"I begin," he cries, "art afresh, in a fresh world, Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas." The ideal that fails means the birth of a new ideal.

The very centre of Browning as an artist is there: Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake! Sordello is another example of his theory, of a different type from Aprile, or that poet in _Pauline_ who gave Browning the sketch from which Sordello was conceived.

But Browning, who, as I have said, repeated his theory, never repeated his examples: and Sordello is not only clearly varied from Aprile and the person in _Pauline_, but the variations themselves are inventively varied.

The complex temperament of Sordello incessantly alters its form, not only as he grows from youth to manhood, but as circumstances meet him.

They give him a shock, as a slight blow does to a kaleidoscope, and the whole pattern of his mind changes.