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he comes with refreshment and a strong arm of support. His is a voice to lead, and a lamp to light the feet. He gives no promise of ease, or peace, or joy, to those who would seek counsel of him; but he gives courage, high aims, and a clear vision. His words are often like battle strokes; and they ring forth with power and with sympathy. He is no captain who commands, but a friend who counsels. "It is so to me," is his only word. Others may go whither they will; but he goes where the light has led him.

In all the years of the present century, no one has sent forth into the world words on the questions of religion more needful, or more likely to help, than those of Robert Browning. That a few only will seek them out, cannot decrease their value or give them less power to affect the genuine course of human thought. They have the force of inspirations, making the ideal more real, and giving the heart a stronger hold on certainties. They fix the desires and purposes of life on the central things; and they help to gain the faith which is higher than sight.

Browning is, and will always remain, the poet of the few. He has expressed in his poetry little of those qualities which win popularity. His thought does not take form along the common levels of opinion. The emotional life is not in

terpreted by him in a manner to bring him into sympathy with the great majority of mankind, even in cultivated circles. He makes too great a demand on thought, and he is too unconventional, to be received with favor by the mass of readers. Few will take the trouble to acquire the language which he has developed for expressing his poetical thoughts. It has been said that he wrote Greek in shorthand; and that will be the feeling of many who read him for the first time. The criticism is justly made; and the result is that a love of Browning must be acquired. He needs the commentary which has been provided for his works by one of his disciples. Even that is not a perfect key for unlocking the treasures which are contained in his volumes. No commentary has yet made "Sordello" other than a stumblingblock for even the most zealous of the poet's admirers. Other poems are not less blind and perplexing, and needing to be made capable of mental absorption by some process of dilution.

Those who once come into sympathy with Browning, become his enthusiastic admirers and disciples. The reading of his poetry becomes a cultus, and admiration for it the sign of a spiritual brotherhood. He is studied with enthusiasm, and his teachings are accepted with the ardors of conviction. Something there must be in a poet who can command such zeal and devotion. What is the secret of his peculiar power, and what the nature of that unique fascination which he exercises? They must be very great to overcome the real difficulties presented in his poetry.

Something of the charm Browning has for his special admirers is to be found in the very fact that he is a perplexity to the majority of mankind. They love him because he is exclusive and unique. He does not belong to everybody; and those who admire him form an aristocracy of their own. There are intellectual epicures, who are not willing to digest that which is given to every one. They wish for something that is a rarity, and which can only be had with much difficulty. Others there are who do not care for the exclusiveness of the poet, but who delight in contending with verbal and philosophical difficulties. The harder the nut, the greater the zeal with

which they undertake to crack it. They have an insatiable literary curiosity, and cannot take an interest in the poet who does not try the patience and rack the ingenuity of the reader.

It would be a grave injustice done to Browning to suppose that these two classes embrace all his admirers. What is most zealous and exclusive in their admiration has its origin in these causes. A more substantial basis for the love of his poetry is to be found in his spiritual interpretation of man and the world. In all ages there are transcendentalists; but in a time of positivism they are drawn together around the man of intuition and faith with a fresh zeal. Whoever asserts the worth of the soul with a supreme conviction, will not be wanting in disciples. As no other has done during the last quarter of a century, Browning has asserted the eternal reality of the soul as the most vital truth which can come within the ken of The emphasis he has laid on that truth has been in itself quite enough to win him all the disciples he has gained. The man of positive thought on any subject of supreme moment to the intellectual understanding of existence cannot fail to attract those who will find in him a leader and a master.

man.

More than all else is Browning an interpreter of human nature. Here is the real secret of his power. He has a wonderful insight into human character, and a marvellous facility for its interpretation. He not only creates characters, but he unfolds and makes them manifest. Human nature has no secrets from him. His power of analysis is of the most subtle kind, and reaches to the inmost impulses of the human being. The measure of his analytic power is the measure of his sympathy, for his sympathy is the guiding motive in his analysis. Humanity is the highest attraction he knows; and his love for man is of the loftiest and widest kind. He knows because he loves. He loves because the object is worthy of his affection. Love and faith are the instruments of his analysis. There is warrant enough, therefore, for the admiration his work has received, and basis there is, too, for whatever study may be given to it. The very effort he has made to analyze the nature of man shows the greatness of his aim. Man is the highest theme of the poet's art, and its very greatness may obscure the result of his creative effort.

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