Rome, and claimed that he 
 meant to prevent his child from being reared as 
 a Molinist. True, Pietro and Violante were 
 not Molinists but he had only made the mistake 
 of "stamping on wheat," when he meant to 
 "trample tares." Now the mistake can be atoned 
 for only by death, which, indeed, may be a new 
 beginning. He proposes when he begins anew 
 to carry out his wolfish nature, to 
 
 "Wallow in what is now a wolfishness 
 Coerced too much by the humanity 
 That 's half of me as well 1 Grow out of man, 
 Glut the wolf-nature." 
 
 Through all obstacles he wishes his real instinct 
 
 t o reve al itself, as l ire at the t»p »* *rimr ' iin 
 
 His wife was of an altogether different nature, 
 and for that reason, was hateful to him. 
 
 "Ay, of the water was that wife of mine — 
 Be it for good, be it for ill, no run 
 O' the red thread through that insignificance 1 
 Again, how she is at me with those eyes I 
 Away with the empty stare ! Be holy still, 
 And stupid ever ! Occupy your patch 
 Of private snow that 's somewhere in what world 
 
188 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 May now be growing icy round your head, 
 And aguish at your foot-print, — freeze not me, 
 Dare follow not another step I take, 
 Not with so much as those detested eyes, 
 No, though they follow but to pray me pause 
 On the incline, earth's edge that 's next to hell 1 
 None of your abnegation of revenge ! 
 Fly at me frank, tug while I tear again ! 
 There 's God, go tell Him, testify your worst I 
 Not she ! There was no touch in her of hate: 
 And it would prove her hell, if I reached mine 1 
 To know I suffered, would still sadden her, 
 Do what the angels might to make amends I " 
 
 Guido knows it will be said that others would 
 have loved her for her saintliness, and that he 
 did not know the value of a woman like Pompilia. 
 What had seemed to him a daub was a Rafael. 
 To this, he replies that she was too pale jind, 
 -spectoalfor him. He could have borne with her, 
 if she had come to him "rainbowed about with 
 riches." He is not ashamed to allow that he 
 prizes "sordid muck" as the best gift. He wants 
 a woman who will work out his will, one like 
 Lucrezia Borgia; and again he repels the relig- 
 ious ministrations of his friends. 
 
 "Cardinal, take away your crucifix 1 
 Abate, leave my lips alone, — they bite ! 
 Vainly you try to change what should not change, 
 And shall not. I have bared, you bathe my heart — 
 It grows the stonier for your saving dew I 
 You steep the substance, you would lubricate, 
 In waters that but touch to petrify I " 
 
GUIDO 189 
 
 He tells his friends that they too are "petri- 
 factions of a kind." He has unfolded his story, 
 and they move not a muscle, show no mercy, 
 ready to "slay impenitence" without waiting 
 for contrition. The Cardinal knows he is wronged. 
 No one made inquisition for the Cardinal's blood 
 when he made his way through "lives trodden 
 into dust," into the College; he is not even 
 troubled by the memory of it. So he treads out 
 the lives of happy innocent things, as he moves 
 to dinner, and kills the damsel-fly that flaps 
 his face. Why, then, because he himself ha s 
 taken his own course, mu st the Pope kill him j 
 He insinuates to the Cardinal that, in the elec- 
 tion of a Pope, which must occur soon, he can 
 be of great service in getting rivals out of the 
 way. He adjures his friend to go to the Pope 
 and urge his pardon, because he is innocent, 
 or even if "murder-crusted," his death would 
 insult the emperor and outrage the French king. 
 He must remind the Pope too that Guido "has 
 friends who will avenge him," and ask him if 
 he would "send a soul straight to perdition, 
 dying frank an Atheist?" In one breath, Guido 
 urges the Cardinal, for God's sake to say 
 this, and in another he abandons all hope that 
 he will do so. If he cannot persuade them 
 to do as he wishes, he will not make a con- 
 
190 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 fession; "take your crucifix away, I tell you 
 twice." 
 
 There follows a silence so prolonged while 
 the priests are praying, that it seems to terrify 
 Guido, and he breaks forth again to assert the 
 essential wolfishness of his nature, that loves to 
 know even at the last that it is inflicting some 
 pang. When the knock comes, he assures them, 
 he will not cling to his bench nor flee the "hang- 
 man's face." After all, what is the worth of 
 life ? The Pope is dead, the Abate will not live 
 more than a year with that "hacking cough" 
 of his, the Cardinal can never become Pope. 
 All about him are moving on toward death: 
 what can it matter that he arrives a minute 
 sooner than the others? As for the manner of 
 it, he counts it gain that his death will be harsh 
 and quick. 
 
 The whole man, at his best and worst, comes 
 out in the closing lines. 
 
 "You never know what life means till you die: 
 Even thrbughout life, 't is death that makes life live, 
 Gives it whatever the significance. 
 For see, on your own ground and argument, 
 Suppose life had no death to fear, how find 
 A possibility of nobleness 
 In man, prevented daring any more? 
 What 'a love, what 's faith, without a worst to dread? 
 Lack-lustre jewelry, but faith and love 
 With death behind them bidding do or die — 
 
GUIDO 191 
 
 Put such a foil at back, the sparkle 's born I 
 From out myself how the strange colours come 1 
 Is there a new rule in another world? 
 Be sure I shall resign myself: as here 
 I recognized no law I could not see, 
 There, what I see, I shall acknowledge too : 
 On earth I never took the Pope for God, 
 In heaven I shall scarce take God for the Pope. 
 Unmanned, remanned : I hold it probable — 
 With something changeless at the heart of me 
 To know me by, some nucleus that 's myself: 
 Accretions did it wrong? Away with them — 
 You soon shall see the use of fire I 
 
 Till when, 
 All that was, is; and must forever be. 
 Nor is it in me to unhate my hates, — 
 I use up my last strength to strike once more 
 Old Pietro in the wine-house-gossip-face, 
 To trample underfoot the whine and wile 
 Of beast Violante, — and I grow one gorge 
 To loathingly reject Pompilia's pale 
 Poison my hasty hunger took for food. 
 A strong tree wants no wreaths about its trunk, 
 No cloying cups, no sickly sweet of scent, 
 But sustenance at root, a bucketful. 
 How else lived that Athenian who died so, 
 Drinking hot bull's blood, fit for men like me? 
 I lived and died a man, and take man's chance, 
 Honest and bold : right will be done to such. 
 
 Who are these you have let descend my stair? 
 Ha, their accursed psalm ! Lights at the sill ! 
 Is it 'Open ' they dare bid you? Treachery I 
 Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while 
 Out of the world of words I had to say? 
 
192 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Not one word 1 All was folly — I laughed and mocked ! 
 Sirs, my first true word, all truth and no lie, 
 Is — save me notwithstanding 1 Life is all I 
 I was just stark mad, — let the madman live 
 Pressed by as many chains as you please pile ! 
 Don't open ! Hold me from them I I am yours, 
 I am the Grandduke's — no, I am the Pope's 1 
 Abate, — Cardinal, — Christ, — Maria, — God, . . . 
 Pompilia, will you let them murde r me?" 
 
 Count Guido Franceschini expressed himself 
 before his judges as he wished to be understood; 
 but in-hi a ae i und leview of the story we ha ve the 
 real man, who discloses his motives and desires. 
 Here'We are allowed to see him, as Me who reads 
 the secrets of men's hearts sees him. He is no 
 longer mindful of the social and religious con- 
 ventions. What he utters expresses his real 
 nature. It is not the "Count" but the man who 
 speaks now. No concealment is needed and he 
 attempts none. He lets us see the evil of his 
 soul unmixed witff"anyTliought of good. Mr. 
 Hyde~is~~how left without the influence of Dr. 
 Jekyll. 
 
