Then his almost faultless artistic instinct came in and suggested that this being, whom he dramatised as the work-girl, Pippa, should be even unconscious of anything but her own happiness, and should sway men's lives with a lonely mirth.

It was a bold and moving conception to show us these mature and tragic human groups all at the supreme moment eavesdropping upon the solitude of a child.

And it was an even more precise instinct which made Browning make the errant benefactor a woman.

A man's good work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is.
There is one other point about _Pippa Passes_ which is worth a moment's attention.

The great difficulty with regard to the understanding of Browning is the fact that, to all appearance, scarcely any one can be induced to take him seriously as a literary artist.