serious intellectual theories he would have
said, "Existence is justified by its air of growth and doubtfulness,"
or, in other words, "Existence is justified by its incompleteness."
But if he had not been influenced in his answer either by the accepted
opinions, or by his own opinions, but had simply answered the question
"Is life worth living?" with the real, vital answer that awaited it in
his own soul, he would have said as likely as not, "Crimson toadstools
in Hampshire." Some plain, glowing picture of this sort left on his
mind would be his real verdict on what the universe had meant to him.
To his traditions hope was traced to order, to his speculations hope
was traced to disorder. But to Browning himself hope was traced to
something like red toadstools. His mysticism was not of that idle and
wordy type which believes that a flower is symbolical of life; it was
rather of that deep and eternal type which believes that life, a mere
abstraction, is symbolical of a flower. With him the great concrete
experiences which God made always come first; his own deductions and
speculations about them always second. And in this point we find the
real peculiar inspiration of his very original poems.

One of the very few critics who seem to have got near to the actual
secret of Browning's optimism is Mr. Santayana in his most interesting
book _Interpretations of Poetry and Religion_. He, in contradistinction
to the vast mass of Browning's admirers, had discovered what was the
real root virtue of Browning's poetry; and the curious thing is, that
having discovered that root virtue, he thinks it is a vice. He
describes the poetry of Browning most truly as the poetry of
barbarism, by which he means the poetry which utters the primeval and
indivisible emotions. "For the barbarian is the man who regards his
passions as their own excuse for being, who does not domesticate them
either by understanding their cause, or by conceiving their ideal
goal." Whether this be or be not a good definition of the barbarian,
it is an excellent and perfect definition of the poet. It might,
perhaps, be suggested that barbarians, as a matter of fact, are
generally highly traditional and respectable persons who would not put
a feather wrong in their head-gear, and who generally have very few
feelings and think very little about those they have. It is when we
have grown to a greater and more civilised stature that we begin to
realise and put to ourselves in