To crown all his fatal Candour, Omar insists, as with a sigh of vain regret, on most truly telling us his own callous judgment of it all, seeing some faint inextinguishable spark of Conscience still remained in him, as in the Ancient Mariner:—
'Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup
And sold my Reputation for a song!'
So, too, with Edward Fitzgerald, who, with consummate skill, has here played the part of 'Mr. Sludge, the Medium' to perfection. And we only wish that Robert Browning, in his Berserker rage over the painful betrayal of what was dearest to him in life, had 'spit' this, and not what he frantically did, 'in his face' as it burst from him in scorn of one who confessed:—
'I cheated when I could,
Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work!...'
'Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong: