Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/472



There is indeed one remarkable passage in one of his latest works, "La Saisiaz" (1878), wherein he plunges into the unfathomable abyss of the Everlasting No; but from this he retrieves himself with triumphant emphasis in the Everlasting Yes. For the rest, the devout and hopeful Christian faith, explicitly or implicitly affirmed in such poems as "Saul," "Karshish," "Cleon," "Caliban upon Setebos," "A Death in the Desert," "Instans Tyrannus," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "Prospice," the "Epilogue," and throughout that stupendous monumental work, "The Ring and the Book," must surely be clear as noonday to even the most purblind vision.

To summarise: I look up to Browning as one of the very few men known to me by their works who, with most cordial energy and invincible resolution, have lived thoroughly throughout the whole of their being, to the uttermost verge of all their capacities, in his case truly colossal; lived and wrought thoroughly in sense and soul and intellect; lived at home in all realms of nature and human nature, art and literature: whereas nearly all of us are really alive in but a small portion of our so much smaller beings, and drag wearily toward the grave our for the most part dead selves, dead from the suicidal poison of misuse and atrophy of disuse. Confident and rejoicing in the storm and stress of the struggle, he has conquered