Not all of this country’s variant poetry has been written by women; at least two men have contributed narrative verse. Edgar Lee Masters’s _Domesday Book_ (1929) follows Browning’s _Ring and the Book_ in that it begins with a girl’s death and traces the history which led up to it, through the memories of far more than Browning’s dozen persons. In the end Elenor Murray is seen as a woman too passionate and open-hearted to live peacefully or to end her days in happiness. Within a decade she gave herself lavishly to several men but was self-defeating in her very generosity, and finally ended her life because her efforts to meet her lovers’ need only brought suffering to others as well as herself. One of the earlier reminiscences in the book comes from Alma Bell, a high-school teacher who knew Elenor at seventeen and loved her deeply. Recognizing the dangers ahead for one so susceptible to passion, she attempted to help the girl “to ripen to a rich maturity” unscathed. She had success in warding off certain unsavory male advances, but not in avoiding emotional involvement herself, since, as she observes, few persons are wholly either masculine or feminine in spirit. ... the flesh’s explanation Is not important, nor to tell whence comes A love in the heart—the thing is love at last ... My love for Elenor Murray never had Other expression than the look of eyes, The spiritual thrill of listening to her voice, A hand to clasp, kiss upon the lips at best, Better to find her soul, as Plato says.[63] Despite this conscientious restraint the town became aware of the intimacy, and Alma Bell was forced to resign her position and leave ... under a cloud Because of love for Elenor Murray, yet Not lawless love, I write now to make clear.[64] The exceptional small town coroner, tolerant and philosophical, who elicits the stories which compose the pattern, is an evident mouthpiece for the poet himself. His final estimate of the girl’s character is one of human dignity and largeness of spirit surpassing that of her calumniators and even her lovers and friends. But the early suspicion of lesbianism cast one of the shadows which reached beyond the limits of her little Midwestern community and augmented the difficulties of her later life.