Yet it is a position
that thousands have felt does make it plainer (as it did to
Browning)--the necessity of the Crucifixion; it was a pandering to
Divine jealousy.

These are, as Chesterton admits, great thoughts, and, as such, are
liable to be disliked by those Christians and others who will not think
and dislike any one else doing so.

This strange theological position of Browning is, I think, indicated in
'Saul.'

Chesterton usually does not agree with the other critics about most
things, but he does at least agree in regard to the fact that Browning
was an optimist. His theory of the use of men, though imperfect, is as
good an argument for optimism as could well be found. Browning's
optimism was, as our critic says, founded on experience, it was not a
mere theory that had nothing practical behind it.

As I have said, Browning disliked Spiritualists; but that is not, our
critic thinks, the reason he wrote 'Sludge the Medium.' What this poem
showed was that Spiritualism could be of use in spite of insincere
mediums. It was in no way an attack on the tenets of Spiritualism.

The understanding of this poem gives the key to other poems of
Browning's, as 'Bishop Blougram's Apology,' and some of the monologues
in 'The Ring and the Book'; which is, that 'a man cannot help telling
some truth, even when he sets out to tell lies.'

This may be the right interpretation of these poems, but I think
Browning really meant that there is an end somewhere to lying; in other
words, lying is negative and temporary; truth is positive and eternal.

The summing up of Browning's knaves cannot be better expressed than by
Chesterton. 'They are real somewhere. We are talking to a garrulous and
peevish sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his
evasive eyes and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change
and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of
clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that comes forth is the
voice of God uttering his everlasting soliloquy.'

It is the essence of Browning; it is the certainty that however far
distant there is the face of God behind the human features.

* * * * *

If there is one characteristic about this study of Browning it lies in
the fact that it is a very clear exposition of a remarkable poet. A man
might take up the book knowing Browning only as a name; he might well
lay it down knowing what Bro