He was at once too much and too little of a casuist,--too habituated to fine distinctions and too unaware of the pitfalls they often present to others,--to understand that in condemning his lovers for wanting the energy to commit a crime he could be supposed to imply approval of the crime they failed to commit.
Lastly, in the outer periphery of his love poetry belong his rare and fugitive "dreams" of love.

_Women and Roses_ has an intoxicating swiftness and buoyancy of music.

But there is another and more sinister kind of love-dream--the dream of an unloved woman.

Such a dream, with its tragic disillusion, Browning painted in his poignant and original _In a Balcony_.

It is in no sense a drama, but a dramatic incident in three scenes, affecting the fates of three persons, upon whom the entire interest is concentrated.