s courage, as Ivan's
violation of law was obedience to law, so Hoseyn's loss is Hoseyn's
gain. In each case Browning's casuistry is not argumentative; it lies in
an appeal to some passion or some intuition that is above our common
levels of passion or of insight, and his power of uplifting his reader
for even a moment into this higher mood is his special gift as a poet.
We can return safely enough to the common ground, but we return with a
possession which instructs the heart.

A mood of acquiescence, which does not displace the moods of aspiration
and of combat but rather floats above them as an atmosphere, was growing
familiar to Browning in these his elder years. He had sought for truth,
and had now found all that earth was likely to yield him, of which not
the least important part was a conviction that much of our supposed
knowledge ends in a perception of our ignorance. He was now disposed to
accept what seemed to be the providential order that truth and error
should mingle in our earthly life, that truth should be served by
illusion; he would not rearrange the disposition of things if he could.
He was inclined to hold by the simple certainties of our present life
and to be content with these as provisional truths, or as temporary
illusions which lead on towards the truth. In the _Pisgah Sights_ of the
_Pacchiarotto_ volume he had imagined this mood of acquiescence as
belonging to the hour of death. But old age in reality is an earlier
stage in the process of dying, and with all his ardour and his energy,
Browning was being detached from the contentions and from some of the
hopes and aspirations of life. And because he was detached he could take
the world to his heart, though in a different temper from that of youth
or middle age; he could limit his view to things that are near, because
their claim upon his passions had diminished while their claim upon his
tenderness had increased. He could smile amiably, for to the mood of
acquiescence a smile seems to be worth more than an argument. He could
recall the thoughts of love, and reanimate them in his imagination, and
could love love with the devotion of an old man to the most precious of
the things that have been. Some of an old man's jests may be found in
_Jocoseria_, some of an old man's imaginative passion in _Asolando_, and
in both volumes, and still more clearly in _Ferishtah's Fancies_ may be
seen an old man's spirit of acquiescence, or to use a catch-word of
M