 To rightly appreciate this, we must bear in 
 mind that it is the utterance of a man excited, 
 maddened, overwhelmed, who does not plan 
 what he says, but who allows his mind to wander 
 at will. His speech is the expression of pure 
 passion, as the Pope's is the expression of pure 
 
GUIDO 193 
 
 reason. In it we discover how much pretence 
 there was in the defence. One of the reasons 
 which he had given for wishing to live was his 
 mother's need of him. He cried in a way that 
 impressed us. 
 
 "Let her come, break her heart upon my breast, 
 Not on the blank stone of my nameless tomb." 
 
 But in this last utterance he has no word to say 
 about her except that she will give " confirmatory 
 groan, for unsuccess, explain it how you will." 
 We may justify this by reference to the excite- 
 ment of the moment; but love does not so easily 
 forget. We cannot help feeling that Guido re- 
 membered his mother only when he thought he 
 could produce a pathetic impression by it. 
 
 Again, he said in his defence of himself, that, 
 when he came to the cottage on the night of the 
 murder, he might have abandoned his purpose if 
 Pompilia had appeared in the doorway; and he 
 spoke of her as " the tender thing," " the lamb 
 that lay in my bosom," as "once pure and good." 
 But here all these terms of endearment are miss- 
 ing. Now he speaks of her as a "nullity in 
 female shape7' " J vapid disgust soon to be pungent 
 piagiie7 , * _TT this pale poison my hasty hunger took 
 for food." In his defence he wished to live for 
 the sake of his son Gaetano. He said, "Let me 
 13" — 
 
194 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 lift up his youth and innocence to purify my 
 palace"; but now he assures his friends that a 
 son will be more of a hindrance than a help, 
 that after all he can hire a man for a dollar a day 
 to do what a son would do, "adjured by mump- 
 ing memories of the past." In his defence he 
 posed as a friend of law, and order, and society, 
 but in his cell he suggests to the Cardinal how 
 he may be useful to him in the impending elec- 
 tion of a Pope by putting some of his dangerous 
 rivals out of the way. Of course, it may be urged 
 that in the frenzy of fear and passion he forgot 
 himself. But it is more likely that he remembered 
 himself too well. When it was useful to him to 
 be a friend of law and order, he was ready to be 
 one; when it was useful to him to commit an act 
 of violence, he was prepared to do that. His 
 personal interest was his only law. 
 
 Guido's attitude toward religion was equally 
 pretentious. In his defence he used the most 
 formal statement of faith and spoke: "In the 
 name of the indivisible Trinity." In his_ last 
 hours he declares hims elf to be a "prim itive 
 religionist — one who believes in obeying the 
 natural promptings of the human heart, and in 
 the right of the stronger. He obeyed what 
 Christianity specially commands, but otherwise 
 felt free to do as he could and as he pleased. 
 
GUIDO 195 
 
 "Give alms prescribed on Friday: — but, hold band 
 Because your foe lies prostrate, — where 's the word 
 Explicit in the book debars revenge? " 
 
 He is ready to profess himself an "atheist" if by 
 so doing he can escape execution. 
 
 We learned from the defence something of the 
 way in which he considered his wife, as one who 
 had no right to expect love, whose supreme duty 
 was obedience to her husband. But now he 
 bares the secret motives of all his actions. He 
 was angry with Pompilia, because she was not 
 all tha i he expected of a wife. He~~was~lvilfihg 
 to accepT beauty and purity of soul, if he could 
 have also either wealth or an efficiency which 
 could aid his selfish purposes. The fact is, he 
 declares, that his wife was too good; a Lucretia 
 Borgia or an Olimpia or Circe would have suited 
 him better. Nothing in the conduct of Pompilia 
 satisfied him. Did she obey him, desire his love 
 when he asked it, come and go, lift her eyes, or 
 cast them down at his bidding? In all this he 
 could only see the "stone strength of white 
 despair." She struggled against him no more 
 and he suspected there was "some third party to 
 the pact." Was he reminded that all this meant 
 she did not love him ? He replied that love was 
 not needed. He has so little sense of sincerity 
 of soul that he believed sham love would do just 
 
196 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 as well. The sufferings of Pompilia wakened 
 no compassion in Guido; they only annoyed 
 him. He resented her evident repugnance to 
 himself and it simply vexed him that he was 
 viewed with repulsion. Selfishness could not 
 have been more supreme. 
 
 Guido not only resented the sufferings of 
 Pompilia, when he ought to have been moved to 
 console and alleviate them, but he is sorry now 
 because she, pierced with two and twenty wounds, 
 persists in living, and so makes it impossible for 
 him to present a defence of himself at the ex- 
 pense of her honor. No matter what becomes of 
 her soul, if only he can escape punishment! It 
 never dawns upon him that he is proposing a 
 mean thing; he is too mean to see how mean he 
 is. He complains of the misfortune which made 
 his intention impossible. 
 
 "Well, 
 The worst 's in store : thus hindered, haled this way 
 To Rome again by hangdogs, whom find I 
 Here, still to fight with, but my pale frail wife? 
 — Riddled with wounds by one not like to waste 
 The blows he dealt, — knowing anatomy." 
 
 Guido refuses to show any repentance for his 
 deed. He admits he has committed a blunder, 
 and he is ready to pay the penalty, but he has 
 no perception of sin or the need of repentance 
 for it. 
 
GUIDO 197 
 
 Guido's idea of religion is a merely formal 
 one. Acco rding to him it is based upon a faith 
 which— has long ago ceased to be. Nobody, he 
 claims, thinks of acting in accordance with it. 
 The world goes on and looks the same with the 
 profession of these forms as it would if every- 
 body believed something different. Real accept- 
 ance of religion would make a change in a mo- 
 ment. It is interesting to notice how near Guido 
 comes to the thought of the Pope. He also sees 
 that men accept the Christian faith, and act no 
 Wter- thnn tl i- 's" wl i " ■ !■ ■ n *4^ Fr" n°ti rn es not as 
 well. Th? rjiflWpnrp l ies in the use which ea ch 
 one makes of th is perception. Wi th the Pope it 
 is a reason for making religion more real and 
 vitnl; with Grridn il stI'VW y^-ftn px^usp fir a, 
 heartress~roHiormity to the religion nf llm liinil , 
 
 Gu ido f eels that he is no worse liiaii" those 
 about him. All seek their pleasure, not the will 
 of God, and he has done only the same. He 
 declares that they advised him to act the wolf's 
 part and he resents their willingness to take part 
 against the wolf, when he acts after the manner 
 of a wolf. He claims that he acted upon the 
 principles of those whom he was taught to follow. 
 He reminds the Abate of the punishment he had 
 inflicted upon one who had ridiculed him in a 
 poem. He himself has done only the same to 
 
198 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 those who offended him. His purpose was no 
 worse than that of others who pretend to depre- 
 cate his crime. To Guid o law was not a n ex- 
 pression of eternal right; it was but a fo rmal 
 convention which was good if it favor ed him, bad 
 if ItTbpposed him. Whatever the code allowed 
 him to do, that it seemed to him right to do. 
 
