BROWNING'S ITALY (38 page)

of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and

grown old.

PICTÜRES OF SOCIAL LIFE 381

"Pippa Passes" has already been referred to in connection with the historicaJ section of our subject. Of social life it gives some glimpses which merely reinforce those already dwelt lipon. There is the selfishness leading to crime in the murder of old Luca by Sebald and Ottima, there is the infamous group of young artists who play their disgraceful trick upon Jules and Phene, and last, there are the machinations of a degen-erate group of clergy. These are situations all possible in the Italy which was in its last stages of Austrian domination; but that good seed was sprouting for the regeneration of Italy is shown in the characters of Jules and of Luigi. It is very probable that no such litüe paragon of a silk-winder as Pippa ever existed, but she sym-bolizes the eternally good that sooner or later must show evil its own ugly features.

The idea of a personality going through life and by its innate, unconscious goodness exerting a powerful influence upon those about it had long been in Browning's thoughts, as he has himself expressed it, a being passing through the world obscure and unnameable, but molding the destinies of others to mightier and better issues. This idea he gave form to in the Kttle silk-winder of Asolo — "his first love among Italian cities." The Italian life, vividly as the characters are portrayed, is not drawn pri-

PICTÜRES OF SOCIAL LIFE 381

"Pippa Passes" has already been referred to in connection with the historical section of our subject. Of social life it gives some glimpses which merely reinforce those already dwelt lipon. There is the selfishness leading to crime in the murder of old Luca by Sebald and Ottima, there is the infamous group of young artists who play their disgraceful trick upon Jules and Phene, and last, there are the machinations of a degen-erate group of clergy. These are situations all possible in the ItaJy which was in its last stages of Austrian domination; but that good seed was sprouting for the regeneration of Italy is shown in the characters of Jules and of Luigi. It is veiy probable that no such little paragon of a silk-winder as Pippa ever existed, but she sym-bolizes the eternally good that sooner or later must show evil its own ugly features.

The idea of a personality going through life and by its innate, unconscious goodness exerting a powerful influence upon those about it had long been in Browning's thoughts, as he has himself expressed it, a being passing through the world obscure and unnameable, but molding the destinies of others to mightier and better issues. This idea he gave form to in the little silk-winder of Asolo — "his first love among Italian cities." The Italian life, vividly as the characters are portrayed, is not drawn pri-

marily for itself, but rather as a world in which his ideal being may move. Certainly, he could not have chosen any world in which such a

forces in so short a space of time as that Italy in which for centuries the problems of social life, of art, of politics, and of the Church, had been agitating the human spirit; nor any world more greatly in need at this especial epoch of the %ht-bringing power of pure goodness.