Cobwebs of Thought Part 3

Mr. Chesterton suggests in his biography of the poet that Browning was conventional by nature--and through the greatness of his brain he developed. He certainly developed on many sides, but his development did not include admiration for George Sand and her circle. It was social tone, his biographer believes, more than _opinions_, which created this strong aversion in the author of "The Statue and the Bust."

But Mrs. Browning, though her life had been mainly one long seclusion on her sofa, was unhampered by these conventional barriers. What she felt was the attraction of the ma.s.sive and fascinating brain and heart of the great French woman, what she heard was "that eloquent voice,"

what she saw was "that n.o.ble, that speaking head." She had warm, quick sympathies and intuitional appreciations of genius. In regard to so wide and so complicated a character as George Sand's, we cannot be astonished at finding very different judgments and impressions; indeed we are prepared to feel in all of them some note of inadequacy and of incompleteness. But in our relation to her as a Great Writer, of this, as readers, we are a.s.sured, we _know_ that it is no common matter to have come into contact with so gifted and great a nature, with a genius that possessed "a current of true and living ideas," and which produced "amid the inspiration of them."