 Guido's excuses for himself are significant. 
 He will, in the first place, say to God, "I am 
 one huge and sheer mistake!" Who shall say 
 he is not right? Surely one who was well organ- 
 ized could not pursue the ends which he pursued 
 in the way he did. The Pope pointed out the 
 places where he might have done otherwise than 
 he did, but who knows that, constituted as he 
 was, he could have done so ? If he was a mistake 
 he was therefore necessitated by his structure 
 always to take the wrong course. He seems re- 
 pulsive to us in his self-revelation, and we can 
 well believe him, when he says he has a "wolfish 
 nature." Guido bases - his plea of forgiveness 
 on this fact. B ut the trouble with thb plea is 
 that iiig tnn Mmitpf] j n jfc, application He does 
 not ffiako this principle of forgivene ss universal. 
 It never dawns upon him that Pompilia was a 
 "pungent plague," because, in relation to him, 
 she was a mistake. The "whine and wile" of 
 Violante annoyed him and also the stupid ways 
 
GUIDO 199 
 
 of Pietro. But if he had been true to his prin- 
 ciple, he would have borne with them in patience 
 because, like himself, they were mistakes, and 
 therefore deserved not resentment but the large 
 tolerance which he desired for himself. That he 
 did not accord to others what he expected for 
 himself may be taken as a proof of what a great 
 mistake he really was. 
 
 Again Guido says, "I did not make myself." 
 Pompilia makes the same plea for him. That 
 fact saved Guido from a great responsibility. 
 He had nothing to do with the conditions under 
 which he was born. But he had something to 
 do with the way in which he used those conditions. 
 The Pope thinks that Guido might have profited 
 by the straitened circumstances of his lot, and 
 made the stumbling block a stepping stone. He 
 might have treated Pompilia with kindness in- 
 stead of cruelty. The birth of his son might have 
 stirred his heart with affection instead of prompt- 
 ing him to see only the "gold in his curls," and 
 so to the murder of his wife and her parents. 
 Still Guido might plead that, being the man he 
 was, he must have dealt with the conditions as 
 he did. No abstract reasoning can refute this 
 plea, while no practical mind can accept it. 
 
 While Guido has no moral perception and no 
 sense of responsibility, he is very bitter against 
 
200 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 those who in any way oppose or annoy him. 
 Personal irritation supplies the lack of moral 
 indignation. His spiteful and revengeful feel- 
 ing reveals itself again and again. When he 
 learns that his four companions had planned to 
 kill him if they had escaped arrest, he rejoices 
 in the thought that he will see them hanged before 
 his own "head falls." He declares that his stabs 
 went deeper because he fancied he might find 
 "a friend's face at the bottom of each wound 
 and scratch its smirk a little." He recalls the 
 movements of Violante as "tempting the sudden 
 fist of man too much." He is glad because his 
 friend the Abate must die soon of his cough — 
 and because the Cardinal can never be Pope. 
 It angers him because the Pope who is so old 
 and weak is likely to live longer than himself. 
 Hatred of everything but himself has gained full 
 possession of him. H e comforts h imself with 
 th e assurance that all others must die as wel Las 
 hims elf. 
 
 Nor has Guido the redeeming quality of 
 courage. Many men who have done nothing 
 else well have died well. He shrinks with horro x 
 froaajdeath ; when it is imminent and the Brothers 
 of Death come to take him to the scaffold, he 
 is utterly unmanned. He shrieks out a mad 
 appeal to every possible power of help to deliver 
 
GUIDO 201 
 
 him. He even calls upon the woman whom he 
 had wronged and murdered. Bishop Westcott, 
 whose essay on "Browning's View of Life" is 
 one of the noblest which even this great scholar 
 and thinker has written, says that in this cry of 
 Guido to Pompilia, he shows that he has known 
 what love was and knowing it has begun to feel 
 it. Who can decide what was in that last cry? 
 It may have been a selfish appeal for help to one 
 who because of her goodness might save him, or 
 it may have been the expression of Guido's real 
 thought of Pompilia. But whether he now saw 
 in her a manifestation of love in which he wished 
 to share, or a power which might deliver him 
 from impending death, no one can say. We can 
 only " trust the larger hope." 
 
CHAPTER Xni 
 
 THE BOOK AND THE BING 
 
 The. Book and the Ring is the fulfilmen t of the 
 promise of the poet in the first book, that after 
 he has led his readers to the summit from w hich 
 the wi de prospect round may be seen, he will 
 lead them back to mother earth. He has made 
 the voices speak againTas once they spoke while 
 excitement was at its highest, and while all hearts 
 were revealing their inmost thought and motive. 
 Now he ends with the recitalofjji e gossip an d 
 c hatter otl the-steeet 
 
 What we have in T he Book and the Ring is 
 the coSmonpl ace ot contemporar y life. The 
 story is, practically, at an end, with the death 
 of Guido, the chief actor in it. What had once 
 filled the vision of men and women had fallen 
 and faded from their view. 
 
 "What was once seen, grows what is now described, 
 Then talked of, told about, a tinge the less 
 In every fresh transmission; till it melts, 
 Trickles in silent orange or wan grey 
 Across our memory, dies and leaves all dark, 
 And presently we find the stars again. " 
 
THE BOOK AND THE RING 203 
 
 After Feb. 22, 1698, the poet gives four reports 
 "concerning those the day killed or let live." 
 
 The first is a letter of a Venetian gentleman 
 then in t he city of Rome , from which we learn 
 how the decision of the Pope was viewed by the 
 people of consideration there. The visitor ex- 
 plains that the Pope is tottering on the verge of 
 the grave, and that men are betting on his prob- 
 able successor. He seemed to be doing very well 
 while he could go out of doors and saunter by 
 the river, but confinement within doors, on ac- 
 count of the rain, caused "fainting fits" which 
 only his determination to hold a Jubilee a second 
 time, enables him to overcome. 
 
 Guido, until within two days, had seemed safe : 
 every one in Rome was in his favor. But the 
 prejudices of the Pope, his passion for France, 
 got the better of him. "And he persisted in the 
 butchery." He seemed to be moved by his re- 
 gard for the mob, and rebuffed Martinez who 
 came to plead for Guido's pardon. More than 
 all this, he ordered the execution to take place 
 where it could be seen by all. 
 
 Two old friends of Guido, Acciaiuoli and Pan- 
 ciatichi, jiad been witn hi m during his last h ours, 
 to dispose him tor ending well, and had been 
 perfectly successful in their endeavor. Guido 
 appeared in his car, so intrepid and nonchalant 
 
204 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 that all had admired him. As the procession 
 
 moved nng, par ran nvpr a. rnjmjmrHrillprl him, 
 
 " and 45itter were the outcries of the mob against 
 the Pope." A beggar, lame froSPbir th, rec overed 
 the use of his leg "through prayer of Guido as 
 he glanced that way." At the scaffold, after the 
 hanging of the four peasants, which was hardly 
 noticed, Guido harangued the multitude, 
 
 "begged forgiveness on the part of God 
 And fair construction of his act from men, 
 Whose suffrage he entreated for his soul, 
 Suggesting that we should forthwith repeat 
 A Pater and an Ave, with the hymn 
 Salve Regina Cceli, for his sake. 
 Which said, he turned to the confessor, crossed 
 And reconciled himself, with decency, 
 ... — then rose up, as brisk 
 Knelt down again, bent head, adapted neck, 
 And, with the name of Jesus on his lips, 
 Received the fatal blow." 
 
