Castile and Paris contend in his blood; and his love adventures, begun on the boulevards and in their spirit, end in an ecstasy of fantastic devotion.

His sins are commonplace and prosaic enough, but his repentances detach him altogether from the herd of ordinary penitents as well as of ordinary sinners--confused and violent gesticulations of a visionary ascetic struggling to liberate himself from the bonds of his own impurity.

"The heart was wise according to its lights"; but the head was incapable of shaping this vague heart-wisdom into coherent practice.

A parallel piece of analysis presents Clara as a finished artist in life--a Meissonier of limited but flawless perfection in her unerring selection of means to ends.

In other words, this not very attractive pair struck Browning as another example of his familiar contrast between those who "try the low thing and leave it done," and those who aim higher and fail.