We aren't wanted there!" "How so?" asked Ibsen. Browning
looked a little puzzled, and I had to explain that in northern Europe
Herr Ibsen's plays were frequently performed. At this I seemed to see
on Browning's face a slight shadow--so swift and transient a shadow as
might be cast by a swallow flying across a sunlit garden. An instant,
and it was gone. I was glad, however, to be able to soften my
statement by adding that Herr Ibsen had in his recent plays abandoned
the use of verse.
The trouble was that in Browning's company he seemed practically to
have abandoned the use of prose too. When, moreover, he did speak, it
was always in a sense contrary to that of our host. The Risorgimento
was a theme always very near to the great heart of Browning, and on
this occasion he hymned it with more than his usual animation and
resource (if indeed that were possible). He descanted especially on
the vast increase that had accrued to the sum of human happiness
in Italy since the success of that remarkable movement. When Ibsen
rapped out the conviction that what Italy needed was to be invaded
and conquered once and for all by Austria, I feared that an explosion
was inevitable. But hardly had my translation of the inauspicious
sentiment been uttered when the plum-pudding was borne into the room,
flaming on its dish.
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