 When the headsman showed his head to the 
 populace, strangers were much disappointed be- 
 cause he was not as tall as he had been reported 
 to be, and his face was not one " to please a wife." 
 His friends said his unpleasing appearance was 
 due to his costume : — " He wore the dress he 
 did the murder in." 
 
 A second report appears in a letter of Don 
 Giacinto Arcangeli, the advocate who defended 
 Guido, to a fellow advocate at Florence, in which 
 
THE BOOK AND THE RING 205 
 
 he informs him that he had almost succeeded in 
 securing a reprieve for Guido. It is to this ad- 
 vocate, Cencini, that we owe the book out of 
 which the ring of poetry was made. In his letter 
 Arcangeli tells his correspondent that his "justi- 
 ficative points" had arrived too late to benefit 
 his client, "now with God." The court had de- 
 cided, in spite of all his pleas, against him, and 
 as the Pope had judged it expedient to dispense 
 with Guido's plea of privilege, he had been exe- 
 cuted, with his four companions. However, 
 
 "He had commiseration and respect 
 In his decease from universal Rome, 
 
 The nice and cultivated everywhere." 
 
 The result, Arcangeli feels, must be due to his 
 inability "to set the valid reasons forth." On 
 the next leaf he bids his friend show to others 
 what he had just written on the other side, but 
 to keep what he now says for himself. Cencini's 
 pleas had come too late, but after all nothing 
 would have availed against the wish of an old 
 man to see one younger than himself die before 
 him. His sup£ih__defence of Guido would re- 
 main, while ineptitude and obstinacy would go 
 with the Pope to the tomb. — Besidespaft will 
 understand and stigmatize the motives which 
 led him to change the place of execution. 
 
206 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 He must now turn to another case, but before 
 the mail goes, he_must say that his boy, god- 
 son of Cencini, had enjoyed the sight of the ex- 
 ecution: He relates with gusto the reply which 
 -his-seirhad made to a lady who twitted him with 
 the remark that his father's eloquence could not 
 be depended upon, as heretofore, for help. He 
 finally comforts himself with the assurance that 
 the Pope thinks that his was the real victory, if 
 learning and eloquence "could avail to gainsay 
 fact." 
 
 A letter of Bottinius, the advocate of Pompilia, 
 follows: — He has gained his case, and "made 
 truth-triumph," but lie is dissatisfied. He com- 
 plains, that as usual, he had "the plain truth to 
 plead." Guido, "like the poltroon he was," had 
 "fully confessed his crime," and there was really 
 the end of the matter. His rival can triumph 
 in the fact that in spite of all difficulties he nearly 
 succeeded in getting his client off free. This he 
 knew Arcangeli and Rome would say. 
 
 f'l looked that Rome should have the natural gird 
 At advocate with case that proves itself; 
 I knew Arcangeli would grin and brag : 
 But what say you to one impertinence 
 Might move a stone ? That monk, you are to know, 
 That barefoot Augustinian whose report 
 O' the dying woman's words did detriment 
 To my best points it took the freshness from, 
 
THE BOOK AND THE RING 207 
 
 — That meddler preached to purpose yesterday 
 
 At San Lorenzo as a winding-up 
 
 O' the show which proved a treasure to the church. 
 
 Out comes his sermon smoking from the press : 
 
 Its text, — 'Let God be true, and every man 
 
 A liar,' — and its application, this, 
 
 The longest-winded of the paragraphs, 
 
 I straight unstitch, tear out and treat you with." 
 
 In this sermon the "impertinent" monk de- 
 clared that the case of Pompilia was by no means 
 an illustration of the truth that innocence always 
 prevails. Many, as innocent as she, had not 
 been "plucked from the world's calumny." So 
 it might have been with Pompilia, and so, for a 
 time it was, had not events proved and proclaimed 
 her a pure white soul. Even "law, appointed to 
 defend the just," failed to discern her character, 
 and if allowed, would have caused her to be 
 classed among the vilest of her kind. It was 
 only "the true instinct of an old good man" 
 which had seen and proclaimed what she really 
 was. All this he declares, demonstrates the 
 worthlessness of human fame. 
 
 The sermon provokes Bottinius very much, 
 and he exclaims : 
 
 "Didst ever touch such ampollosity 
 As the monk's own bubble, let alone its spite? " 
 
 His sermon itself was made for the fame which 
 he professed to flout. As for Pompilia, about 
 
208 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 whom the preacher boasted, he will show what 
 law can do for her. The Monastery of the Con- 
 vertites is entitled to the estate of every sinner 
 who dies in its care. Now Pompilia was in its 
 care and therefore a "sinner"; and although the 
 court declared Guido guilty, it did not pronounce 
 her innocent. Bottinius, as attorney for the monas- 
 tery, will bring suit against her as a "person of 
 dishonest life," and asks his correspondent to 
 send him the judgment of the court at Arezzo, 
 
 "clenched 
 Again by the Granducal signature, 
 Wherein Pompilia is convicted, doomed, 
 And only destined to escape through flight 
 The proper punishment. Send me the piece, — 
 I '11 work it ! And this foul-mouthed friar shall find 
 His Noah's-dove that brought the olive back 
 Turn into quite the other sooty scout, 
 The raven, Noah first put forth the ark, 
 Which never came back, but ate carcasses 1 
 No adequate machinery in law? 
 No power of life and death i' the learned tongue? 
 Methinks I am already at my speech, 
 Startle the world with 'Thou, Pompilia, thus? 
 How is the fine gold of the Temple dim 1 ' " 
 
 We are told, however, that Bottinius was dis- 
 appointed in his expectation. Six months later, 
 the old Pope, who still lived on, again proclaimed 
 "the perfect fame of dead Pompilia," and for- 
 bade the Convertite nuns to interfere, in any 
 
THE BOOK AND THE RING 209 
 
 way, with her representative in the care of her 
 estate. Next year the Pope died, and the poet 
 adds 
 
 "If he thought doubt would do the next age good, 
 'T is pity he died unapprised what birth 
 His reign may boast of, be remembered by — 
 Terrible Pope, too, of a kind, — Voltaire." 
 
 This really ends the story. Nothing more can 
 be learned of Gaetano, the son of Guido and 
 Pompilia. All that can be found is a record of 
 a public attestation, which a sister of Guido 
 moved the authorities of Arezzo to give to the 
 right of the Franceschini to men's reverence. 
 This record in "nearly the worst Latin ever 
 writ," declares that 
 
 " ' Since antique time whereof the memory 
 Holds the beginning, to this present hour, 
 The Franceschini ever shone, and shine 
 Still i' the primary rank, supreme amid 
 The lustres of Arezzo, proud to own 
 In this great family, the flag-bearer, 
 Guide of her steps and guardian against foe, — 
 As in the first beginning, so to-day ! ' " 
 
 One would like to know whether Gaetano, of 
 such "perfect parentage," "born of love and 
 hate," lived or died, what were his fancies when 
 a man, whether he was like his father or mother. 
 Of all this we know nothing, and the poem ends 
 with these lines: 
 
 14 
 
210 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 ." Such, then, the final state o' the story. So 
 Did the Star Wormwood in a blazing fall 
 Frighten awhile the waters and lie lost. 
 So did this old woe fade from memory : 
 Till after, in the fulness of the days, 
 I needs must find an ember yet unquenched, 
 And, breathing, blow the spark to flame. It lives, 
 If precious be the soul of man to man. 
 
 So, British Public, who may like me yet, 
 
 (Marry and amen !) learn one lesson hence 
 
 Of many which whatever lives should teach: 
 
 This lesson, that our human speech is naught, 
 
 Our human testimony false, our fame 
 
 And human estimation words and wind. 
 
