and cherished by him as a religion, and that it entered as such
into the courage with which he first confronted it. It is no less true

that he directly and increasinglycultivated happiness;
and that because of certain sufferings which had been connected with them,

he would often have refused to live his happiest days again.
It seems still harder to associatedefective human sympathy

with his kind heart and large dramaticimagination,
though that very imagination was an important factor in the case.

It forbade the collective and mathematicalestimate of human suffering,
which is so much in favour with modern philanthropy,

and so untrue a measure for the individual life; and he indirectly" target="_blank" title="a.间接地；迂回地">indirectly condemns it
in `Ferishtah's Fancies' in the parable of `Bean Stripes'.

But his dominantindividuality also barred the recognition
of any judgment or impression" target="_blank" title="n.印刷；印象；效果">impression, any thought or feeling,

which did not justify itself from his own point of view.
The barrier would melt under the influence of a sympathetic mood,

as it would stiffen in the atmosphere of disagreement. It would yield,
as did in his case so many other things, to continued indirect pressure,

whether from his love of justice, the strength of his attachments,
or his power of imaginativeabsorption. But he was bound

by the conditions of an essentiallycreative nature. The subjectiveness,
if I may for once use that hackneyed word, had passed out of his work

only to root itself more strongly in his life. He was self-centred,
as the creative nature must inevitably be. He appeared, for this reason,

more widely sympathetic in his works than in his life, though even
in the former certain grounds of vicarious feeling remained untouched.

The sympathy there displayed was creative and obeyed its own law.
That which was demanded from him by reality was responsive,

and implied submission to the law of other minds.
Such intellectual egotism is unconnected with moral selfishness,

though it often unconsciously does its work. Were it otherwise,
I should have passed over in silence this aspect, comprehensive though it is,

of Mr. Browning's character. He was capable of the largest self-sacrifice
and of the smallest self-denial; and would exercise either

whenever love or duty clearly pointed the way. He would, he believed,
cheerfully have done so at the command, however arbitrary, of a Higher Power;

he often spoke of the absence of such injunction, whether to
endurance or action, as the great theoretical difficulty of life

for those who, like himself, rejected or questioned
the dogmatic teachings of Christianity. This does not mean that he ignored

the traditional moralities which have so largely taken their place.
They coincided in great measure with his own instincts;

and few occasions could have arisen in which they would not be to him
a sufficient guide. I may add, though this is a digression,

that he never admitted the right of genius to defy them;
when such a right had once been claimed for it in his presence,

he rejoined quickly, `That is an error! NOBLESSE OBLIGE.'
But he had difficulty in acknowledging any abstract law

which did not derive from a Higher Power; and this fact may have been
at once cause and consequence of the special conditions of his own mind.

All human or conventionalobligation appeals finally
to the individual judgment; and in his case this could easily be obscured

by the always militant imagination, in regard to any subject
in which his feelings were even indirectly" target="_blank" title="a.间接地；迂回地">indirectlyconcerned. No one saw

more justly than he, when the object of vision was general or remote.
Whatever entered his personal atmosphere encountered a refracting medium

in which objects were decomposed, and a succession of details,
each held as it were close to the eye, blocked out the larger view.

We have seen, on the other hand, that he accepted imperfect knowledge
as part of the discipline of experience. It detracted in no sense

from his conviction of direct relations with the Creator. This was indeed
the central fact of his theology, as the absolute individual existence

had been the central fact of his metaphysics; and when he described
the fatal leap in `Red Cotton Nightcap Country' as a frantic appeal

to the Higher Powers for the `sign' which the man's religion did not afford,
and his nature could not supply, a special dramaticsympathy was at work

within him. The third part of the epilogue to `Dramatis Personae'
represented his own creed; though this was often accentuated

in the sense of a more personal privilege, and a perhaps less poetic mystery,
than the poem conveys. The Evangelical Christian and the subjective

idealist philosopher were curiously blended in his composition.
The transition seems violent from this old-world religion

to any system of politicsapplicable to the present day.
They were, nevertheless, closely allied in Mr. Browning's mind.

His politics were, so far as they went, the practical aspect of his religion.
Their cardinaldoctrine was the liberty of individual growth;

removal of every barrier of prejudice or convention by which
it might still be checked. He had been a Radical in youth,

and probably in early manhood; he remained, in the truest sense of the word,
a Liberal; and his position as such was defined in the sonnet prefixed in 1886

to Mr. Andrew Reid's essay, `Why I am a Liberal', and bearing the same name.
Its profession of faith did not, however, necessarily bind him

to any political party. It separated him from all the newest developments
of so-called Liberalism. He respected the rights of property.

He was a true patriot, hating to see his country plunged into aggressive wars,
but tenacious of her position among the empires of the world.

He was also a passionate Unionist; although the question
of our political relations with Ireland weighed less with him,

as it has done with so many others, than those considerations
of law and order, of honesty and humanity, which have been

trampled under foot in the name of Home Rule. It grieved and surprised him
to find himself on this subject at issue with so many valued friends;

and no pain of Lost Leadership was ever more angry or more intense,
than that which came to him through the defection of a great statesman

whom he had honoured and loved, from what he believed to be the right cause.
The character of Mr. Browning's friendships reveals itself

in great measure in even a simple outline of his life.
His first friends of his own sex were almost exclusively men of letters,

by taste if not by profession; the circumstances of his entrance into society
made this a matter of course. In later years he associated on cordial terms

with men of very various interests and professions;
and only writers of conspicuous merit, whether in prose or poetry,

attracted him as such. No intercourse was more congenial to him
than that of the higher class of English clergymen.