Los Angeles herald., 1892-03-07
The Subject Before the Fri
day Morning Club.
iBrowning's Pompilia Has Her
Character Dissected.
Mr.. Spaulding of Boston Reads an
Interesting Paper.
Club-what He Thinks tho Ring
and the Book Teach.

OF the Friday Morning club was nota-
BILE one, numbering twenty-five, and
representing all parts of the country.
The following names for membership
were favorably considered at the last
meeting of the advisory board Mrs.
N. A. Leas, Mrs. Frank Virgins, Mrs.
L. N. Godin, Mrs. L. E. Arnold, Miss
Mary Bowman, Miss Darling, Mrs. Hugh
Vail and Mrs. W. G. Darling.
The subject for the morning, Brown.
ing's Ideal Of Womanhood, was pre-
sented by Henry 7. Spaulding, OF Bos-
ton, Mr.. Spauldlng is one of the exec
utive officers Of the famous Boston
Browning club. This club makes a
study OF the philosophy as we'll as the
poetry Of Browning. Mr.. Spaulding is
tall, gray, with fine, scholarly face he
has most delightful delivery, and pre-
sented his paper to an audience fully
appreciating its classic thought and
graceful diction. The following is
resume OF his paper:
THE Pompilia monologue Mr.. Spauld-
ing regarded as marking the highest
reach OF Browning's genius in his in
depreciation of women. In this, the
most beautiful chapter of The Ring and
the Book, Browning almost puts poetry
into music's place as the art that ex-
presses soul.
Its liquid lines affect one like the
strains of a Beethoven andante. We
feel, as we listen to their rythmic flow,
that we have indeed been with Pompilia
in the very presence of a ''snow white
soul that angels fear to take untender-
ly." 1.-THE Ring and the Book" teaches
our age many needed lessons in the va
rying judgments pronounced on Guido's
misdoings and Caponsacchi's heroism;
and. above all. the grand ethical and
spiritual utterances OF the pope. But the
threads of the dramatic action all meet in
'Pompilia. Her unfolding character is
the POEMS central theme. The better
to set forth the character, Q brief study
was given of Shakespeare Miranda, and
the Lady in Millions Comus, both of
whom bear some resemblance to Brown
ing's heroine in their womanly purity
and pity and in their entire disregard of
conventionalities. But here the resem-
blance ceases. The plots and villianies
of the Tempest do not effect Miranda,
except to furnish the occasion for bring.
ing her before us; while the virtue OF
the Lady in Comus is not 80 much de-
veloped, as tested by her encounter
with the son of Bacchus and Circe.
Both these heroines are placed in the
midst of entertainments, surrounded and
protected by magical spells, and
by heavenly ministrants. They both
owe everything in their character to
the shaping influences of heredity and
environment. Browning, on the other
hand, keeps firm footing on the world of
human realities. The evil that assails
Pompilia and the goodness that rescues
her are of human origin. From the
time Of her marriage, at the age OF l3,
till Caponsacchi comes TO set her free.
she futters in Guido's tolls like bird
caught on the lined twigs and is power.
less to escape. Pompilia, born mid
'Rome's worst rankness, owes nothing
to heredity. Nor does she take from her
foster parents home any lamp of knowl-
edge to illuminate the darkness of her
lot, save the inner lights God leaves no
child OF his without. Yet has our poet
shown US how from this coarse human
bulb has developed the '']ily SOUP that
eCaponsacchi called:
"The glory of life, the beauty of the world;
The splendor OF heaven"
From different parts of the Ring and
the Book the separate features of Pom
pilia's personality were brought to-
gether to make her more real to the
imagination. Her personal beauty and
her almost patrician bearing were
dwelt upon, and passages were quoted
to show that Pompilia belongs to the
company of those women who held men
captive by their wit and wisdom no less
than by their distinctively feminine
gifts.
This remarkable intellectually in one
80 young (for Pompilia died at seventeen)
was accounted for in part by influences
of race and climate; but in greater
degree by the educating pressure of her
trials. She had loved. The flashing
out of superior insight and discernment
from q. child's mind is not an unheard
thing, witness the journal of Marie
Bashkirtseff. Read too, Jonathan Ed
wards's eulogy of his child-bride, whom
he married at seventeen, and who at
thirteen was prodigy OF piety and in
tellect. From her trials were also born
Pompilia's splendid courage as well as
her quiet endurance. But next to her
love, the crowning excellence of her
character was her faith in man--her
simple trust on what Wordsworth calls
ssthe human heart by which we live."
This trust blended indistinguishably
with her faith in God. But Browning
clearly teaches here that the hope OF
humanity is in the divine logos made
flesh again in the God who ever incar.
mates himself in godly men.
Through such souls alone,
God, stopping shows sufficient of His light
For us! the dark to rise BY"
The love Pompilia exempli6ed and
which she awakened in the bosom of
her lover was higher even than
sublimated passion. It. was love
which at its birth was absorbed into the
spiritual nature and became at once
with both Pompilia and Caponsacchi the
light of all their seeing, and their beings
vital warmth. It made her his purify
ing and redeeming conscience, and by it
he became her shining and ever bright
ening ideal. Living in and for each other,
his was the strong hand of helpful man
hood, hers the strong womanly heart
helping him to live and learn and "have
to do with nothing but the true, the
good, the eternal" Pompilia's thought
OF herself and of her soldier eaint-seen
often in the workings Of those passion
fraught lives in the sSonnets from the
Portuguese, "whereinMrs. Browning tells
her love and un1ocka hor ;nyv,oax haort