 Why take the artistic way to prove so much? 
 
 Because, it is the glory and good of Art, 
 
 Tha,^ Art remains the one w ay possible 
 
 Of speaking truth , to mouths liKe mine"at least. 
 
 How look a brother in the face and say 
 
 'Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou yet art blind, 
 
 Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length. 
 
 And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith 1 ' 
 
 Say this as silverly as tongue can troll — 
 
 The anger of the man may be endured, 
 
 The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him 
 
 Are not so bad to bear — but here 's the plague 
 
 That all this trouble comes of telling truth, 
 
 Which truth, by when it- reaches him, looks false, 
 
 Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, 
 
 Nor recognizable by whom it left: 
 
 While falsehood would have done the work of truth. 
 
 But Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men, 
 
 Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth 
 
 Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 
 
 Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 
 
THE BOOK AND THE RING 211 
 
 So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, 
 
 Beyond mere imagery on the wall, — 
 
 So, note by note, bring music from your mind, 
 
 Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived, — 
 
 So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, 
 
 Suffice the eye and save the soul beside. 
 
 And save the soul 1 If this intent save mine, — 
 If the rough ore be rounded to a ring, 
 Render all duty which good ring should do, 
 And, failing grace, succeed in guardianship, — 
 Might mine but lie outside thine, Lyric Love, 
 Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) 
 Linking our England to his Italy 1 " 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LESSONS OF THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 The best way to find the lessons in a poem is 
 not to look for them. The worst thing a reader 
 can do is to be constantly asking "What does this 
 teach?" He should pursue the course which 
 students of science have found profitable, first 
 trying to know all they could about the phenom- 
 ena and then allowing the total knowledge to 
 make its impression upon them. When the op- 
 posite way was pursued the result was to make 
 nature teach what it was never meant to teach. 
 Progress became possible only when men were 
 willing to learn the actual facts, and to let that 
 knowledge influence them as it would. 
 
 So we learn the best lessons of history when 
 we are not set upon learning them. I heard a 
 teacher of history, recently, say that we must 
 pay no attention to any historical event unless 
 it taught some moral principle. Nothing could 
 be more vicious. How do we know what the 
 moral significance of events is until we thor- 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 213 
 
 oughly know them? and how can we thoroughly 
 know them without careful study of many de- 
 tails which at first sight have no ethical value ? 
 
 If we seek only for the moral precepts we shall 
 force our moral view into the historic record; 
 we shall become dull moralists, and poor histo- 
 rians. Instead of learning from the facts, we 
 shall always be trying to show what facts are 
 morally valuable. The best historian is the 
 one who sets before his reader a picture of events 
 as they really happened — and who allows the 
 moral that is in them to reveal itself. 
 
 Some persons are so absorbed in the moral 
 and spiritual interest of things that their first 
 and almost only interest in a novel or poem is 
 the ethical or religious significance. Browning 
 has suffered much at the hands of such persons. 
 He has been held up as one appointed to give 
 instruction to his age, as one therefore to be 
 studied with a view to moral and religious edi- 
 fication. This is one reason why many people 
 do not read Browning who otherwise might read 
 and love him. They do not feel themselves 
 solemn and serious enough for the effort. "We 
 read poetry," they say, "because we enjoy it." 
 And they are right. 
 
 Primarily, the poet is not concerned with moral 
 and religious teaching. He is eager, because he 
 
214 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 is a poet, to give a vivid and interesting picture 
 of some facts in human experience. Browning 
 has done this in The Ring and the Book. In it 
 he has set forth in terms of beauty and power 
 the incidents in the lives of men and women who 
 stood in more or less intimate relations to one 
 another, and he has unfolded to our view the 
 thoughts and feelings which animated them. 
 But I seriously doubt whether he had consciously 
 determined, in it, to deliver any message to his 
 age. He was first a poet, and afterward, and, by 
 the way, a teacher. 
 
 Mr. Berdoe in his Browning Cyclopaedia repre- 
 sents him as an advocate of the orthodox system 
 of theology, as a modern defender of the "faith 
 once delivered to the saints." Now it is probable 
 that personally Browning was in sympathy with 
 the ideas and beliefs of the Congregationalist 
 Church which he always attended. This is far 
 more likely than that he was the agnostic which 
 Mrs. Sunderland Orr tries to make him. But 
 whatever he was as an individual, he was in his 
 poetry neither an agnostic nor an orthodox be- 
 liever. He was too much a poet for that. He 
 speaks for his characters, not for himself, and 
 it is difficult to find a poem in which we can feel 
 sure that he utters his own conviction. 
 
 In The Ring and the Book if we depend upon 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 215 
 
 single expressions we should be led far out of the 
 way. 
 
 Mr. Berdoe thinks he finds a proof of his be- 
 lief in the miraculous birth of Christ in the words 
 of Pompilia, who, thinking of her child at Christ- 
 mas time, says: 
 
 " I never realized God's birth before — 
 How he grew likest God in being born. 
 This time I felt like Mary." 
 
 But this is not an expression of what Browning 
 himself thought, but of what Pompilia as a good 
 Catholic must have believed, although before 
 she had not so clearly felt its truth. 
 
 Mr. Berdoe might as well have cited Guido's 
 words, at the beginning of Guido's address to 
 the court, "In the name of the indivisible Trin- 
 ity," as an evidence of Browning's belief in that 
 conception of the divine nature, when it is only 
 a customary formula. 
 
 Perhaps the only person in the poem who ex- 
 presses genuine convictions is the .Pope. His 
 estima.te_ of the other characters in the poem is 
 undoubtedly that of the poet himself, and his 
 opinions and reasoni ngs where they deviate from 
 authorized views of the (Jhurch must be those 
 of Browning; but where the Pope speaks as a 
 Catholic must be expected to speak, we can lay 
 
216 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 no stress upon them as a deliverance of the poet's 
 own conviction. 
 
 To get the lessons we must first know the 
 poem as a poem, we must breathe its atmo- 
 sphere, and then they will come to us without 
 our seeking. 
 
 Here it may be said that Browning himself 
 has given the purpose of The Ring arid the Book 
 in the concluding lines, where he says: 
 
 f ' So, British Public, who may like me yet, 
 (Marry and amen 1) learn one lesson hence 
 Of many which whatever lives should teach: 
 This lesson, that our human speech is naught, 
 Our human tes timony talse, our tanle - ^* 
 
 And -Wfna.n patjmfl±igT^jwnrrlg anrl wjnH " 
 
 It may be that Browning thought at the con- 
 clusion of his poem that this was one of its im- 
 portant lessons ; and so it is. It is a lesson which 
 impresses every attentive reader. One cannot 
 help f eeling how hard it is to get at the truth of 
 any thing that happens, and ho w human testi- 
 mony is mo ulded in the likeness of—Oar sym- 
 pathiesTouTprejudices, and our passions. Things 
 as the^ appeal arc ufleii ao difforcn t from what 
 they are. 
 
 But while this is true, I do not believe that 
 Browning began his poem with the conscious 
 purpose of telling this truth "obliquely" in "the 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 217 
 
 artistic way." Great poems are not written in 
 that manner, and it would not be worth the poet's 
 while to write a poem for such a purpose. That 
 purpose became clear to him as the poem grew, 
 no doubt, but in the same way other lessons of 
 which he never dreamed are suggested to every 
 attentive reader, and come by the way as Brown- 
 ing transforms the dull facts of the "old yellow 
 book" into the ring of poetry. 
 
