Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/513

 manity,” in its collective sense, hardly once occurs in Browning’s poems, the most notable instance being the words of Paracelsus, — “When all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, I say, begins man’s general infancy.”

The art of the modern world is instinct with the passion of love. Love is the key which interprets both the thought and the method of the century’s greatest artists, among whom I number Browning, Wagner, and Whitman (a juxtaposition of names not surprising if one “deeper dive by the spirit sense”). The chief characteristic of the writings of each is the deep emotional element. The intellectual is held subordinate, the thought being borne upon the wings of the emotions. Browning is apparently less emotional than either. Professor Sharp speaks of Browning’s “ fatal excess of cold over emotive thought.” But to this opinion I venture to demur. We have to deal to-day with an art which is all-inclusive. It is true to say that Whitman and Wagner are as profound thinkers as Browning. Our creed declares Browning — in the words of Mrs. Browning, said of Shakespeare — “‘ most passionate and most rational — of an emotion which casts us into thought, of a reason which leaves us open to emotion.” It is, of course, a matter diffi- cult to argue, for the appeal is to the personality; and for myself the emotive element in Browning’s poems is their most dominant quality. Emotion predominated in the poet’s nature. He was a lover of music, the most emotional of the arts, “ which leads us,” said Carlyle, “ to the verge of the infinite.” ‘The processes of his thought are more often passionate than logical. Intensity and con- centration are the warp of the passions. If he fail, it is in attempt- ing to justify his spiritual experiences to his conscious philosophy ; but his analyses, as in ‘One Word More,’ are those of a man filled with emotion; and a vital imagination rescues, at the last, his most prosaic questions. The obscurity of his poems is more often emo- tional than intellectual ; for feelings more often than thoughts lie too deep for words. Such, for instance, is the obscurity of ‘O Lyric Love, which demands an inner spiritual adjustment of phrase to phrase rather than grammatical, —a synthetic, not analytic, vision.