But a "chill wind" suddenly disencharms the enchantment, a doubt that buoyant faith might be a mirage conjured up by Love itself:-- "What if all be error, If the halo irised round my head were--Love, thine arms ?" He disdains to answer; for the last words glow with a fire which of itself dispels the chill wind.

A faith founded upon love had for Browning a surer guarantee than any founded upon reason; it was secured by that which most nearly emancipated men from the illusions of mortality, and enabled them to see things as they are seen by God.
The _Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day_ (1887) is a more laboured and, save for one or two splendid episodes, a less remarkable achievement than _Ferishtah_.

All the burly diffuseness which had there been held in check by a quasi-oriental ideal of lightly-knit facility and bland oracular pithiness, here has its way without stint, and no more songs break like the rush of birds' wings upon the dusty air of colloquy.

Thrusting in between the lyrics of _Ferishtah_ and _Asolando_, these _Parleyings_ recall those other "people of importance" whose intrusive visit broke in upon "the tenderness of Dante." Neither their importance in their own day nor their relative obscurity, for the most part, in ours, had much to do with Browning's choice.

They do not illustrate merely his normal interest in the obscure freaks and out-of-the-way anomalies of history.