 So we shall be wiser if we read the poem again 
 and again for the pleasure it gives, and allow the 
 lessons in it which come to us without our seeking 
 to make their impression upon us. But we must 
 always remember that the poem was not written 
 for the sake of the lessons in it, but that they 
 are in it as they are in every picture of human 
 experience. 
 
 To indicate some of the lessons which have 
 been suggested in my own reading, I find first 
 
 that Jgljmniig fra-Tna anH thp grnnrl life do no t 
 
 necessarily go together. Guido is the wickedest 
 man in the poem. As we have seen, he has 
 hardly any religious faith. At the last he de- 
 clares himself to be "a primitive religionist," by 
 which he seems to mean one who follows the 
 promptings of his lower nature. He rejoices in 
 this brutal faith, and yet this is the man who 
 never fails to adopt the conventional usage, the 
 
218 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 i i: 
 
 pious formula. Caponsacchi, who is a priest 
 and a respectable Catholic, disregards all the 
 usages of the society to which he belongs, and 
 breaks the rules of the church by taking Pom- 
 pilia in his carriage from Arezzo to Rome. In 
 his address to the court he uses none of the formal 
 phrases of piety. What he says is dictated by 
 the passion of the moment. But Guido, who 
 "believes in just the vile of life," begins his de- 
 fence with the stereotyped orthodox phrase, and 
 has before that taken minor orders in the church ; 
 "he clipped his back hair and so far affected 
 Christ." So far as forms and formulas and 
 profession of pious zeal go, he is the most Chris- 
 tian person in the poem. All this reminds us 
 how little these things may have to do with the real 
 life of a man, how little the prevalence of them in 
 a community may reveal of its true character. 
 
 We learn from the poem how the existence 
 of Chr istian institutions may go alo ng with the 
 utter absence of the Christian lifeT Guido's 
 testimony is not always conclusive, but he is 
 certainly correct when he declares that there is 
 not "a saintly act done in Rome, but might be 
 prompted by the devil." Purest unbelief would do 
 everything that is now being done, as well as the 
 formal belief of the day. All might be heathens, 
 and the appearances of things would remain just 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 219 
 
 - — 1 
 
 the same. A thorough-going belief in Chris- 
 tianity would revolutionize the conduct of men. 
 We need not, perhaps, lay much stress on all 
 this, were it not for the fact that it is in perfect 
 accord with the solemn thought of the Pope. 
 He declares : 
 
 "All say good words 
 
 To who will hear, all do thereby bad deeds 
 
 To who must undergo." 
 
 He reviews his Christian world and discovers 
 that its promise has little to do with its perform- 
 ance. The men around him who are vowed to 
 serve mankind in the light of Christian ideals 
 neglect Pompilia as men without a ray of Chris- 
 tian light might have neglected her. The Arch- 
 bishop, out of favor to the rank of Guido, throws 
 her back to him again to torture and ruin. The 
 hermit, trained to sacrifice and hardship, prom- 
 ises to write the letter for her, and then, from 
 cowardly fear of the great ones of the place, never 
 does it. The C onver tite nuns, vowed to the 
 service of fallen women7~ar& as gmaly fOF"gain 
 as st ay uf the wui Idlings : Those who are trained 
 to render the se rvice which Pompilia n eeded so 
 much, never (\n\ L_ while Caponsacchi, who ha s 
 no speciaiTeasonfor aiding her, does so not be- 
 caus e he i3 a pri c iat but because h e is a man. 
 What are all these incidents but an evidence that 
 
220 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 the need of the world is not more institutions of 
 Chr istianity, b ut more real Christianity. So the 
 power of Christianity, we learn,is not in its formal 
 acknowledgment in statutes and institutions, but 
 in the influence which it exerts upon the daily 
 life and action of man in society, in business, and 
 in politics. It is a very obvious lesson, many 
 times repeated, but one which needs saying or 
 suggesting many times more. 
 
 We have also an intimation, in the refusal of 
 Guido to repent, that, to a man who believes in 
 a morality based upon mere considerations of 
 expediency, repentance is illogical. He very 
 clearly states his idea of the origin of the moral 
 law. It is based, he says, upon the agreement 
 made by the whole world, that certain actions 
 which gave great pleasure and profit to ourselves 
 at the expense of others must be declared illegal. 
 So a man must not kill another, merely because 
 it means pleasure or profit to him to do so. Hence- 
 forth we must get what we wish through law. 
 Whoever violates this compact forfeits his life. 
 He has done this, and he/ is ready to pay for it. 
 He is willing to submit to the penalty, but as for 
 repentance, it is nonsense to talk about it. 
 
 All this shocks us when we first read it. How 
 wicked and unreasonable it all is ! We may pass 
 it over as the raving of a madman. But, as we 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 221 
 
 dwell upon it, we begin to realize that if we 
 allow his premises we cannot fail to allow his con- 
 clusions. If a man believes that morality is some- 
 thing immutable in the nature of things, or that 
 it is an expression of the will of God, then, when 
 he has disobeyed its commands, he will condemn 
 himself for opposing what has a claim to his 
 obedience; he will say "I did wrong" — "against 
 Thee only have I sinned." It will not suffice him 
 to pay the penalty; he must also acknowledge 
 his guilt. But Guido's philosophy of morality 
 recognizes no right beyond the agreement made 
 by man to get along safely with, or to protect 
 himself from, his fellow man. He would refrain 
 from the murder of another not because he sees 
 any sanctity in human life, but because it is not 
 permitted in the social compact and will expose 
 him to death. Such an one has no use for repent- 
 ance or sorrow for sin, or inward compunction. 
 He Hops not sin^Ji f^riins a. risk ; Vip fWc nnt ro. 
 
 pentrhe pays a penalty. 
 
 So Guido, and those who think with him, com- 
 mit blunders for which they suffer, but not sins 
 for which they are sorry. All believers in a moral- 
 ity based on expediency must say with him, 
 
 "But, repentance too? 
 But pure and simple sorrow for law's breach 
 Rather than blunderer's-ineptitude? 
 
222 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Cardinal, no ! Abate, scarcely thus ! 
 
 'T is the fault, not that I dared try a fall 
 
 With Law and straightway am found undermost, 
 
 But that I failed to see, above man's law, 
 
 God's precept you, the Christians, recognize? 
 
 Colly my cowl" 
 
 Nothing is more common to people in general 
 than the habit of inferring great results from small 
 causes. Something in which for the time being 
 we happen to be interested looms up very large, 
 and we imagine everything must be referred to 
 it. Public speakers, who are aware of this, often 
 find the cause of some event in the prevalence 
 of some notion which has found acceptance, but 
 which has been condemned by those in authority. 
 It is a good way to win the attention of the people, 
 and at the same time the approval of those who 
 have favors to confer. An incident in The Ring 
 and the Book shows how this habit of consider- 
 ing the happenings of the day leads one away 
 from real knowledge of them, and away from 
 their real cause. 
 
