Phene

And in due time, the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar charms -- the pale cheeks, the black hair -- whatever, in short, had struck us in our Malamocco model: we retained her name, too -- Phene, which is, by interpretation, sea-eagle.

Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning Robert Browning 1850

Nor should these be given Phene to hand Jules, for so Lutwyche would lose the delicious actual instant of the revelation.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

We know it before Phene speaks, for Lutwyche, telling Gottlieb, has told us; but Jules must glean it from her puzzled, broken utterance, filled with allusions that mean nothing until semi-comprehension comes through the sighs of tortured soul and heart from her who still is, as it were, in a trance.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

So trust, we see, is born in her: if Jules could do what she desires, Phene knows he would.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

The second Happy One is Phene, the bride that very day of Jules, the young French sculptor.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

Not that Phene, like Ottima, could have saved herself; there _was_ no self to save -- she had that awful, piercing selflessness of the used flesh and ignored soul.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do not die, Phene."

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860 Various

I think that Phene would have killed herself -- like Ottima, yet how unlike!

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

There was an allusion to "the peerless bride with her black eyes," and _here_ Jules was almost certain to break in, saying that assuredly the bride was Phene herself, and so, could she not tell him what it all meant?

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

For Phene (but one step upon the way) would have died for her own self's sake only, because till now she had never known it, but in that strangest, dreadfullest, that least, most, sacred of offerings-up, had "lived for others" -- the others of the smile which girls like her are used to bear,

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne