So This Then is Christmas Eve

"The soul, little else, is worth study," is a favorite quotation among Browning readers, taken from his introductory note to "Sordello." In whatsoever condition the soul is, it is still his immortal theme.

"The Soul's Tragedy," to his mind, occurs, when all primal elements are filmed over by conventionalities, or by human wisdom, or by utilitarian considerations, until they have oozed away and no real personality is left. The fixedness of the soulless soul is what the author of "Christmas Eve" considers the most fearful and solemn death.

This poem is a narrative, and the narrator finds himself dodging a storm. He seeks to enter a little dissenting chapel, situated.

Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly.

He snuggles himself up as closely as he can in the little four-by-six porch which serves as a doorway.

He becomes interested in the different specimens of human nature that hurriedly and drippingly crowd past him to enter the door, the inner door, whose latch "grew more obstinate the more they fumbled."