 When the crowd was gathered in the cathedral 
 to view the bodies of Pietro and Violante, placed 
 there near the altar, a Cardinal who had been 
 a friend of Guido entered. A young curate 
 thought this a good opportunity for "improving 
 the event." Some of the hearers expected to 
 learn more about the causes of the murder, the 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 223 
 
 confession of Pompilia which had been made 
 that morning, and whether the court had "pun- 
 ished anew the gallant Caponsacchi." But not 
 one word of information does our young curate 
 Carlo give nor one word of real interpretation. 
 "He did the murder in a dozen words," and 
 then said that all these outrages were the con- 
 sequence of the prevalence of Molinism, which 
 he proceeded to discuss and refute. He does 
 this because the Cardinal, who hears him, has 
 written a book on the subject and will be pleased 
 to have his own opinions emphasized. The 
 people think the curate knows what he is about. 
 His business is not to give a right view of the crime 
 that has been committed, but to advance himself. 
 This all seems ridiculous and shameful, but it 
 is what party orators in state and church, edi- 
 torial writers, and preachers are doing nearly 
 all the time. The real causes of events are 
 ignored and unreal ones magnified. Things are 
 connected which have no sort of relation with 
 one another. Attention is diverted from what 
 is essential to what is purely superficial. Writers 
 or speakers gain their personal or political or 
 ecclesiastical ends, perhaps, but their readers or 
 hearers are disappointed or misled. Some mo- 
 mentary gain, not truth, is their object. All this 
 finds artistic reprobation in the account of curate 
 
224 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Carlo's discourse and its effect. He spoke over 
 two centuries ago, and he has long since vanished 
 from the earth, but those who follow his example, 
 alas, are only too many. 
 
 We learn from other incidents in the poem how 
 unfairly motives a 1 -" -j'HgH i 'ap onsacchi. ~S s 
 we know, acted from the purest motive, — the de- 
 sire to ^ave a~wu wan f i om suffe ring and death. 
 To get her to her parents in Rome he took her 
 in a carriage and drove without pausing until 
 Pompilia's strength failed her at Castelnuovo. 
 And yet nearly all give his act the worst possible 
 construction. The rabble, of course, take it for 
 granted that he had only an evil intention in his 
 heart. The superior social set in Rome regard 
 him as an offender against the "honor" of Guido 
 as one who was gently dealt with, not because 
 he was innocent, but because he was a priest, 
 and therefore favored by the priests who tried 
 him. Even the judges of the court did not alto- 
 gether believe his account of his motives. They 
 smiled judicially as he told his story, and shrugged 
 their shoulders as if to say 
 
 "The sly one, all this we are bound believe. 
 Well, he can say no other than what he says. 
 We have been young too, — come, there 's greater guilt ! 
 Let him but decently disembroil himself, 
 Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud, — 
 We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch I" 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 225 
 
 It is not until Pompilia and the Pope speak that 
 we see him in the light of his best motive and 
 understand him as he really is. Pompilia reveals 
 how his course was throughout "Purity in quintes- 
 sence — one dew-drop," and calls him her "sol- 
 dier-saint." 
 
 The Pope sees in him one who deserved the 
 rose of gold, one who did the work in obedience 
 to his heroic impulse which those who were ap- 
 pointed to do it failed to do. Surely here we are 
 taught that there is a " difference in minds," " a 
 difference in eyes that see the minds." The 
 motives imputed in every case reveal the nature 
 of the person who imputes them. To the mean, 
 all motives appear mean; to the commonplace, 
 all motives are commonplace. These are not 
 able to conceive motives that are noble and un- 
 usual. Even the shrewd men who know the 
 world know it so well that they never suspect 
 there may be men in it who act on motives that 
 are not worldly. It is only the pure soul of Pom- 
 pilia, "ermine-like armed from dishonour by its 
 own soft snow," and the Pope, "sensible of fires 
 that more and more visit a soul in passage to the 
 sky," who divine the motive of Caponsacchi 
 and give it due honor and praise. 
 
 The way in which those about him judge the 
 motives of the Pope himself in condemning 
 15 
 
226 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Guido to death shows again how we suppose 
 others to be swayed by the motives that move 
 ourselves, and therefore how unjust such judg- 
 ments may be, and often are. We know with 
 what solemn seriousness the Pope decided upon 
 the case of Guido. We know he thought and 
 acted as a man who is conscious that God is view- 
 ing every movement of his soul. He judges as 
 one who is willing to be judged by his last judg- 
 ment. But the outside world knows nothing of 
 all this. It imniTT'* f thnt he dp t ft rm i n H t he exe- 
 cution 6f~Guido because he wishud lu aeceen a. 
 scandal <of"the church, of because he was old and 
 liked to have younger men die before himself, or 
 because he hated Austria and had a passion for 
 France. 
 
 ."These fairly got the better in the man 
 Of justice, prudence, and esprit de carps, 
 And he persisted in the butchery." 
 
 All this may shame us when we remember 
 what reasons we have asserted for the judgments 
 of those of whom we know as little as the people on 
 the streets of Rome knew of the nature of the aged 
 Pope. It is a reminder to us that the motives 
 that usually impel men to act may have had nothing 
 to do with the action we are ready to condemn. 
 
 So far I have noticed only the incidental 
 lessons of The Ring and the Book; that is, lessons 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 227 
 
 that suggest themselves in particular passages 
 of the poem. I now wish to call attention to some 
 of the lessons that are implied in its total spirit. 
 One of these is the necessity of a basis for our 
 ju dgment s? The representative characters" in 
 "Half-Rome" and "The Other Half-Rome" and 
 "Tertium Quid" readily utter their opinions of the 
 parties involved in the "celebrated murder case." 
 They easily decide in favor of husband or wife, 
 or regard both as unworthy of especial praise or 
 blame. But these never take any evident pains 
 to know why they judge as they do. They are 
 satisfied with the conclusion to which their ex- 
 perience of life, or their feelings, or their class 
 prejudices inevitably lead them. They feel the 
 need of nothing more final than these. In this 
 they are very much like all of us. Every day we 
 express opinions which have nothing to rest upon 
 except our personal bias or the conventional code 
 of conduct and belief. 
 
 As for the actors in the poem, — Guido, Capon- 
 sacchi, and Pompilia, — they are too much occu- 
 pied with the statement of the case as it seems to 
 them to think of anything else. Guido is satisfied 
 if he can make his act appear to the judges justifi- 
 able in the light of legality and custom. Whether 
 the law or custom rested on a sentiment of real 
 righteousness or not does not concern him. Pom- 
 
228 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 pilia unfolds the experience through which she 
 has passed, and expresses the emotions which 
 that experience aroused. Caponsacchi makes 
 it clear to the court that his version of events is 
 the true one. As for the lawyers, they think of 
 nothing else than the flourish of their legal sub- 
 tleties. Perhaps from these no more ought to 
 be expected, but when we-co me to the P ope we 
 have a ver y different way of regarding t he whole 
 matter. He solemnly reviews the case and passes 
 his judgment upon all the characlers involved 
 in it — He i s thoro ughly persuaded that he knows 
 them all just as they are. Nothing can be more 
 decided than his tone. We seem to hear in it not 
 so much the voice of a man, as the expression of 
 the law of right. And here we might ordinarily 
 expect him to end. Why does he go on, and why 
 does he delay to sentence Guido and his com- 
 panions? It is not because he is "irresolute," 
 not because he may by some possibility be mis- 
 taken. He d eclares that his purp ose is fixed; and 
 he do es not stand on fop infallihility nf his knowl- 
 edge, hut upon the integrity of h is moti ve. But 
 he still ponders, because he is conscious of a 
 "quick cold thrill," which reminds him that his 
 judgment cannot ultimately rest upon his clear- 
 sightedness which the habit of a lifetime has made 
 keen, but upon the validity of his conception of 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 229 
 
 the universe. A voice seems to say to him, "Look 
 round thee for the light of the upper sky." He 
 is thus admonished to consider the postulates 
 which must underlie every decision he makes. 
 He is compelled to ask himself upon what grounds 
 his ordinary beliefs depend, and to face the doubts, 
 and give answer to the questionings of his soul. 
 
