_Pauline, Paracelsus_, and _Sordello_ stand together in the general fact that they are all, in the excellent phrase used about the first by Mr.Johnson Fox, "confessional." All three are analyses of the weakness which every artistic temperament finds in itself.

Browning is still writing about himself, a subject of which he, like all good and brave men, was profoundly ignorant.
This kind of self-analysis is always misleading.

For we do not see in ourselves those dominant traits strong enough to force themselves out in action which our neighbours see.

We see only a welter of minute mental experiences which include all the sins that were ever committed by Nero or Sir Willoughby Patterne.

When studying ourselves, we are looking at a fresco with a magnifying glass.