He lost himself more completely in this error in _Parleyings with Certain People_, in which book, with the exception of the visionary landscapes in _Gerard de Lairesse_, and some few passages in _Francis Furini_ and _Charles Avison_, imagination, such as belongs to a poet, has deserted Browning. He feels himself as if this might be said of him; and he asks in _Gerard de Lairesse_ if he has lost the poetic touch, the poetic spirit, because he writes of the soul, of facts, of things invisible--not of fancy's feignings, not of the things perceived by the senses? "I can do this," he answers, "if I like, as well as you," and he paints the landscape of a whole day filled with mythological figures. The passage is poetry; we see that he has not lost his poetic genius. But, he calls it "fooling," and then contrasts the spirit of Greek lore with the spirit of immortal hope and cheer which he possesses, with his faith that there is for man a certainty of Spring. But that is not the answer to his question. It only says that the spirit which animates him now is higher than the Greek spirit. It does not answer the question--Whether _Daniel Bartoli_ or _Charles Avison_ or any of these _Parleyings_ even approach as poetry _Paracelsus_, the _Dramatic Lyrics_, or _Men and Women_. They do not. Nor has their intellectual work the same force, unexpectedness and certainty it had of old. Nevertheless, these _Parleyings_, at the close of the poet's life, and with biographical touches which give them vitality, enshrine Browning's convictions with regard to some of the greater and lesser problems of human life. And when his personality is vividly present in them, the argument, being thrilled with passionate feeling, rises, but heavily like a wounded eagle, into an imaginative world. The sub-consciousness in Browning's mind to which I have alluded--that these later productions of his were not as poetical as his earlier work and needed defence--is the real subject of a remarkable little poem at the end of the second volume of the _Dramatic Idyls_. He is thinking of himself as poet, perhaps of that double nature in him which on one side was quick to see and love beauty; and on the other, to see facts and love their strength. Sometimes the sensitive predominated. He was only the lover of beauty whom everything that touched him urged into song. "Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: Soil so quick-receptive,--not one feather-seed, Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke Vitalising virtue: song would song succeed Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet-soul!"