 It may seem strange and unreasonable for 
 the Pope to pursue this course, and in ordinary, 
 actual procedure it would be so. If every time 
 we pronounced a decision upon the conduct and 
 character of those about us, or if every time a 
 judge passed sentence upon a criminal he paused 
 to meditate until he was able to vindicate his 
 ultimate view of things, there would be little 
 time for anything else. Life would be all specu- 
 lation, and action would be paralyzed. It is 
 probable that the actual Pope, Innocent XII, 
 very properly did not, after he had examined 
 the papers, delay ten minutes to record his con- 
 clusion. But in the poem we have an ideal Pope, 
 who is judging in an ideal way. And the way in 
 which he seeks to find solid foundations for his 
 decision impresses us with the lesson which we 
 ought to heed; namely, that every decision we 
 make depends for its character upon our real 
 conviction with regard to God and Nature and 
 man, and their relations to one another. 
 
230 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Here Browning gives an unconscious refuta- 
 tion of the notion which often finds utterance in 
 these times, that it makes no difference what we 
 believe as far as practical life goes. This is true 
 as far as mere superficial and conventional beliefs 
 go. But the real belief of a man determines the 
 character of all that he does and says; it is the 
 most real thing in him. And so it is of the ut- 
 most importance that a man should know that 
 his belief is capable of justification in view of 
 his deepest thought. 
 
 Another lesson which comes to us in the read- 
 ing of the p"°n>i'f i f hii t it i 1 ? t T rr* little, i i l iiii"il mm 
 no ticed, things by which w e are tested. This 
 appears in the relation of the different characters 
 to Pompilia. We are so impressed by the Pope's 
 representation of her essential worth and beauty 
 of soul, and by her own revelation of herself in 
 all her sweetness and purity, that we are apt to 
 lose sight of the fact that she did not appear to 
 those who saw her from day to day "perfect in 
 whiteness." We are much like the artist Maratta, 
 who came to her bedside to sketch her face, ex- 
 claiming " a lovelier face is not in Rome." Where- 
 upon another remarks, 
 
 "Mighty fine — 
 
 But nobody cared ask to paint the same, 
 
 Nor grew a poet over hair and eyes 
 
 Four little years ago." 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 231 
 
 The genius of a great poet has taught us to 
 love and admire her, but those about her saw 
 a girl of "only seventeen." She was a strange 
 young girl in Arezzo, who had been deserted and 
 then disowned by her supposed parents. She was 
 surrounded by those who hated her and sought 
 her ruin. She had no friends, and she was igno- 
 rant of the world and of books. Of all the peo- 
 ple in the city she seemed of least consequence. 
 But she served to test the lives of those to whom 
 she appealed in her misery for help. The Gov- 
 ernor pushed her back to her husband with a 
 "shrug and smile." The Archbishop only scolded 
 her and gave her unfitting advice. The hermit 
 promised to write to her parents after he had 
 heard her piteous story, and never did. To them 
 she seemed only an annoyance. They knew that 
 their lives must be tested, but they never dreamed 
 it would be by their treatment of this poor un- 
 friended girl. One thought it would be in some 
 great emergency of the State, another in some de- 
 mand of the church, and still another in some 
 great act of sacrifice. But in fact, the test came 
 when it was never expected, and they are judged 
 only by reference to that. All that we know of 
 them now is that they knew her and neglected 
 her. She needed them, and they turned away. 
 If they had only known all that she was and all 
 
232 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 that she has become, they would have done other- 
 wise. But as with all of us the crisis came when 
 they were not aware of it, in unsuspected guise. 
 From that hour when they turned her away with 
 indifference and scorn and idle jest they began 
 to sink lower in the scale of being, and they lost 
 the opportunity of their lives. 
 
 But Pompilia turned to Caponsacchi, and he 
 recognized her great need, and responded to it, 
 and sacrificed all his hope of the future to it. It 
 mattered not to him that the appeal came in 
 the form of one who had little to commend her 
 to his attention. It was enough for him that 
 when God's command spoke through this in- 
 significant woman he readily obeyed. Through 
 his obedience he rose into a new form of life, 
 where "the very immolation made the bliss." 
 In his short contact with her he learned the lessons 
 which theological formulas and ecclesiastical in- 
 stitutions had never impressed upon him, so that 
 at last he cries, unmindful of " all misapprehend- 
 ing ignorance " 
 
 " — I assuredly did bow, was blessed 
 By the revelation of Pompilia." 
 
 The blessing which others missed because it offered 
 itself in such humble guise was found by Capon- 
 sacchi. He was enabled to realize the profound- 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 233 
 
 est revelations of God to the soul of man, and 
 to win the homage of all those who prize moral 
 courage and self-sacrifice because he did not turn 
 aside from the humble woman who sought his 
 aid in her extremity. 
 
 Connected with this is still another teaching 
 of The Ring and the Book. We are apt to im- 
 agine that the revelation of God comes to us in 
 the unusual and the striking. Surely, we think, 
 He will make Himself known to us in some moun- 
 tain amid thunders and smoke and fire. His 
 word will come to us, we imagine, in some book 
 weighty with thought, or in the magnificent cere- 
 monial of the church, or from the lips of some 
 eloquent divine. It has come in this way to 
 many; it may come so to many more. But in 
 The Rin g and fh/>. Book we learn that the choicest 
 revelations of the Spirit come 
 
 "not alone 
 In the main current of the general life 
 But s mall experiences of eve ry day, 
 Concerns of the particular hearth and home." 
 
 and that we learn "not only by acomet's rush, 
 but a rose's birth." The poet does not seek to 
 instruct us through an account of heroic men 
 and women engaged in a mighty struggle in a 
 
234 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 far-off time. He tells us of a time not far away, 
 of an episode of only local and momentary im- 
 portance. The characters conceived have noth- 
 ing extraordinary about them. The Pope, good 
 and noble as he is, is not one of the great popes of 
 the church. The people concerned in the story 
 pass through no wonderful experiences. And 
 yet the poet reveals through them as much wis- 
 dom of life as if he concerned himself with heroic 
 figures and world-famed deeds. 
 
 Character is disclosed in the talk of the street 
 and the chatter of the drawing-room. No devil 
 reveals the malignity of evil, but Guido, in the 
 unfolding of the thoughts and feelings of his 
 secret soul, helps us to understand something 
 of the abysmal depths of evil in the human heart. 
 Pompilia is a poor, ignorant girl, but .through her 
 short life and humble experience we learn how 
 the character of an angel is formed. Caponsacchi 
 does comparatively little, but in what he does we 
 learn what true manliness is and how the nature 
 is developed through obedience to the divine 
 command. The Pope has only a decision to 
 make, but in making it he causes us to see how 
 solemn a thing a decision is and upon what deep 
 foundation it rests. Pompilia and Caponsacchi 
 are together for three days, and most of that time 
 is passed in the flight from Arezzo to Rome, and 
 
LESSONS OF RING AND BOOK 235 
 
 the words spoken are few and simple, yet these 
 come to constitute Caponsacchi's real religion. 
 And jthus we_ are- taught that all that ic nee ded 
 for the -mQst_e ffective revelation is the contac t of 
 a pure nature with a receptive sou l.