however, to hear what I am and have
been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized
history of my life and feelings. I think one is always in love with
something or other; the error--and I confess it is not easy for
spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it--consists in seeking
in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal."

No poet has a more distinct philosophy of life than Browning. Indeed he
has as much a right to a place among the philosophers, as Plato has to
one among the poets. Browning is a seer, and pre-eminently a mystic; and
it is especially interesting as in the case of Plato and St Paul, to
encounter this latter quality as a dominating characteristic of the mind
of so keen and logical a dialectician. We see at once that the main
position of Browning's belief is identical with what we have found to be
the characteristic of mysticism--unity under diversity at the centre of
all existence. The same essence, the one life, expresses itself through
every diversity of form.

He dwells on this again and again:--

God is seen
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.

And through all these forms there is growth upwards. Indeed, it is only
upon this supposition that the poet can account for

many a thrill
Of kinship, I confess to, with the powers
Called Nature: animate, inanimate
In parts or in the whole, there's something there
Man-like that somehow meets the man in me.

_Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau._

The poet sees that in each higher stage we benefit by the garnered
experience of the past; and so man grows and expands and becomes capable
of feeling for and with everything that lives. At the same time the
higher is not degraded by having worked in and through the lower, for he
distinguishes between the continuous persistent life, and the temporary
coverings it makes use of on its upward way;

From first to last of lodging, I was I,
And not at all the place that harboured me.

Humanity then, in Browning's view, is not a collection of individuals,
separate and often antagonistic, but one whole.

When I say "you" 'tis the common soul,
The collective I mean: the race of Man
That receives life in parts to live in a whole
And grow here according to God's clear plan.

_Old Pictures in Florence._

This sense of unity is shown i