such a hope is all that
we can expect or ought to desire. The absolute assurance of a future
life and of rewards and punishments consequent on our deeds in the
present world would defeat the very end for which, according to the
hypothesis, we are placed here; it would be fatal to the purpose of our
present life considered as a state of probation. What such a state of
probation requires is precisely what we have--hope; no less than this
and no more. Does our heaven overcloud because we lack certainty? No:

Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled
By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld,
I behold in life, so--hope!

Such is the conclusion with Browning of the whole matter. It is in
entire accordance with a letter which he wrote two years previously to a
lady who supposed herself to be dying, and who had thanked him for help
derived from his poems: "All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is
the assurance that I see ever _more_ reason to hold by the same
hope--and that by no means in ignorance of what has been advanced to the
contrary.... God bless you, sustain you, and receive you." To Dr
Moncure Conway, who had lost a son, Browning wrote: "If I, who cannot,
would restore your son, He who can, will." And Mr Rudolph Lehmann
records his words in conversation: "I have doubted and denied it [a
future life], and I fear have even printed my doubts; but now I am as
deeply convinced that there is something after death. If you ask me
what, I no more know it than my dog knows who and what I am. He knows
that I am there and that is enough for him."[120]

Browning's confession in _La Saisias_ that the sorrow of his life
outweighed its joy is not inconsistent with his habitual cheerfulness of
manner. Such estimates as this are little to be trusted. One great shock
of pain may stand for ever aloof from all other experiences; the
pleasant sensations of many days pass from our memory. We cannot tell.
But that Browning supposed himself able to tell is in itself worthy of
note. In _The Two Poets of Croisic_, which was written in London
immediately after _La Saisiaz_, and which, though of little intrinsic
importance, shows that Browning was capable of a certain grace in verse
that is light, he pleads that the power of victoriously dealing with
pain and transforming it into strength may be taken as the test of a
poet's greatness:

Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse,
Des