VARIED TYPES
better with half as much talent. The great curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit:
"And the eyes of the peacock fans
Winked at the alien glory,"
she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour:
"And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble.
And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair,"
is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as every
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