4 i2 LITERARY PAPERS 



Frequent passages in Browning's works uphold the belief 

 that the inner knowledge is the unerring. He writes, 



" Alack, one lies oneself 

 Even in the stating that one's end was truth, 

 Truth only, if one states as much in words ! 

 Give me the inner chamber of the soul 

 For obvious easy argument ; 't is there 

 One pits the silent truth against a lie." 



Browning would not have the training of the senses and 

 the knowledge of outer things neglected. For training will 

 help to perfect what is so imperfect in the crude. But this 

 outer knowledge can never take the place of its higher, purer 

 type. There is no conflict between the two kinds of know- 

 ledge. They are each distinct and parts of the immense 

 scheme of the universe all tending to unity. And he who 

 from the realm of phenomena can gather strength to look 

 and hear where neither body's eye nor ear serve, is he "who 

 hears the poem, therefore sees the play." 



Although Browning has drunk deeply of the philosophic 

 well, and in "Pauline" describes such a personality as one 



"full of bliss, who lived 

 With Plato and who had the key to life; 

 And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, 

 And many a thought did I build up on thought, 

 As the wild bee hangs cell to cell; in vain, 

 For I must still advance, no rest for mind." 



Yet he carries his thought beyond the pale of philosophic 

 systems onward where his soul's eye dimly perceives, yet per- 

 ceives the outer violet border of the infinite dawn. He yearns 

 to stand on the perfect sphere of the universe to look on 

 God, 



"As though naught else existed, we alone!" 

 "Do I not pant when I read of thy consummate power, 

 And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash 

 The brightest gleams of earth's philosophy?" , 



To this Truth, the full-orbed Truth of the creative, actual, 

 living universe, all effort tends. The aim of life's journey is the 

 qualification of ourselves through good and evil to unite with 



