Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher | Page 6

powerful
personality, or of the great convictions on which he has based his life.
Browning has, at bottom, only one way of looking at the world, and
one way of treating his objects; one point of view, and one artistic

method. Nay, further, he has one supreme interest, which he pursues
everywhere with a constancy shown by hardly any other poet; and, in
consequence, his works have a unity and a certain originality, which
make them in many ways a unique contribution to English literature.
This characteristic, which no critic has missed, and which generally
goes by the name of "the metaphysical element" in his poetry, makes it
the more imperative to form a clear view of his ruling conceptions. No
poet, least of all a dramatic poet, goes about seeking concrete vehicles
for ready-made ideas, or attempts to dress a philosophy in metaphors;
and Browning, as an artist, is interested first of all in the object which
he renders beautiful for its own sole sake, and not in any abstract idea it
illustrates. Still, it is true in a peculiar sense in his case, that the eye of
the poet brings with it what it sees. He is, as a rule, conscious of no
theory, and does not construct a poem for its explication; he rather
strikes his ideas out of his material, as the sculptor reveals the breathing
life in the stone. Nevertheless, it may be shown that a theory rules him
from behind, and that profound convictions arise in the heart and rush
along the blood at the moment of creation, using his soul as an
instrument of expression to his age and people.
Of no English poet, except Shakespeare, can we say with approximate
truth that he is the poet of all times. The subjective breath of their own
epoch dims the mirror which they hold up to nature. Missing by their
limitation the highest universality, they can only be understood in their
setting. It adds but little to our knowledge of Shakespeare's work to
regard him as the great Elizabethan; there is nothing temporary in his
dramas, except petty incidents and external trappings--so truly did he
dwell amidst the elements constituting man in every age and clime. But
this cannot be said of any other poet, not even of Chaucer or Spenser,
far less of Milton, or Pope or Wordsworth. In their case, the artistic
form and the material, the idea and its expression, the beauty and the
truth, are to some extent separable. We can distinguish in Milton
between the Puritanic theology which is perishable, and the art whose
beauty can never pass away. The former fixes his kinship with his own
age, gives him a definite place in the evolution of English life; the latter
is independent of time, a thing which has supreme worth in itself.

Nor can it be doubted that the same holds good of Browning. He also is
ruled by the ideas of his own age. It may not be altogether possible for
us, "who are partners of his motion and mixed up with his career," to
allow for the influence of these ideas, and to distinguish between that
which is evanescent and that which is permanent in his work; still I
must try to do so; for it is the condition of comprehending him, and of
appropriating the truth and beauty he came to reveal. And if his
nearness to ourselves makes this more difficult, it also makes it more
imperative. For there is no doubt that, with Carlyle, he is the interpreter
of our time, reflecting its confused strength and chaotic wealth. He is
the high priest of our age, standing at the altar for us, and giving
utterance to our needs and aspirations, our fears and faith. By
understanding him, we shall, to some degree, understand ourselves and
the power which is silently moulding us to its purposes.
It is because I thus regard Browning as not merely a poet but a prophet,
that I think I am entitled to seek in him, as in Isaiah or Aeschylus, a
solution, or a help to the solution, of the problems that press upon us
when we reflect upon man, his place in the world and his destiny. He
has given us indirectly, and as a poet gives, a philosophy of life; he has
interpreted the world anew in the light of a dominant idea; and it will
be no little gain if we can make clear to ourselves those constitutive
principles on which his view of the world rests.

CHAPTER II.
ON THE NEED OF A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.
"Art,--which I may style the love of loving, rage Of knowing, seeing,
feeling the absolute truth of things For truth's sake, whole and sole, not
any good, truth brings