Book Description

Excerpt from Christmas Eve "The soul, little else, is worth study," is a favorite quotation among Browning readers, taken from his introductory note to "Sordello." In whatsoever condition the soul is, it is still his immortal theme. "The Soul's Tragedy," to his mind, occurs, when all primal elements are filmed over by conventionalities, or by human wisdom, or by utilitarian considerations, until they have oozed away and no real personality is left. The fixedness of the soulless soul is what the author of "Christmas Eve" considers the most fearful and solemn death. This poem is a narrative, and the narrator finds himself dodging a storm. He seeks to enter a little dissenting chapel, situated Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly. He snuggles himself up as closely as he can in the little four-by-six porch which serves as a doorway. He becomes interested in the different specimens of human nature that hurriedly and drippingly crowd past him to enter the door, the inner door, whose latch "grew more obstinate the more they fumbled." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.