Again, I think, something of what I said in writing of _Youth and Art_: again not quite what Browning seems to wish us to accept. Love is the fulfilling of the law--with all my heart; but was love here? Does love weigh worth, as the poet did? does love marry the next comer, as the lady did? Mrs. Orr, devouter votary than I, explains that Browning meant "that everything which disturbs the equal balance of human life gives a vital impulse to the soul." Did one wish merely to be humorous, one might say that this was the most optimistic view of unsuccessful marriage which has yet found expression! But merely to be humorous is not what I wish: we must consider this belief, which Mrs. Orr further declares to be the expression of Browning's "poetic self." Assuredly it is true that stereotyped monotony, even if happy, does leave the soul unstirred to deepest depth. We may hesitate, nevertheless, to embrace the view that "only our mistakes are our experience"; and this is the view which seems to prevail in Mrs. Orr's interpretation of _Dis Aliter Visum_. Mr. Symons says that the woman points out to the man "his fatal mistake." . . . But was it really a mistake at all? I do not, in urging that question, commit myself to the crass commonplace of Berdoe, who argues that "a more unreasonable match could hardly be imagined than this one would have been"! The "match" standpoint is not here our standpoint. _That_ is, simply, that love is the fulfilling of the law, and that these two people did not love. They were in the sentimental state which frequently results from pleasant chance encounters--and the experienced, subtle man of the world was able to perceive that, and to act upon it. That he has pursued his wonted way of life, and that she has married lovelessly (for a husband who plays whist is, by the unwritten law of romance, a husband who can by no possibility be loved!), proves merely that each has fallen away in the pursuit of any ideal which may then have urged itself--not that both would certainly have "saved their souls" if they had married one another. Speaking elsewhere in this book of Browning's theory of love, I said: "Love can do all, and will do all, but we must for our part be doing something too"--but even love can do nothing if it is not there! Ideals need not be abandoned because they are not full-realised; and, were we in stern mood, it would be possible to declare that this lady had abandoned them more definitely than her poet had, since he at all times was frankly a worldling. Witty as she has become, there still remain in her, I fear, some traces of the poor pretty thoughtful thing. . . . To sum up, for this "tear" also we have but semi-sympathy; and Browning is again not at his best when he makes the Victim speak for herself. III.--THE LABORATORY Now let us see how he can make a woman speak when she suffers, but is not, and will not be, a victim.