While this poem is recognized as a great art criticism, its spirit can be realized only by one recognizing the dramatic situation and appreciating the delicate suggestions of the atmosphere of a studio and of time and place in relation to an artist's life. One of the finest situations in Browning's verse is that in "La Saisiaz." The poet has an appointment to climb a mountain with one of his friends, a Miss Smith, daughter of one of the firm of Smith, Elder & Co., but when the time comes, she is dead. The other, himself, keeps the appointment, walks up alone, and pausing on the height, utters aloud his reflections upon the immortality of the soul. The poem is none the less a monologue because it is Browning himself that speaks, and because the friend of whom and to whom he speaks has just passed to the unseen world. She whom he had expected as his companion in this climb is so near to him as to be almost literally realized as a listener. The poem fulfils the conditions of a monologue: a living soul intensely realizing a thought and situation with relation to another soul. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of situation in art. It is the situation that gives us the background. An isolated object can hardly be made the subject of a work of art. Art is relation, and shows the kinship of things. "It is where the bird is," said Hunt, "that makes the bird." V. TIME AND CONNECTION The monologue touches only indirectly the progressive development of character as regards time. It deals with only one instant, the present, which reflects the past and the future. But for this very reason its aspect differs from that of the drama, since it focuses attention upon the instant and reveals motives, possibilities, and even results. The monologue is not "still-life" in any sense of the word. In an instant's flash it may show the turning point of a life. The most important words in the study of a monologue are usually the first. As a monologue is a sudden vision of a life, it of course breaks into the continuity of thought or discussion. The first words are nearly always spoken in answer to something previously said or in reference to some event or circumstance which is only suggested, yet which must be definitely imagined. One of the most important questions for the student to settle is the connection of what is printed with what is not printed. When does a character begin to speak, that is, in answer to what,--as a result of what event, act, or word? For this reason the first words of a monologue must usually be delivered slowly and emphatically, if auditors are to be given a clue to the processes of the thought. The inflections and other modulations of the voice in uttering the first words must always directly suggest the connection with what precedes.