e seized with a sudden resolution, partly angry, partly
frightened, and partly humorous, to become absolutely frank, and to
tell the whole truth about himself for the first time not only to his
dupe, but to himself. He excuses himself for the earlier stages of the
trickster's life by a survey of the border-land between truth and
fiction, not by any means a piece of sophistry or cynicism, but a
perfectly fair statement of an ethical difficulty which does exist.
There are some people who think that it must be immoral to admit that
there are any doubtful cases of morality, as if a man should refrain
from discussing the precise boundary at the upper end of the Isthmus
of Panama, for fear the inquiry should shake his belief in the
existence of North America. People of this kind quite consistently
think Sludge to be merely a scoundrel talking nonsense. It may be
remembered that they thought the same thing of Newman. It is actually
supposed, apparently in the current use of words, that casuistry is
the name of a crime; it does not appear to occur to people that
casuistry is a science, and about as much a crime as botany. This
tendency to casuistry in Browning's monologues has done much towards
establishing for him that reputation for pure intellectualism which
has done him so much harm. But casuistry in this sense is not a cold
and analytical thing, but a very warm and sympathetic thing. To know
what combination of excuse might justify a man in manslaughter or
bigamy, is not to have a callous indifference to virtue; it is rather
to have so ardent an admiration for virtue as to seek it in the
remotest desert and the darkest incognito.

This is emphatically the case with the question of truth and falsehood
raised in "Sludge the Medium." To say that it is sometimes difficult
to tell at what point the romancer turns into the liar is not to state
a cynicism, but a perfectly honest piece of human observation. To
think that such a view involves the negation of honesty is like
thinking that red is green, because the two fade into each other in
the colours of the rainbow. It is really difficult to decide when we
come to the extreme edge of veracity, when and when not it is
permissible to create an illusion. A standing example, for instance,
is the case of the fairy-tales. We think a father entirely pure and
benevolent when he tells his children that a beanstalk grew up into
heaven, and a pumpkin turned into a coach. We should consider